31 - To Daniel Hodson, [London, c. June 1770]
Summary
Goldsmith writes to Hodson to confirm the safe arrival of his son, William, in London. As Hodson, alongside Oliver's beloved brother Henry, had given him financial support in his earlier life, notably in Edinburgh, Goldsmith was pleased to reciprocate.
The letter is also noteworthy for the expression of Goldsmith's ambiguity towards the stage. Although it is clear from Boswell's records that theatre was of great interest not only to Goldsmith but to his circle more broadly, Goldsmith also ‘recounted all the disagreeable circumstances attending a dramatic author’. The difficulties attending getting The Good Natur’d Man performed and its modest success seem to be preying on his mind. On the other hand, dismissing the stage in this letter to a worried father would also have helped to assuage Daniel's fears. As to where William might have ‘contracted so beggarly an affection’, Goldsmith is surely being disingenuous, perhaps even writing with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
The date is conjectural. Following Balderston, we agree that it must fall approximately a year before Letter 36, and must allow sufficient time after Letter 29 to Maurice for a second exchange of letters between Maurice and Oliver, and for Maurice's visit.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. It was first published in Austin Dobson's Life of Goldsmith (1888). It was addressed to ‘Danl: Hodson Esqr’.
My dear Brother
I have the pleasure of informing you that your son William is arrived in London in Safety and joins with me in his kindest love and duty to you. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than the prospect I have of his behaving in the best and most dutiful manner both to you and the rest of the family. Sincerly I am charmd with his disposition and I am sure he feels all the good nature he expresses every moment for his friends at home. He had when he came here some thoughts of going upon the stage; I dont know where he could have contracted so beggarly an affection, but I have turned him from it and he is now sincerely bent on pursuing the study of physic and surgery in which he has already made a considerable progress and to which I have very warmly exhorted him.
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- Information
- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith , pp. 85 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018