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  terms with most of the clergy of the district, and would often argue with them. When Burns was about to emigrate to the West Indies, Goldie, to whom he read some poems in manuscript, encouraged him to stay, and introduced him to several friends, who, with Goldie, became sureties to Wilson for the printing of Burns's first volume (1786). Burns was now almost a daily visitor at Goldie's house, where he corrected the proof-sheets and wrote many letters. After this Goldie engaged largely in coal speculations, by which he lost heavily, and was cheated by his partner. He patriotically set on foot a scheme for connecting Kilmarnock with Troon by a canal, and even made a survey of the line; but the expense proved insuperable. Late in life he was abstracted in manner, and known as ‘the philosopher.’ In 1809 he caught cold by sleeping in a damp bed at Glasgow, and died three weeks afterwards at the age of ninety-two, upholding his own opinions and retaining his faculties to the last. He left many manuscripts and letters from Burns, Lord Kames, and other celebrated men; but they were unfortunately destroyed during his son's absence at sea. Sillar and Turnbull followed the example of Burns in writing poems on him. Goldie was a small but well-made man. His portrait, with a globe behind him, was painted by Whitehead. It is said to have been an admirable likeness, and may be seen engraved in the ‘Contemporaries of Burns.’

Goldie became famous by his ‘Essay on Various Important Subjects, Moral and Divine. Being an attempt to distinguish True from False Religion,’ 1779. This was announced as being in three volumes, but apparently one only was published. The style of all Goldie's works is prolix and laboured, but the essay achieved great popularity as a reaction from the stern Calvinism then reigning in Scotch pulpits. It was known as ‘Goudie's Bible,’ and is now extremely scarce. His criticism is destructive and leads to pure theism; he denounces priestcraft, and is not always free from profanity. On the appearance of the second edition in 1785 Burns wrote his congratulatory epistle. He next wrote ‘The Gospel recovered from its Captive State and restored to its Original Purity,’ 6 vols., London, 1784. These essays treat of prophecy, the resurrection, dialogues between a jesuit and a gentile Christian on the gospel, and the like. His last work was ‘A Treatise upon the Evidences of a Deity’ (1809). For the last forty years of his life he devoted himself to astronomy, and prepared a work which was almost ready for the press at his death, in which he is said to have corrected prevailing misapprehensions.



GOLDING, ARTHUR (1536?–1605?), translator, born probably in London about 1536, was younger son of John Golding, esq., of Belchamp St. Paul and Halsted, Essex, by his second wife, Ursula, daughter of William Merston of Horton, Surrey. His father was one of the auditors of the exchequer, and died 28 Nov. 1547. Margaret, his half-sister, married John de Vere, sixteenth earl of Oxford. Golding is said to have been educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, but his name is not to be found in the college register. He took no degree, and on his title-pages describes himself as ‘gentleman.’ In 1549 he was in the service of Protector Somerset, who wrote, 5 Oct., requesting him to solicit the aid of the Earl of Oxford's servants in repressing rebellion (, Edward VI, ii. 236). In 1563 he was receiver for his nephew, Edward de Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford, with whom he seems to have resided for a time in Sir William Cecil's house in the Strand. On 12 Oct. 1565 he dedicated his translation of Cæsar's ‘Commentaries’ to Cecil from Belchamp St. Paul, and completed at the same place his translation of Beza's ‘Tragedie of Abraham's Sacrifice’ in 1575. He spent some time in 1567 at Berwick, and there finished his chief work, his translation of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ on 20 April 1567. In a later year (1576) he was living at Clare, Suffolk. He dates the dedication to Sir Christopher Hatton of his translation of Seneca's ‘De Beneficiis’ (‘the work of … Seneca concerning Benefyting’) from his house in the parish of All-Hallows-on-the-Wall, London (17 March 1577–8). In London he moved in good society, although he showed strong puritan predilections, and occupied himself largely with translations from Calvin and Theodore Beza. His patrons included, besides Cecil, Hatton, and Leicester, the Earl of Essex, Sir William Mildmay, Lord Cobham, and the Earl of Huntingdon. When dedicating a translation from the French to Cobham in 1595 (No. 21 below), he acknowledges the help he received from him in his troubles. He was a member, like the chief literary men of the age, of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, founded by Archbishop Parker in 1572 (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 366). Sir Philip Sidney was one of his friends, and when Sidney left for the Low Countries on his fatal expedition, he entrusted Golding with the fragment of his translation of De Mornay's French trea-