self-supported than Goldsmith's, has been broken by them Et. 21. utterly. 1749. He took his degree of bachelor of arts on the 27th February, 1749;* and as his name stood lowest in the list of sizars with whom he was originally admitted, so it stands also lowest in a list still existing of the graduates who passed on the same day, and thus became entitled to use the college library. But it would be needless to recount the names that appear above his; for the public merits of their owners ended with their college course, and oblivion has received them. Nor indeed does that position of his name necessarily indicate his place in the examination; it being then the usage to regulate the mere college standing of a student through the whole of his course, by his position obtained at starting. But be this as it might, Mr. Wilder and his pupil now parted for ever and when the friend of Burke, of Johnson, and of Reynolds, next heard the name of his college tyrant, a violent death had overtaken him in a dissolute brawl. "to his having overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mathematical great changes. She had removed, in her straitened circum- Et. 21. stances, to a cottage at Ballymahon, " situated on the "entrance to Ballymahon from the Edgeworthstown-road on "the left-hand side."* His brother Henry had gone back to his father's little parsonage house at Pallas; and, with his father's old pittance of forty pounds a year, was serving as curate to the living of Kilkenny West, and was master of the village school, which after shifting about not a little had become ultimately fixed at Lissoy. His eldest sister, Mrs. Hodson, for whom the sacrifice was made that impoverished the family resources, was mistress of the old and better Lissoy parsonage house, in which his father had lived his latter life. All entreated Oliver to qualify himself for orders; and when they joined uncle Contarine's request, his own objection was withdrawn. But he is only twentyone; he must wait two years; and they are passed at Ballymahon. It is the sunny time between two dismal periods of his life. Shaw Mason's Statistical Account, iii. 357. 1749. He has escaped one scene of misery; another is awaiting Et. 21. him; and what possibilities of happiness lie in the interval, it is his nature to seize and make the most of. He assists his brother Henry in the school; runs household errands for his mother, as if he were still what the village gossips called him, "Master Noll;"* writes scraps of verse to please his uncle Contarine; and, to please himself, gets cousin Bryanton and Tony Lumpkins of the district, with wandering bear-leaders of genteeler sort, to meet at an old inn by his mother's house, and be a club for story-telling, for an occasional game of whist, and for the singing of songs. First in these accomplishments, great at Latin quotations, as admirer of happy human faces greatest of all, Oliver presides. Cousin Bryanton had seen his disgrace in college, and thinks this a triumph indeed. So seems it to the hero of the triumph, on whose taste and manners, still only forming as yet in these sudden and odd extremes, many an * I subjoin a curious passage from Mr. Shaw Mason's volume already quoted, in which what appears to be a misstatement of dates is either to be explained by supposing that the entries as to "Master Noll" refer to a period before the family had removed from Lissoy, or by the suggestion in the text that the young bachelor of arts still ran the errands of his boyhood, and retained its familiar name. "The "writer of this account purchased some old books a few years ago, at an auction in "Ballymahon; and among them an account-book, kept by a Mrs. Edwards, and a "Miss Sarah Shore, who lived in the next house to Mrs. Goldsmith. In this village record, were several shop accounts from the year 1740 to 1756. Some "of the entries in the earliest of these accounts ran thus ;-Tea by Master Noll--"Cash by ditto;'-from which it appears, that the young poet was then perhaps his "mother's only messenger. One of the accounts, in 1756, may be considered a "statistical curiosity, ascertaining the use and price of green tea in this part of "the country, sixty years ago." (Mr. Mason wrote in 1818.) 66 1749. amusing shade of contrast must have fallen in after-life, from the storms of Wilder's class-room and the sunshine of Et. 21. George Conway's inn. Thus the two years passed. In the day-time occupied, as I have said, in the village school; on the winter nights, at Conway's; and, in the evenings of summer, taking solitary walks among the rocks and wooded islands of the Inny, strolling up its banks to fish or play the flute, otter-hunting by the course of the Shannon, learning French from the Irish priests, or winning a prize for throwing the sledge-hammer at the fair of Ballymahon.* " A lady who died "lately in this neighbourhood, and who was well acquainted "with Mrs. Goldsmith, mentioned that it was one of Oliver's "habits to sit in a window of his mother's lodgings, and amuse "himself by playing the flute."t Two sunny years, with sorrowful affection long remembered; storing up his mind with many a thought and fancy turned to profitable use in after-life, but hardly better than his college course to help him through the world. So much even occurred to himself when eight years were gone, and, in the outset of his London distresses, he turned back with wistful looks to Ireland. "Unaccountable fondness for country, this Maladie du Païs, as the French call it!" he exclaimed, writing to his brother-in-law Hodson. Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place who never received when in it above common civility; "who never brought anything out of it except his brogue 66 * "A blacksmith, who boasted to the rev. Mr. Handcock of having taught him "the art, still survived about the year 1787." Prior, i. 116. Shaw Mason, iii. 358. "Those who have walked in an evening by the sedgy sides of unfrequented "rivers, must remember a variety of notes from different water-fowl; the loud scream of the wild goose, the croaking of the mallard, the whining of the lapwing, ** and the tremulous neighing of the jack snipe. But of all these sounds, there is 64 1749. Et. 21. 66 66 " 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 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 has 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 times 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." 66 And perhaps still more of the secret escaped without his knowledge, when, in that same year, he was writing to a more intimate friend. "I have disappointed your neglect," he said to Bryanton, "by frequently thinking 46 none so dismally hollow as the booming of the bittern. . . I remember in the place "where I was a boy, with what terror this bird's note affected the whole village." Animated Nature (Ed. 1816), iv. 316-18. * "Among thy glades, a solitary guest, "The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest." Deserted Village. Percy Memoir, 42, 43. The rest of the letter is printed post, Book II. Chap. ii. |