The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1860-01-28
Correspondence of the Boston Traveller.
Visit to Goldsmith's Deserted Village

write from town which has TWO GlS-
tinguishing features-one IS that it is the
central spot of ireland: the other is, that it
is eight miles only from the Deserted Viii
lage of Oliver Goldsmith. This was to
me of far more import and interest than the
other, and leaving Athlone and its institu-
tons, had no sooner passed the thresh-
hold of the Royal Hotel, than l ordered
car, and was presently away fer sweet Au-
burn. The day was delightful-just such
a day as one asks for when on his way to
the ''loveliest village of the plain, and the
sums rays glanced down so tenderly on the
Shannon and the blue waters of Tough
Rea, and the meadows were so green, and
the skies were so fair, that my mind was at
once attuned to what was to see. Soon
the Deserted Village came in sight, and sure
enough, yonder in the dim distance appeared
the ''decent Church that topped the neigh
boring hill, - standing in grove Of pleas
ant trees, and making as fair sight to-day
as when little Goldsmith used to admire his
fathers church mile and half from the
parsonage. The one referred to in the
poem is now old and shattered; in fact moth
ing remains of it but the tower, and that
we mistook in The distance for the remains
of castle. 1t stands near the pretty mod
ern church and is a striking object as you
approach the village.
When Goldsmith was boy, and his IA
Their curate of the village, the place was
called Lisboy, and that name it still bears
in the mouths of many of the peasants of
the neighborhood; but that by which the
tourist asks after it In Athlone is Auburn,
the name which Goldsmith's fancy gave it
in the poem. 1t is not much of village,
it is still deserted and struggling; even
around the .'decent church. there is no col
lection of houses. and all that marks it is
that little more frequently than on the
common road. you will find in the neigh
borhood of Auburn the matched novels OF
the poor. Miserable homes they are.
have become quite interested in many of
these little huts in the southern and eastern
parts of Ireland; but here in Goldsmith s
early home they are squalid and filthy
They have not even the appearance of ex-
ternal neatness. On the top of one the
grass was growing, not prettily, as ivy
clings to old walls, but thin and scraggy,
as the hair which sometimes crowns the
head of bald man. Before some there
was cow-yard, and the manure was reek-
ing not six feet from the cabin doors. Be-
fore some the pigs were basking in the sun,
and as looked in, could see nothing but
filth and wretchedness. Dirty children,
who were never clean in their lives, could
be spied in the dimness of the novels, and
women at the doors crouching around an
iron pot, looking so old and wrinkied that
one would think that Death had tried them
in vain and given them up to live. Some
were closed-the men, women and children
being away harvesting. A Deserted Viii
lage, surely the poorest, dirtiest place that
we have seen during our stay in Ireland.
After driving along through sights like
these, the carman stopped in front of large
building utterly ruined, the roof wholly
gone, and tall chimney rising disdainfully
among the stones and mortar, as who would
say, l still live. This was the Village Inn,
known in Goldsmith's day, and ever since
by the neighbors, as "The Three Jolly
Pigeons 1t was in this house that the
pewter basins used to glitter on the shelf
like silver; it was here that the complex ''bed
by night, and chest of drawers by day. used
TO stand, and within these ruined walls,
and with the glare from the great fire of that
same tall chimney on their faces, that
"Village statesmen talked, with looks profound
While news much older than their ale went round'
While sat on the car and took sketch
of the ruined Village Tavern, the driver
shouted to boorish looking fellow leaning
against fence, that here was a gentleman
ali the way from America to see this. 'To
see what ?" asked the man, with kind of
savage grin. ''These ruins answered nv
civil driver. '..They are nothing but heap
of stones. and there's plenty of them wild
out comm out here to see 'em,' retorted the
tiller of the earth. s'Did you ever hear of
Oliver Goldsmith 90 I asked, looking up
from my work: Cant say that I ever did,
yer honor" answered the fellow "Then
come to America" said I, land you will
find hundred thousand people who take as
much interest in this little village of yours,
as you do who were born in it and have
lived in it all your days" Doubtless
yer honor's right" answered the man in
toerabie good nature.
Close by, grows the hawthorn, which
may not be the very one which the poet
sung
"The hawthorn tree with seats beneath shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made"
And yet / am sure, from the size of this,
from which took bit as a remembrance,
that it was tree in Goldsmith's time, and
it stands so near the public house, that it is
in high degree probable that it was used
as protection against the sun, long years
ago. Hard by this, l plucked bit Of furze,
mentioned IN the poem, the most plentiful
crop of the whole region.
The Trial of Stevens.
It is generally supposed that Stevens. one
of the accomplices of John Brown in the |
L