LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was descended from a race so unlucky that one of his biographers is said to have heard from three different branches of the family in different parts of Ireland that, while the hearts of the Goldsmiths were always in the right place, their heads seemed to be doing anything but what they ought. He was born at Pallas, in the county of Longford, on the 10th of November 1728. His father was a clergyman, with a large family and a small income, who had strained his means to the uttermost to provide a liberal education for his eldest son. Oliver, therefore, was early destined to a trade, and his education was for some years of the most elementary kind. From the village dame he passed, when six years old, to the village schoolmaster, and from the village schoolmaster successively to the schools of Elphin, Athlone, and Edgeworthston. But some sallies of boyish talent having attracted the notice of his father's friends, his destination was changed; and, at their instigation and with their assistance, Oliver was entered a sizar of Trinity College, Dublin, on the 11th of June 1745.

With his entrance to the University our knowledge of Goldsmith's character begins. Penury, which, with a well-regulated mind, is the surest stimulus to exertion, was, in his case, aggravated by an idleness which became in turn the parent of "low diversions, lassitude, and debt." He squabbled with his tutor, he gave entertainments to the most dissolute of both sexes, he absconded, he returned. It is not wonderful, therefore, that he never looked back upon the four years he spent in Dublin withcut feelings of the deepest shame and self-abasement. They passed, as one of his biographers has remarked. "without pleasure, profit, or distinction ;" and it was not without diffieulty that, on the 27th of February 1749, he obtained his bachelor's degree.

His father was now dead, but the loss was more than supplied to him by his uncle Contarine. It was that gentleman's wish that his nephew should take holy orders; and for holy orders, accordingly, Oliver, with his usual complaisance, applied. But instead of preparing for his examination he spent his days in country rambles, and his nights in drinking, gambling, and flute-playing in the village ale-house. The result was as might have been expected. He was refused ordination, and in the end was glad to accept the situation of tutor in the family of a Mr. Flynn.

He lost it, as he lost every situation he ever filled, through an act of indiscretion. He thought it well to tax one of the family with cheating at cards. He returned home. Mounted on a good horse, and with thirty guineas in his pocket, he determined to go forth upon his adventures. At the end of six weeks he returned penniless to his mother's house. His reception was of the coolest. But his uncle's patience was not exhausted. It was resolved that Oliver should begin to keep terms at the Temple; and for London, accordingly, he set out by way of Dublin. But his old luck followed him. In Dublin he was fleeced of all his money at a gaming-table, and the prodigal son returned once more to his mother's house in disgrace and affliction.

But there is a love which suffereth long and is kind, and such a love was his uncle Contarine's. The graceless lad was again equipped and sent to Edinburgh to study medicine. At Edinburgh he got into debt, and was only saved from arrest by the interference of a friend. Thence, after a residence of two years, he proceeded to Leyden to complete his studies. At Leyden he acquired a smattering of chemistry and anatomy, and renewed his acquaintance with the dice-box and the card-table. At dice and cards he squandered every farthing of his money, and then set out to make the tour of Europe on foot, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a borrowed guinea. It was during this tour, and amid the majestic scenery of Switzerland, that our "philosophic vagabond" wrote the first sketch of his greatest poem, the Traveller.

His

Goldsmith returned to England in the autumn of 1756. uncle had died while he was in Italy, and Oliver was now in extreme distress. It was with much difficulty, and not till after a long delay, that he succeeded in obtaining employment as shopman to a chemist. From this situation he was rescued by the kindness of an old friend, Dr. Sleigh. With the doctor's help, he now tried, but unsuccessfully, to establish himself in medical practice. The baffled adventurer therefore, was glad to

embrace an offer now opportunely made him by Griffiths, the bookseller, to contribute to the Monthly Review for a salary, and board and lodging in his employer's house.

But Goldsmith and Mrs. Griffiths soon quarrelled. He therefore threw up his situation, and became for the second time an usher in the academy of Dr. Milner at Peckham. Through the interest of this gentleman, he at length obtained the appointment of physician to one of the factories in India. To meet the expenses of his outfit, he issued proposals to publish by subscription his Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Literature in Europe. But owing to his inability to pass the necessary examination before the College of Surgeons, his Indian appointment was cancelled; and Goldsmith became once more a literary adventurer upon town.

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He soon got involved in new difficulties. On the eve of his examination at Surgeon's Hall, he had opened negotiations with his old employer, Griffiths. His clothes were in tatters, and it was necessary to appear in fitting garb before his examiners. In exchange for four articles for the Monthly Review, Griffiths consented to become surety to a tailor for a new suit, to be paid for or returned by a stated day. The day came. But the clothes were in pawn, and the books in pledge. The bookseller stigmatised the poet as a sharper and a villain." The poet, in a letter which can scarcely be read without tears, begged to be sent to gaol. "I have seen it," he says, "inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favour as a favour that may prevent something more fatal. I have been for some years struggling with a wretched being, with all that contempt which indigence brings with it, and with all those strong passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a gaol that is formidable? I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to me true society." The wrath of Griffiths, after some more grumbling and vituperation, was at length appeased. Goldsmith consented to write a Life of Voltaire for twenty guineas, from which the debt was to be subtracted. And "here," says a distinguished critic in the Quarterly Review,' "closed for ever his ill-starred alliance with the bookseller who was the first to start him in his literary career, and the first to make him feel the bitter bondage of the calling. Griffiths, Mr. Forster relates, retired from business three or four years later, and ended by keeping two carriages, and attending regularly at the meeting-house. So prosperous and pious a gentleman little

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dreamt that he was to be known to posterity by his griping insolence to his pauper scribe."

The most complete picture which we perhaps possess of Grub Street life has come down to us, as the writer in the Quarterly remarks, in connection with Goldsmith. When Goldsmith entered upon his literary career, the age of private patronage had passed away, and "the patronage of the public did not yet furnish the means of comfortable subsistence. The prices paid by booksellers to authors were so low that a man of considerable talents and unremitting industry could do little more than provide for the day which was passing over him. The lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. The thin and withered ears had devoured the good ears. The season of rich harvests was over, and the period of famine had begun. All that is squalid and miserable might now be summed up in the word Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters and spunging-houses, and perfectly qualified to decide on the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge Lane, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste; they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort."1

Something like this, though not to the full extent of the misery of Savage or Boyse, was the life which Goldsmith was now leading. He had removed to private lodgings in Green Arbour Court in the Old Bailey. But although, during the first nine months

1 Macaulay's Essays: Art. "Samuel Johnson."

of his residence there, he was a frequent contributor to the Critical Review, then under the management of Smollett, his poverty was still extreme. In October of the same year, he started a weekly publication called the Bee, which expired after a brief existence of eight weeks. It was entirely written by himself, but contains nothing at all calculated to add to his fame. On the 12th of January 1760, the first number of the Public Ledger appeared. To this paper, which belonged to Newberry, and was published daily, Goldsmith agreed to contribute two articles a-week, for each of which he was to be paid a guinea. These papers, afterwards collected under the title of the Citizen of the World, soon attracted a considerable degree of attention. "The plan which Goldsmith adopted of introducing an Oriental commenting upon manners so different from his own, had been frequently tried, and, in the case of Montesquieu, with distinguished success. The absurdity of usages which only appear rational because they are familiar, becomes strikingly apparent when they are described by a stranger with the wonder of novelty. This happy artifice comes to nothing in the hands of Goldsmith. His Chinese is to all intents and purposes an Englishman; and whenever he attempts to make him speak in character, the failure is complete. It is simply as a collection of light papers upon the vices and follies of the day that the work must be regarded. As in all his speculations, there is much that is commonplace; but he skims pleasantly over the surface of things, gives picturesque sketches of the men he met and the haunts he frequented, and intermingles observations which, whether grave or gay, bear the stamp of his kindly nature."'

Towards the close of the same year, he removed to lodgings in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, where, on the 31st of May 1761, he for the first time received a visit from Samuel Johnson. Percy, through whom Goldsmith had been introduced to the great moralist, tells a story of the meeting which we must not overlook. On calling for the sage, the bishop found him in a trim unlike what he had ever before witnessed, his clothes new, and his wig nicely powdered. Marvelling why the negligent Johnson should dress himself with such courtly care to visit an indigent author in his humble apartment, Percy ventured to inquire the cause, and received for reply:-"Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example."2 But it was from

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2 Ibil