stones, like the foundation of a wall, which have the reputation of being the sole remains of the house where the poet was born. Poets are, certainly, often born in odd places, but it certainly did strike me strangely, that the man who was destined to spend the greater portion of his life in the dense crowd of London, should have sprung out of this obscure and almost inaccessible location. There is nothing in the view around to suggest to the mind any the most faint dream of poetry. Oliver Goldsmith, however, was a mere, infant when first removed from this place. His father, two years after his birth, succeeded, on the death of his wife's uncle, to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to Lissoy; but Oliver was accustomed to come thither, and made considerable sojourns with his brother Henry, who lived here when Oliver was grown up. The house is said to have been a good country house, looking toward Forney Church, at which Oliver's father and brother used to preach, and which still rises to view between it and some distant woods, one of the most pleasing objects of the scene. Popular tradition ascribes the utter destruction of the house to the fairies, who, on its becoming untenanted, used to take up their quarters there, and pursue their nocturnal sports in great content. But a tenant being found, and repairs of the house being commenced, a huge man in huge jack-boots used to come every night, and making a horse of it by bestriding the roof, would push his legs through the tiles, and, imitating galloping, shake the roof to pieces. It was therefore obliged to remain empty, till, falling into ruin, it was at length cleared clean away, with the exception of these few stones. The very ordinary character of this scene, and of the country round, almost extinguished my desire for proceeding onward five miles further to Lissoy, the reputed Auburn, especially as the Edgeworths had told me it was not worth my while. I inquired, however, of a farmer that I met on my return to the car that waited for me on the road, what sort of a place Lissoy was. "Oh, a very beautiful place!" said he, "a very beautiful place! You must see it: that was where Oliver Goldsmith lived and died." "Lived, but not died," I replied: "he died in London." "Oh no! your honor," replied the man, "I assure you he died there, and lies buried at Kilkenny West."