GOLDSMITH, LEWIS

GOLDSMITH, LEWIS (c. 1763–1846), English political journalist. Goldsmith, who was born in London of Portuguese Jewish descent, was never associated with Judaism and was probably baptized as a young man. His The Crimes of Cabinets (1805) censured the attempts to suppress the French Revolution. Later he took refuge in Paris where he established The Argus, an anti-English journal. The journal was suspended when he refused to attack the English royal family. Returning to England in 1809, he was tried for high treason but was acquitted. He then started the violently patriotic Anti-Gallican (subsequently The British Monitor), advocating the assassination of Napoleon. On the restoration of Louis XVIII, he returned to Paris where he became interpreter to the Tribunal of Commerce. Goldsmith published his Statistics of France in 1832. His daughter Georgiana (1807–1901) became the second   wife of Baron Lyndhurst, Lord Chancellor of England, and a noted political hostess. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nouvelle Biographie Générale, S.V.; Rubens, in: JHSET, 19 (1955–59), 39–43. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ODNB online. (Cecil Roth)