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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2024
This is Goldsmith's first known letter home following his arrival in February 1756 in London and gives an account of the beginnings of his career in writing, providing reviews for Ralph Griffiths's Monthly Review from April 1757. The letter conveys his sense of financial embarrassment and his conflicted mental state, critical of his home country's limitations but disturbed by an inexplicable homesickness. That he was writing the letter from Temple Exchange Coffee House helps explain his nostalgia for home as Goldsmith mixed with Irish students of the law who socialized there. The coffee house was located on Fleet Street, near Temple Bar.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published, with omissions, by Percy in 1801. It is addressed ‘To | Daniel Hodson Esqr. At Lishoy near Ballymahon, Ireland’. The bracketed portions are worn away in the manuscript; like Balderston, we have taken Percy's readings of those portions where they are likely to have been accurate and have noted where Balderston diverges. We have, in a few instances, ventured suggestions where none have been offered to date.
Dear Sir
It may be four years since my last letters to Ireland, and to y[ou in partic]ular. I received no answer; probably because you never wrote [to me. My] Brother Charless, however, informs me of the fatigue you w[ere at in] soliciting a subscription to assist me, not only among my [friends and relations,] but acquaintance in general. Tho’ my pride might feel so[me repug]nance at being thus relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no [diminu]tion. How much am I obliged to you, to them, for such generos[ity,] (or why should not your virtues have the proper name) for such charity to me at that Juncture. Sure I am born to ill fortune to be so much a debtor and so unable to repay! But to say no more of this; too many professions of gratitude are often considered as indirect petitions for future favours; let me only add, that my not receiving that supply was the cause of my present establishment at London. You may Easily imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without Friends, recommendations, money, or impudence, and that in a Co[untry] where my being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me [unem] ploy’d. Manny in such circumstances would have had recou[rse to] the Friar's cord, or suicide's halter. But with all my fol[lies I] had principle to resist the one, and resolution to com[bat the] other.
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