Flanders lace; and for every pair of breeches he | uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his carries, she puts on two petticoats. "A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats, and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe." The country itself awakened his admiration. "Nothing," said he, can equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eyes, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, vistas, present themselves; but when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond description. No misery is to be seen here; every one is usefully employed." And again, in his noble description in "The Traveller," "To men of other minds my fancy flies, Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on anatomy; though his studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his precarious remittances should arrive. Sometimes he had to borrow small sums, which he always scrupulously paid; sometimes he taught the English language, and sometimes, unfortunately, he resorted to the gambling-tables, which in those days abounded in Holland. This last resource terminated, as usual, in stripping him of every shilling. A generous friend, who had often counselled him in vain against his unfortunate propensity, now stepped in to his relief, but on condition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Goldsmith gladly consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other parts. He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his studies there, and was furnished by his friend with money for the journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist just before quitting Leyden. The tulip mania was still prevalent in Holland, and some species of that splendid flower brought immense prices. In wandering through the garden Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip fancier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was an opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of that generous hand was in his pocket; a number of choice tulip-roots were purchased and packed up for Mr. Contarine; and it was not until he had payed for them that he bethought himself that he had spent all the money borrowed for his travelling expenses. Too proud, however, to give up his journey, and too shamefaced to make another appeal to his friend's liberality, he determined to travel on foot, and depend upon chance and good luck for the means of getting forward; and it is said that he actually set off on a tour of the Continent with but one spare shirt, and without a shilling in his pocket. "Blessed with a good constitution," says one of his biographers, "an adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless, or, perhaps, happy disposition which takes no care for to-morrow, he continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable privations." In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a "Philosophic Vagabond" in the "Vicar of Wakefield," we find shadowed out the expedients he pursued. He depended upon his learning, such as it was, to make his way among the religious establishments which in those days held out hospitality to the wayfarer, while he relied upon his flute to win his way among the peasantry. "Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards nightfall," said he, "I played one of my merriest tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day; but in truth I must own, whenever I attempted to entertain persons of a higher rank, they always thought my performance odious, and never made me any return for my endeavours to please them." In his "Traveller," too, he pictures himself making his way with his flute through the beautiful country of Louvain. "Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, night. In this manner, then, I fought my way towards England, walked along from city to city, examined mankind more nearly, and, if I may so express it, saw both sides of the picture." Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these learned piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottages of the peasantry. "With the mem into fortune and absurdity by the death of an | pion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gen- gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one tleman, had been an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger in money-matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted than he and Goldsmith. There were continual difficulties on all points of expense; and, when they reached Marseilles, they were both glad to separate. We may form an idea of the tutor and the pupil from the following extract from the narra-bers of these establishments," said he, "I could tive of the Philosophic Vagabond. converse on topics of literature, and then I always forgot the meanness of my circumstances." After two years spent in gratifying his roving propensities, "pursuing novelty and losing content," he landed at Dover early in 1756, with the intention of making his way to London; but how was he to get there? His money was all expended, and England was to him as completely a strange land as any part of the Continent. His flute and his philosophy were no longer of any avail; for the peasantry did not care for music, and the learned and the clergy would not give a vagrant scholar a supper and night's lodging for the best thesis that ever was argued. In this extremity he is said to have resorted to the stage as a temporary expedient, and to have figured in low comedy with a strolling company at a country town in Kent. This accords with his last shift of the Philosophic Vagabond, and with the knowledge of country theatricals dis "I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a proviso that he should always be permitted to govern himself. My pupil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money-concerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West Indies; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management of it, had bound him apprentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was his prevailing passion; all his questions on the road were how money might be saved-which was the least expensive course of travel-whether anything could be bought that would turn to good account when disposed of again in London? Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for nothing, he was ready enough to look at; but if the sight of them was to be paid for, he usually asserted that he had been told that they were not worth seeing. He never paid a bill that he would not observe how amaz-played in his " Adventures of a Strolling Player." ingly expensive travelling was: and all this though not yet twenty-one. When arrived at Leghorn, as we took a walk to look at the port and shipping, he inquired the expense of the passage by sea home to England. This he was informed was but a trifle compared to his re-impudence." What was to be done to gain the turning by land; he was therefore unable to withstand the temptation; so, paying me the small part of my salary that was due, he took leave, and embarked with only one attendant for London." Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of "bear leader," he continued his half vagrant peregrinations through part of France and Piedmont, and various of the Italian states. At Padua, where he remained several months, he is said to have taken his medical degree. Thus far he had been assisted by occasional remittances from his uncle Contarine; but, about this time, the death of that generous relation left him entirely to his own resources. He had acquired, however, a habit of shifting along and living by expedients, and a new one presented itself in Italy. "My skill in music," says he, in the Philosophic Vagabond, "could avail me nothing in a country where every peasant was a better musician than I; but by this time I had acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant: for which, if the cham Whatever means he used in making his way to London, it is certain he made his entrance there with but a few halfpence in his pocket. Here, then, he was, in the great metropolis, "without friend, recommendation, money, or immediate means of subsistence? With some "No." "Then you won't do for a school. Can | on which I expressed a doubt as to the propriety was immediately blotted out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust to my judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified to decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had submitted his production, so far as he had written, to Mr. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, on which I peremptorily declined offering another criticism on the performance. you lie three in a bed?" "No." "Then you will never do for a school. Have you a good stomach ?" "Yes." "Then you will by no means do for a school." "The truth is," observes he in another place, "in spite of all their labours to please, they (the ushers) are generally the laughing-stock of the school. Every trick is played upon the usher; the oddity of his manners, his dress, or his language, are a fund of eternal ridicule; the master himself cannot avoid joining in the laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill usage, seems to live in a state of warfare with all the family." That this was a picture of poor Goldsmith himself, we may presume from the facts of his having an awkward, clumsy person, a pock-marked face; of his being at times odd in his dress, eccentric in his manners, and his having an Irish brogue. "In this visit I remember his relating a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation, of going to decipher the inscriptions on the Written Mountains, though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed to be written. The salary of three hundred pounds per annum, which had been left for the purpose, was the temptation." Nothing farther has ever been heard of the traHis next shift was as assistant in the labora- gedy here mentioned; it was probably never tory of a chemist near Fish-street Hill. After completed. As to the romantic scheme respectremaining here a few months, he heard that Dr. ing the Written Mountains, it was probably one Sleigh, who had been his friend and fellow-stu- of the many dreamy projects with which his ferdent at Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to vid brain was apt to teem. On such subjects he meet with a friendly face in this land of stran- was prone to talk vaguely and magnificently, but gers, he immediately called on him ; “but though | inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination rait was Sunday, and it is to be supposed I was in ther than a well-instructed judgment. He had my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me-such a great notion of expeditions to the East, and is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. How-wonders to be seen and effected in the Oriental ever, when he did recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and friendship with me during his continuance in London." Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now commenced the practice of medi- | cine, but in a small way, and chiefly among the poor; for he wanted the figure, address, polish, and management to succeed among the rich. As his fees were necessarily small and ill-paid, he had to assist himself with his pen; and here again Dr. Sleigh was of service in introducing him to some of the booksellers, who immediately gave him tolerable employment. countries. Goldsmith was not always arrayed in rusty black. Another account of him during his medical career decks him out in the tarnished elegance of an old second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neckcloth of a fortnight's wear. His coat of velvet was patched on the left breast with a new piece, to conceal which he held his hat over the place during his medical visits: a notable expedient, which attracted attention, and raised a good-natured laugh at his expense. Without waiting patiently for the slow growth of a medical reputation and practice, he was He now began to form literary acquaintances, again induced to change his pursuit, and underthe most distinguished of whom were Richard- take the management of a classical school of emison, author of Pamela, Sir Charles Grandison, &c., nence at Peckham, in Surrey. The master, Dr. and Dr. Young, author of the Night Thoughts. Milner, a dissenting minister, was ill; his son, The first account we have of him in his literary who had been a fellow-student with Goldsmith character in London is from one of his Edinburgh at Edinburgh, and had a favourable opinion of friends, Dr. Farr. "From the time of Gold- his attainments and abilities, recommended him smith's leaving Edinburgh in the year 1754, I to his father as one well-qualified to conduct the never saw him till the year 1756, when I was in establishment during his illness. He remained London attending the hospitals and lectures. some time in this situation, and acquitted himEarly in January he called upon me one morning self to the satisfaction of Dr. Milner. He was a before I was up, and, on my entering the room, I favourite, too, with the scholars, from his easy, recognised my old acquaintance, dressed in a indulgent good-nature; he mingled in their rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets sports; spent his money in treating them to full of papers, which instantly reminded me of schoolboy dainties, and told them droll stories, the poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we and played on the flute for their entertainment. had finished our breakfast he drew from his His familiarity was sometimes carried too far; pocket part of a tragedy, which he said he had he indulged in boyish pranks and practical jokes, brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded and drew upon himself retorts in kind. As usual, inability, when he began to read ; and every part | his benevolent feelings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could resist a tale of dis- | cle of his intimacy, which now embraced several tress, and was apt to be fleeced by every sturdy names of notoriety. beggar. At Dr. Milner's table he became acquainted with Mr. Griffiths, proprietor of the Monthly Review, who, after a few experiments of his literary talents, engaged him as a regular contributor. Again, therefore, he changed his mode of life, and in April 1757, became an inmate in the house of the bookseller, with a fixed salary. He soon found the diurnal drudgery of this task insupportable. He had to write daily from nine o'clock until two, and often the whole day, and was treated as a mere literary hack by both Griffiths and his wife. But what was worse than all, his writings were liable to be altered and retouched by both those personages, for Mrs. Griffiths was a literary lady, and assisted her husband in the Review. At the end of six or seven months this arrangement was broken off by mutual consent. His friends in Ireland received accounts of his literary success and of the distinguished acquaintances he was making. This was enough to put the wise heads at Lishoy and Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exaggerated notions of provincial relations concerning the family great man in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pictured him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple and fine linen, and hand and glove with the givers of gifts and the dispensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day surprised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of his younger brother Charles, a raw youth of twentyone, endowed with a double share of the family heedlessness, and who expected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to fortune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was sadly disconcerted on learning that, so far from being able to provide for others, his brother could scarcely take care of himself. He looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters, and could not help expressing his surprise and disappointment at finding him no better off. "All in good time, my dear boy," replied poor Goldsmith, with infinite good-humour; "I shall be richer He now wrote occasionally for the Literary Magazine, a production set on foot by Mr. John Newbury, bookseller, St. Paul's Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature throughout the latter half of the last century for his picture-books for children. Newbury was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted man, and was a real friend to authors, often relieving them when in pecuniary difficulties. Goldsmith introduces him in a hu-by-and-by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his morous yet friendly manner in the "Vicar of Wakefield." "This person was no other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who hasritten so many little books for children; he called himself their friend; but he was the friend of all mankind. He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone; for he was ever on business of importance, and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip. I immediately "To Daniel Hodson, Esq., at Lishoy, near Ballyrecollected this good-natured man's red-pimpled face." poem of the Campaign in a garret in the Haymarket, three stories high, and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to the second story." One of the objects of the following letter to his brother-in-law was probably to dissipate any further illusions concerning his fortunes that might be indulged by his friends in Ballymahon. "DEAR SIR, mahon, Ireland. Being now known in the publishing world, he found employment in other quarters; he also re- "It may be four years since my last letters sumed his medical practice, but with very trifling went to Ireland-to you in particular. I resuccess. The scantiness of his purse still obliged ceived no answer; probably because you never him to live in obscure lodgings somewhere in the wrote to me. My brother Charles, however, invicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet-street; but forms me of the fatigue you were at in soliciting his extended acquaintance and rising importance a subscription to assist me, not only among my caused him to consult appearances. He adopted friends and relatives, but acquaintance in genan expedient, then very common, and still prac-eral. Though my pride might feel some repugtised in London among those who have to tread nance at being thus relieved, yet my gratitude the narrow path between pride and poverty; can suffer no diminution. How much am I while he burrowed in lodgings suited to his obliged to you, to them, for such generosity, or means, he "hailed," as it is termed, from the (why should not your virtues have their proper Temple Exchange Coffee-house near Temple Bar.name ?) for such charity to me at that juncture. Here he received his medical calls; from hence Sure I am born to ill fortune, to be so much a he dated his letters, and here he passed much of his leisure hours, conversing with the frequenters of the place. Indeed, coffee-houses in those days were the resorts of wits and literati; where the topics of the day were gossipped over, and the affairs of literature and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way he enlarged the cir debtor and unable to repay. But to say no more of this: too many professions of gratitude are often considered as indirect petitions for future favours. Let me only add, that my not receiving that supply was the cause of my present establishment in London. You may easily imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was B without friends, recommendations, money, or | I sit and sigh for Lishoy fireside, and Johnny Armimpudence, and that in a country where being strong's Last Good-night' from Peggy Golden. born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, in such circumstances, would have had recourse to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other. "I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in it at which I should blush or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company to the entertainment; and want, instead of being gentleman-usher, often turns master of the ceremonies. "Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place who never, when in it, received above common civility; who never brought anything out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the itch because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary. "But, now, to be serious: let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see Ireland again. The country is a fine one, perhaps? no. There are good company in Ireland? no. The conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then perhaps there's more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Padareen mare there one season, than given in rewards to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. "Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out in visits among the neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lishoy and Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to the mountain; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contributions; neither to excite envy nor solicit favour; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, and too rich to need assistance. "You see, dear Dan, how long I have been talking about myself; but attribute my vanity to my affection: as every man is fond of himself, and I consider you as a second self, I imagine you will consequently be pleased with these instances of egotism. * * * My dear sir, these things give me real uneasiness, and I could wish to redress them. But at present there is hardly a kingdom in Europe in which I am not a debtor. I have already discharged my most threatening and pressing demands, for we must be just before we can be grateful. For the rest, I need not say (you know I am) "Your affectionate kinsman, "OLIVER GOLDSMITH." Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to em barrass his brother in London. With the same roving disposition and inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an humble capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after having been given up as dead by his friends, he made his reappearance in England. Goldsmith continued writing miscellaneously for reviews and other periodical publications, without making any decided hit in literature, to |