1753. Æt. 25. cloth? for which the gravest reader will not unwillingly spare a smile before he returns with me to the letters that preceded student Oliver's departure for the continent. In that first letter he had professed himself pleased with his studies, and expressed a hope that when he shall have heard Munro for another year, he may go " to hear Albinus, "the great professor at Leyden." The whole of the letter gives evidence of a most grateful affection. In the second,* Et. 26. written eight months later, where he describes his prepara 1754. all who are in want of it has been equalled only by the value of his discoveries in almost every department of literary research. The leaf of the ledger is here exactly copied. 1753. P. 383. MR. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, Student, pr. MR. HONNER. £ s. d. Unfortunately," adds Mr. Laing, "this Folio 424 was destroyed before the "leaf containing the above account, and some others, was discovered. Neither was "there any indication of the name of the merchant-tailor." * See Appendix (C) to this volume. When you tions for travel, and, confirming his intentions as to Leyden. 1754. in the following winter, says that he shall pass the intervening Et. 26. months in Paris, the same feeling is not less apparent: "Let "me here acknowledge," he says, "the humility of the station "in which you found me; let me tell how I was despised by "most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless poverty, "was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make me "her own. This good man did not live to know the entire good he had done, or that his own name would probably live with the memory of it as long as the English language lasted. "Thou best of men!" exclaims his nephew in the third of these letters, to which I shall presently make larger reference, "may Heaven guard and "preserve you, and those you love!" It is the care of Heaven that actions worthy of itself should in the doing find reward, nor have to wait for it even on the thanks and prayers of such a heart as Goldsmith's. Another twenty pounds are acknowledged on the eve of departure from Edinburgh, as the last he will ever draw for. It was the last, of which we have record. But Goldsmith had drawn his last breath before he forgot his uncle Contarine. The old vicissitudes attended him at this new move in his game of life. Land rats and water rats were at his heels as he quitted Scotland; bailiffs hunted him for security given to a fellow-student,* and shipwreck he only escaped by a fortnight's imprisonment on a false political charge. Bound for Leyden, and his purpose to interpose Paris for some reason or other laid aside, with characteristic carelessness or oddity he had secured his passage in a ship bound for "For this he was arrested, but soon released by the liberal assistance of the friends, Mr. Lauchlin Macleane and Dr. Sleigh, who were then in college." Percy Memoir, 26. 1753. Æt. 25. 1754. cloth? for which the gravest reader will not unwillingly spare a smile before he returns with me to the letters that preceded student Oliver's departure for the continent. In that first letter he had professed himself pleased with his studies, and expressed a hope that when he shall have heard Munro for another year, he may go "to hear Albinus, "the great professor at Leyden." The whole of the letter gives evidence of a most grateful affection. In the second,* written eight months later, where he describes his prepara all who are in want of it has been equalled only by the value of his discoveries in "Unfortunately," adds Mr. Laing, "this Folio 424 was destroyed before the "leaf containing the above account, and some others, was discovered. Neither was "there any indication of the name of the merchant-tailor." * See Appendix (C) to this volume. 1754. tions for travel, and, confirming his intentions as to Leyden in the following winter, says that he shall pass the intervening Et. 26. months in Paris, the same feeling is not less apparent: "Let "me here acknowledge," he says, "the humility of the station "in which you found me; let me tell how I was despised by "most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless poverty, "was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make me "her own. When you. This good man did not live to know the entire good he had done, or that his own name would probably live with the memory of it as long as the English language lasted. "Thou best of men!" exclaims his nephew in the third of these letters, to which I shall presently make larger reference, " may Heaven guard and "preserve you, and those you love!" It is the care of Heaven that actions worthy of itself should in the doing find reward, nor have to wait for it even on the thanks and prayers of such a heart as Goldsmith's. Another twenty pounds are acknowledged on the eve of departure from Edinburgh, as the last he will ever draw for. It was the last, of which we have record. But Goldsmith had drawn his last breath before he forgot his uncle Contarine. The old vicissitudes attended him at this new move in his game of life. Land rats and water rats were at his heels as he quitted Scotland; bailiffs hunted him for security given to a fellow-student,* and shipwreck he only escaped by a fortnight's imprisonment on a false political charge. Bound for Leyden, and his purpose to interpose Paris for some reason or other laid aside, with characteristic carelessness or oddity he had secured his passage in a ship bound for " For this he was arrested, but soon released by the liberal assistance of the friends, Mr. Lauchlin Macleane and Dr. Sleigh, who were then in college." Percy Memoir, 26. 1754. Bourdeaux; but, taken for a Jacobite in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Et. 26. and in Sunderland arrested by a tailor, the ship sailed on without him, and sank at the mouth of the Garonne.* These facts are stated on his own authority; but whether they are all exactly credible, or whether credit may not rather be due to the suggestion that they were mere fanciful modes of carrying off the loss, in other ways, of money given to enable him to carry on studies in which it cannot now be supposed that he took any great interest, I shall leave to the judgment of the reader. Certain it is that at last he got safe to the learned city; and wrote off to his uncle, among other sketches of character obviously meant to give him pleasure, what he thought of the three specimens of womankind he had now seen, out of Ireland. "A Dutch woman and Scotch will well bear an opposition. The one is pale and fat, the other lean and "ruddy: the one walks as if she were straddling after a "go-cart, and the other takes too masculine a stride. I "shall not endeavour to deprive either country of its share "of beauty; but I must say, that of all objects on this 66 earth, an English farmer's daughter is most charming." In the same delightful letter he observingly corrects the vulgar notion of the better kind of Dutchman, amusingly comparing him with the downright Hollander, while in * "I embarked from Bourdeaux on board a Scotch ship, called the St. Andrews, Captain John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and, as "another inducement, I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to be my company. Well, we were but two days at sea, when a storm drove us into a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh 66 us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one day on shore, "and on the following evening, as we were all very merry, the room door bursts 66 open enters a serjeant and twelve grenadiers, with their bayonets screwed, and 66 puts us all under the king's arrest. It seems my company were Scotchmen in "the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the French 66 army. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence; however, I remained "in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then." |