36 - To Daniel Hodson, [London, c. June 1771]
Summary
Goldsmith pleads with Hodson to allow his son travel to India as a surgeon; he makes it clear that this is an excellent opportunity, not least in financial terms. He is at pains to describe the efforts he has made on behalf of William since his arrival to London, in terms both of networking and financial support.
The copy text is the manuscript in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. It was first published in Dobson's Life of Goldsmith (1888). It was addressed ‘To Daniel Hodson Esqr.’ The address page is also marked ‘Doctor Goldsmith letter’ in another near-contemporary hand. The dating is conjectural. Lieutenant-Colonel Nugent died on 26 April. As this letter shows, there was a subsequent exchange of letters between William Hodson and his father: June then seems a reasonable estimate for this letter's composition.
My Dear Brother
It gave me great concern to find that you were uneasy at your son's going abroad. I will beg leave to state my part in the affair and I hope you will not condemn me for what I have endeavourd to do for his benefit. When he came here first I learned that his circumstances were very indifferent, and that something was to be done to retrieve them. The stage was an abominable resource which neither became a man of honour, nor a man of sense. I therefore dissuaded him from that design and turned him to physic in which he had before made a very great progress, and since that he has for this last twelve month applied himself to surgery, so that I am thoroughly convinced that there is not a better surgeon in the kingdom of Ireland than he. I was obliged to go down to Bath with a friend that was dying when my nephew sent me down your letter to him in which you inform him that he can no longer have any expectations from you and that therefore he must think of providing for himself. With this letter he sent me one of his own where he asserted his fixed intentions of going surgeon's mate to India. Upon reading the two letters I own I thought something was to be done.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith , pp. 95 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018