What is more strange than the doubt of the progress of rural depopulation in England is, that Mr. Prior, the biographer of Goldsmith, doubts even the justice of his strictures as applied to Ireland. He admits that there appeared to have been some such circumstance at Lissoy in Goldsmith's youth as he has described in The Deserted Village; but he is inclined to palliate it till it becomes a mere trifle. "In November, 1738, a part of the town lands of Lissoy, and the adjoining lands of Cannorstown, to the number of 600 acres, were sold by Jeffery Frend, Esq., of the Middle Temple, to the Honorable Robert Naper, lieutenant-general of his majesty's forces in Ireland, for the sum of £3300, but the general died before the purchase was completed. Upon this property, named Ballybegg, lying behind the house of Mr. Goldsmith, about half a mile distant, Mr. William Naper, son of the general, several years afterward built the family residence, named Littleton. In the preliminary arrangements, some circumstances, probably neither harsh nor unjust in themselves, connected with the removal of part of the tenantry, gave rise in the mind of Goldsmith, morbidly acute in his benevolent feelings, and particularly toward the poorer classes of society, to the idea of The Deserted Village."--Vol. i., p. 18. This, however, does not agree with Mr. Prior's own account of the appearance of the place on his own visit, given at page 257 of vol. ii. "There are, besides, many ruined houses in the neighborhood, bespeaking a better state of population than at present." It as little agrees with Goldsmith's assertion, that the very ale-house of the village was pulled down. Nay, at this very part of Mr. Prior's account (vol. ii., p. 259), he gives a more extended history of Mr. Naper or Napier's transactions; and while he endeavors to persuade us that the tradition of the neighborhood was not to be trusted, he shows that Mr. Naper had 1200 acres of land, a great part of which had been converted into demesne. The story of the neighborhood, as given by himself, is, that Lieutenant-general Robert Naper, returning from Vigo, in Spain, with a large fortune, purchased, as has been stated, the adjoining lands. In erecting a residence, and forming a demesne around it, the habitations of some, as is alleged, respectable tenants and several of the peasantry stood in the way, and being unwilling to remove for his convenience, were at length, after much resistance, all, except the Goldsmith family, ejected for non-payment of rent. Their houses were pulled down, and the park enlarged to a circumference of nine miles; but so great was the indignation of the people at the proceeding, that on the general's death, which occurred soon afterward, they assembled in a tumultuous manner, destroyed most of the property in and around it, and, among other things, plantations to the value of £5000.