As the family Bible entries from which were copied into Prior’s _Life_ (I, 14) gave as the date of the births of Henry and Jane Goldsmith the same day 9 February, 17-- (leaf torn), Forster surmised and with much plausibility that they were twins, born on the 9 February, 1722 (I, 9). Jane married one Johnson, a farmer at Athlone, and appears to have written to Oliver in 1769 about her impoverished condition, which Oliver in his letter to Maurice of January, 1770, regrets his inability to relieve. 7. THE REVD. HENRY GOLDSMITH. (Oliver’s Elder Brother.) Very little is known about the eldest son of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith, Henry, who was born at Pallas on the 9 February, 1722 (Prior I, 14). He was educated at Dr. Neligan’s school at Elphin, afterwards matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin, on 4 May, 1741 (Prior I, 34, note). He was elected a scholar on Trinity Monday, 1743: “but returning home in the succeeding vacation, flushed probably with his recent triumph, he indulged a youthful passion and married” (Prior I, 35). All that the Percy Memoir of 1801 (I, 3) says about Henry is: “Of his eldest son the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to whom his brother dedicated _The Traveller_, their father had formed the most sanguine hopes, as he had distinguished himself both at school and at College, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen: which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented him rising to preferment in the Church.” As he was born at Pallas in February, 1722, Henry must, if this statement be accurate, have become a married man in 1741, about the time he matriculated at Trinity College. There is evidently inaccuracy somewhere as to Henry’s age, and it may be doubted whether his marriage took place before or after his election as a scholar of his College on Trinity Monday, 1743. From some guarded words used by Prior (the most painstaking investigator into the family history) it is possible the marriage was a secret one, as Prior suggests that when it took place “he must have been three years older [than stated above], or have formed this connexion previous to entering the University. To some men this tie becomes a stimulus to exertion: to others it seems a clog upon every effort at rising in life” (I, 35). Prior seems to decide that in Henry’s case it was a clog. He speaks of Henry having “indulged a youthful passion and married,” and continues shortly afterwards: “Finding residence in College no longer eligible, the advantages of his scholarship were sacrificed: he retired, as appears from the college books, to the country: established a school in his father’s neighbourhood: and in this occupation added to that of curate at ‘forty pounds a year,’ though possessed of talents and character, he passed the remainder of life.” (Prior I, 35.)