1751. the captain never inquired after him, setting sail with as Et. 23. much indifference as if he had been on board. "You know, 66 66 mother," he remarks, "that no one can starve while he has money in his pocket: "and, being reduced by the practice of this apophthegm to his last two guineas, he bought the generous beast, Fiddleback, for one pound seventeen, and with five shillings in his pocket turned homewards. Then had come one of those sudden appeals to a sharp and painful susceptibility, when, as he afterwards described them to his brother, charitable to excess, he forgot the rules of justice, and placed himself in the situation of the wretch who was thanking him for his bounty. Penniless in consequence, he bethought him of a college acquaintance on the road, to whose house he went. With exquisite humour he describes this most miserly acquaintance, who, to allay his desperate hunger, dilated on the advantages of a diet of slops, and set him down to a porringer of sour milk and a heel of musty cheese; and, being asked for the loan of a guinea, earnestly recommended the sale of Fiddleback, producing what he called a much better nag to ride upon which would cost neither price nor provender, in the shape of a stout oaken cudgel. His adventures ended a little more agreeably at last however, in a more genial abode, where an acquaintance of the miser entertained him. He had "two sweet girls to his daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpsichord ; "and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first "time I heard them; for, that being the first time also that "either of them had touched the instrument since their "mother's death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down their father's cheeks." 66 * The letter descriptive of this adventure, as printed in various editions of Goldsmith's works, is in all respects confirmatory of the narrative as given by Law was the next thing thought of, and the good Mr. Contarine came forward with fifty pounds. It seems a small sum wherewith to travel to Dublin and London, to defray expenses of entrance at inns of court, and to live upon till a necessary number of terms are eaten. But with fifty pounds young Oliver started; on a luckless journey. A Roscommon friend laid hold of him in Dublin, seduced him to play, and the fifty pounds he would have raised to a hundred, he reduced to fifty pence. In bitter shame, after great physical suffering, he wrote to his uncle, confessed, and was forgiven. On return to Ballymahon, it is probable that his mother objected to receive him ;* since after this date we find him living wholly with his brother. It was but for a short time, however; disagreement followed there too; and we see him next by Mr. Contarine's fireside, again talking literature to his good-natured uncle, writing new verses to please him (alleged copies of which are not sufficiently authentic to be quoted), and joining his flute to Miss Contarine's harpsichord. Mrs. Hodson; and it is only for the reason mentioned in the text that I do not quote it in detail. I have thought it right, however, to include it in the Appendix (B) to the present volume. Mrs. Hodson's narrative, from which these facts are derived, after remarking that "his own distress and disgrace may readily be conceived," adds, "to make "short of the story, he was again forgiven;" but Mr. Prior states the tradition of the neighbourhood to be, that though forgiven by his uncle he was less readily forgiven by his mother, so that he ceased to live with her, and went to his brother Henry, until a quarrel, arising from some trifling cause, for a time terminated all intercourse between the brothers. i. 129. 1752. Æt. 24. CHAPTER IV. 1752. PREPARING FOR A MEDICAL DEGREE. 1752-1755. THE years of idleness must nevertheless come to a close. Et. 24. To do nothing, no matter how melodiously accompanied by flute and harpsichord, is not what a man is born into this world to do; and it required but a casual word from a not very genial visitor to close for ever Goldsmith's happy nights at uncle Contarine's. There was a sort of cold grandee of the family, Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne, who did not think it unbecoming his dignity to visit the good clergyman's parsonage now and then; and Oliver having made a remark which showed him no fool, the dean gave it as his opinion to Mr. Contarine that his young relative would make an excellent medical man. The hint seemed a good one, and was the dean's contribution to his young relative's fortune. The small purse was contributed by Mr. Contarine; and in the autumn of 1752, Oliver Goldsmith started for Edinburgh, medical student. Anecdotes of amusing simplicity and forgetfulness in this new character are, as usual, more rife than notices of his course of study. But such records as have been preserved of the period rest upon authority too obviously doubtful to require other than a very cursory mention here. On the day of his arrival he is reported to have set forth for a ramble Et. 24. round the streets, after leaving his luggage at hired lodgings where he had forgotten to inquire the name either of the street or the landlady, and to which he only found his way back by the accident of meeting the porter who had carried his trunk from the coach.* He is also said to have obtained, in this temporary abode, a knowledge of the wondrous culinary expedients with which three medical students might be supported for a whole week on a single loin of mutton, by a brandered chop served up one day, a fried steak another, chops with onion sauce a third, and so on till the fleshy parts should be quite consumed, when finally, on the seventh day, a dish of broth manufactured from the bones would appear, and the ingenious landlady rested from her labours. It is moreover recorded, in proof of his careless habits in respect to money, that being in company with several fellow-students on the first night of a new play, he suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which of the two should treat the whole party to the theatre; when the real fact was, as he afterwards confessed in speaking of the secret joy with which he heard them all decline the challenge, that had it been accepted, and had he proved the loser, he must have pledged a part of his wardrobe in order to raise the money.‡ This last anecdote, if true, reveals to us at any rate that he had a wardrobe to pledge. Such resource in the matter of dress is one of his peculiarities found generally peeping out in some form or other: and, unable to confirm any other fact in these recollections, I can at least establish that. *Percy Memoir, 19. + Ibid. And see preface to the Glasgow edition of the Works published in 1816. + Prior, i. 137. E CHAPTER IV. 1752. PREPARING FOR A MEDICAL DEGREE. 1752-1755. THE years of idleness must nevertheless come to a close. Et. 24. To do nothing, no matter how melodiously accompanied by flute and harpsichord, is not what a man is born into this world to do; and it required but a casual word from a not very genial visitor to close for ever Goldsmith's happy nights at uncle Contarine's. There was a sort of cold grandee of the family, Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne, who did not think it unbecoming his dignity to visit the good clergyman's parsonage now and then; and Oliver having made a remark which showed him no fool, the dean gave it as his opinion to Mr. Contarine that his young relative would make an excellent medical man. The hint seemed a good one, and was the dean's contribution to his young relative's fortune. The small purse was contributed by Mr. Contarine; and in the autumn of 1752, Oliver Goldsmith started for Edinburgh, medical student. Anecdotes of amusing simplicity and forgetfulness in this new character are, as usual, more rife than notices of his course of study. But such records as have been preserved of the period rest upon authority too obviously doubtful to |