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not to forestall that more vivid interest which it is essentially the happy prerogative of the teachers to excite in their personal handling of their classes. The notes have been made as full as possible that the time of the student may be devoted to reading rather than to looking up details and dates in dictionaries or encyclopædias.

LOUISE MAITLAND.

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INTRODUCTION

SHORT SKETCHES OF THE MAIN INCIDENTS IN GOLDSMITH'S LIFE.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born on the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, County Longford, Ireland. His father, a Church of England clergyman, had a family of one son and three daughters when Oliver, or Noll as he was endearingly called, was added to it. The stipends paid to country clergymen at that time were very small; so the proper education of two sons was a matter of some difficulty, involving much self-denial in the family. Forty pounds or about $200 a year was the stately sum at the particular disposal of the Goldsmith family when Oliver opened his eyes on his grey little world. Two years later a vacancy occurred which Charles Goldsmith was fortunate to be called upon to fill, and the new vicar and his family moved from their village to the little village of Lissoy, midway between the country towns of Ballymahon and Athlone. As a result their income was swelled to what must have seemed affluence indeed, namely, $1,000 a year!

The girls no doubt became excellent housekeepers under their mother's care, but Oliver was sent to be taught his letters at the little dame-school kept by a poor relative, Elizabeth Delap. Her unsympathetic verdict, "a dull boy he was," shows that she was incapable of doing much for him, and he seems to have been taken from her charge, for we find that at six years he was already attending the village school. Here Oliver was more fortunate, for it was kept by a man remarkable in his own fashion, Thomas Byrne, a veteran of the Spanish War. The old man's mind was stored not only with memories of his own strange and thrilling adventures, but also with all those legends of Ghosts, Banshees, Wraiths, and wild farry abounding in every remote Irish country-sidc cven to this very day. Under this fascinating teacher Oliver spent two happy years to be ended unfortunately by a severe attack of confluens small-pox. The boy escaped with his life, but so seamed, scarred and pitted, that even his peculiarly sunny disposition was permanently affected by the disfigurement. After this he spent some years at a school where masters and school-fellows alike seem to have made his life a torment to him. After a time he was taken away and placed at school with a friend of his father's. Here he met with some sympathy and understanding and as a result he acquired a certain proficiency in

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