“SWEET AUBURN”

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 June 1933, Page 3

“SWEET AUBURN”

“LOVELIEST VILLAGE” “Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of tho plain,” is to undergo material restoration. British newspapers note that a project for rebuilding at least the rectory is being promoted by Henry L. Gavan. Visiting the Goldsmith country, he was stirred to find that the stone ruins of the birthplace of the author of “The Deserted Village” and the home of “The Vicar of Wakefield” were being used as a byre, a cattle shelter. Lissoy, in County Westmeath, Ireland, “was assuredly Auburn,” according to Stephen Gwynne. Antiquarians locate the village site about a. crossroad a mile or so from the present Three Jolly Pigeons Inn, so called from the one in Sheridan’s “She Stoops to Conquer.” It is in the delectable country not far from Killarney. In the near-by hamlet of Forgney there remains in a church a window commemorating the Goldsmiths. In the neighbouring hamlet of Pallasmore young Goldsmith and young Maria Edgeworth (she who was to write novels) attended the same school. “Here,” says Mr. Gavan, “in this rectory, Goldsmith created the ‘Vicar,’l after his father, who ‘was passing rich 40 pounds a year’; here he spent

his early yeais, formed his earliest impressions, and it was here he hoped in his wanderings he would pass his last days.” To Lissoy, his Sweet Auburn, “his heart was forever 'turning back.” It is a scene of low hills and lush fields. What happened to it? “The Deserted Village” says: Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, ' Thy sports are lied, and all thy charms withdrawr.; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green; One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints Hie smiling plain. Among aphoristic lines in the account, is one with which President Roosevelt gave point to a proposal in a recent message: ill fares the land, to hastening His a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.