Contarine’s daughter Jane married James Lawder, a well-to-do resident of Kilmore, near Carrick on Shannon. To her Oliver addressed on 15 August, 1758, the affectionate letter already quoted dwelling on the past and signing himself “Your affectionate and obliged Kinsman.” It seems to have provoked no reply. The end of the Lawders was tragic. The husband was treacherously murdered by his servants and labourers, who carried off the plate in the house and about £300 in money. For this crime no less than six of them were executed. The wife, who narrowly escaped being murdered also, died in Dublin about 1790 (Prior I, 130, note). 5. CATHERINE GOLDSMITH (MRS. DANIEL HODSON). (Sister of Oliver.) Catherine was born 13 January, 1721. It was her private marriage with Daniel Hodson, “the son of a gentleman of good family residing at St. John’s near Athlone,” who was at the time of the engagement a pupil of Henry Goldsmith, that led to Oliver’s entering Trinity College as a sizar instead of as a pensioner like Henry. Her father, the Revd. Charles Goldsmith, was greatly indignant at this marriage, and in order to give his daughter a marriage portion of £400, sacrificed his tithes and rented land. To his brother-in-law Hodson, Oliver wrote two very cordial letters on 27 December, 1757, and November, 1758, the second containing a paragraph: “Dear Sister, I wrote to Kilmore (the residence of the Lawders). I wish you would let me know how that family stands affected with regard to me.” It is curious that in Oliver’s letter to Maurice of January, 1770, he does not ask after his sister Catherine, though he enquires about “my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, my brother Harry’s son and daughter” and other members of the family. After Oliver’s death, however, Catherine Hodson, appealed to by Maurice, wrote out a full and very sympathetic account, running to twelve foolscap pages, of Oliver’s youthful adventures, terminating with his being sent to Edinburgh in 1753 “for the studdy of Physick. From this date I am a stranger to what happened him: he wrote severall letters to his friends from Switzerland, Germany and Italy.” With reference to Oliver’s enquiry quoted above as to “my Brother Hodson and his son,” it may be mentioned that the poet befriended this nephew in London in 1772 to the extent of allowing him to run up a bill for £35:3:0 with his tailor William Filby. It is to be feared this bill was still unpaid at Oliver’s decease (Forster II, 173). 6. JANE GOLDSMITH, AFTERWARDS JOHNSON. (Born 9 February, 1722. Sister of Oliver.)