66 Leyden, and his purpose to in- |The facts are thus stated on his terpose Paris for some reason or own authority; but whether they other laid aside, with charac- are all exactly credible, or teristic oddity or careless- whether credit may not rather 1754. ness he had secured his be due to the suggestion that Æt. 26. passage in a ship bound they were mere fanciful modes for Bordeaux; but, taken for a of carrying off the loss, in other Jacobite in Newcastle-on-Tyne, ways, of money given to enable and in Sunderland arrested by a him to carry on studies in which tailor, the ship sailed on without it cannot now be supposed that him, and sank at the mouth of he took any great interest, I shall the Garonne. He tells the tale leave to the judgment of the very explicitly: "I embarked for reader. "Bordeaux on board a Scotch Certain it is that at last he got "ship, called the St. Andrews, safe to the learned city; and "Captain John Wall, master. wrote off to his uncle, among "The ship made a tolerable ap- other sketches of character ob❝pearance, and, as another in-viously meant to give him plea"ducement, I was let to know sure, what he thought of the "that six agreeable passengers three specimens of womankind were to be my company. Well, he had now seen, out of Ireland. "we were but two days at sea, "A Dutch woman and Scotch "when a storm drove us into a "will well bear an opposition. "city of England called New-"The one is pale and fat, the "castle-upon-Tyne. We all went "other lean and ruddy: the one "ashore to refresh us after the "walks as if she were straddling "fatigue of our voyage. Seven “after a go-cart, and the other 'men and I were one day on "takes too masculine a stride. "shore, and on the following "I shall not endeavour to 1754"evening, as we were all very "deprive either country of "merry, the room door bursts "its share of beauty; but I "open: enter a serjeant and "must say, that of all objects on "twelve grenadiers, with their "this earth, an English farmer's "bayonets screwed, and put us "daughter is most charming." "all under the king's arrest. It In the same delightful letter he "seems my company were Scotch- observingly corrects the vulgar "men in the French service, and notion of the better kind of "had been in Scotland to enlist Dutchman, amusingly comparing "soldiers for the French army. him with the downright Hol"I endeavoured all I could to lander, while in equally happy 'prove my innocence; however, vein he contrasts Scotland and "I remained in prison with Holland. The playful tone of "the rest a fortnight, and with these passages, the amusing "difficulty got off even then." touch of satire, and the incom 66 Æt. 27. parably easy style, so compact least certain that he encountered and graceful, were announce- every form of distress. Unhapments, properly first vouchsafed pily, though he wrote many to the delight of good Mr. Con- letters to Ireland, some of tarine, of powers that were one them described from re- Æt. ** 1755. 27. all day to give unfading delight to collection as compositions all the world.* of singular ease and humour, Little is known of his pursuits are lost. But Doctor Ellis, an at Leyden, beyond the fact that, Irish physician of eminence and in his Enquiry into Polite Learning, ex-student of Leyden, rememhe mentions himself as in the bered his fellow-student when habit of familiar intercourse with years had made him famous, and Gaubius,_the_chemical profes- said (much, it may be confessed, sor. But by this time he in the tone of ex-post-facto would seem to have applied him- prophecy) that in all his peself, with little affectation of dis- culiarities it was remarked there guise, to general knowledge was about him an elevation of more than to professional. The mind, a philosophical tone and one was available in immediate manner, and the language and wants; the other pointed to but information of a scholar. Being a distant hope which those very much in want of the philosophy, wants made, daily, more obscure; it is well that his friends should and the narrow necessities of have given him credit for it; self-help now crowded on him. though his last known scene in His principal means of support Leyden showed greatly less of were as a teacher; but the dif- the philosophic mind than of the ficulties and disappointments of gentle, grateful heart. Bent upon his own philosophic vagabond, leaving that city, where he had when he went to Holland to now been nearly a year without teach the natives English, him- an effort for a degree, he called self knowing nothing of Dutch, upon Ellis, and asked his asappear to have made it a sorry sístance in some trifling sum. It calling. Then, it is said, he bor- was given; but, as his evil or rowed, and again resorted to "which he had won the preceding evenplay, winning even largely, but "ing. His friend earnestly pressed him losing all he won; *** and it is at "to play no more, but to secure his 66 present gains as a fund for completing * See Appendix (C) to this volume. "his medical studies. Oliver, who could ** See the ninth chapter, in which "always see what was right, though he they discuss the subject of professors' "could not always pursue it, highly apsalaries at Edinburgh. "proved this advice, and declared his *** "One morning he came to a fellow-"firm resolution to make it the rule of "student" (this was the Doctor Ellis, "his future conduct. But the seductions clerk of the Irish house of commons, 66 of the gaming table were irresistible, mentioned in the text) "with his pockets" and he was soon after stripped of every "literally full of money, and with exulta- 'shilling." Percy Memoir, 33, "tion counted out to him a large sum, * Prior, 1, 170. 1755. (some might say) his good genius On the death of his father, Holwould have it, he passed a berg found himself involved in florist's garden on his return, "all that distress which is comand seeing some rare and "mon among the poor, and of high-priced flowers which "which the great have scarcely At. 27. his uncle Contarine, an "any idea:" but, persisting in a enthusiast in such things, had determination to be something, he often spoken and been in search resolutely begged his learning of, he ran in without other as well as his bread, and so sucthought than of immediate plea-ceeded that "a life begun in consure to his kindest friend, bought "tempt and penury ended in a parcel of the roots, and sent "opulence and esteem." Goldthem off to Ireland.* He left smith had his thoughts more Leyden next day, it is stated on especially directed to this career, the same authority, with a guinea when at Leyden, by the accident in his pocket, one shirt to his of its sudden close in that city; back, and a flute in his hand. CHAPTER V. Travels. 1755-1756. and the desire of extensive travel, his sister told Mr. Handcock, had from his own boyhood been a passion with him. "Being of "a philosophical turn," says Oliver's later associate and friend, 66 en To understand what was pro- Doctor Glover, "and at that time bably passing in Goldsmith's "possessing a body capable of mind at this curious point of "sustaining every fatigue and a his fortunes when, without any "heart not easily terrified_at settled prospect in life, and de-"danger, this ingenious unforvoid even of all apparent means tunate man became an of self-support, he quitted Ley-"thusiast to the design he had den, the Enquiry into the Present "formed of seeing the manners State of Polite Learning, the first "of different countries."* An literary piece which a few years enthusiast also to the same deafterwards he published on his sign, with precisely the same own account, will in some degree means of indulging it, Holberg serve as a guide. The Danish himself had been. "His ambiwriter, Baron de Holberg, was "tion," I turn again to the Polite much talked of at this time, as a Learning, "was not to be recelebrated person recently dead. "strained, or his thirst of knowHis career had greatly impressed "ledge satisfied, until he had Goldsmith. It was that of a man" seen the world. Without money, of obscure origin, to whom litera- "recommendations, or friends, ture, other sources having failed, had given high fame and station. *Percy Memoir, 33, 34. *Malone's edition of the Poems (1777), p. III. And see the Annual Register, XVII. 29, 30. 1755 "he undertook to set out upon later life,* "of his distresses on "his travels, and make the tour "the continent, such as living on "of Europe on foot. A good "the hospitalities of the friars "voice, and a trifling skill in "in convents, sleeping in "music, were the only finances "barns, and picking up a "he had to support an under-"kind of mendicant liveli- t. 27. "taking so extensive; so he tra- "hood by the German flute, with "velled by day, and at night "great pleasantry.”** And if "sung at the doors of peasants' he did not make this confession "houses to get himself a lodging. more openly than to private "In this manner, while yet very friends, it was to please the "young, Holberg passed through booksellers only; who could not "France, Germany, and Hol-bear that any one so popular "land." With exactly the same with their customers as Doctor resources, still also very young, Goldsmith had become, should Goldsmith quitted Leyden, bent lie under the horrible imputation upon the travel which his Traveller of a poverty so deplorable. has made immortal. "Countries wear very different A man It was in February, 1755. For “appearances," he had written the exact route he took, the na-in the first edition of the Polite ture of his adventures, and the Learning, "to travellers of difcourse of thought they sug-"ferent circumstances. gested, it is necessary to resort "who is whirled through Europe for the most part to his published "in a post-chaise, and the pilgrim writings. Though he wrote to "who walks the grand tour on his cousin Contarine from Ley-"foot, will form very different den, from Louvain, and from "conclusions. Haud inexpertus loRouen, his letters to her, and "quor." In the second edition, others of the period to other the haud inexpertus loquor disapfriends, have perished. It was peared; but the experience had common talk at the dinner table been already set down in the of Reynolds that the wanderings Vicar of Wakefield. of the philosophic vagabond in Louvain attracted him of course, the Vicar of Wakefield had been This was a young Irish law student suggested by his own, and he named Cooke, who had chambers near often admitted at that time, to him in the Temple, who will have frevarious friends, the accuracy of special details. "He frequently "used to talk," says one who became very familiar with him in Enquiry into Polite Learning, chap. VI. This parallel to his own adventures has before been pointed out; but no reader of Goldsmith could fail to be struck by it. quent mention in the course of my narrative, who wrote among other things a life of Foote, and who contributed to the European Magazine not long after Goldsmith's death a series of papers from which I have derived many highly interesting and quite authentic details. It is surprising to me that they should have escaped the attention of the compilers and editor of the Percy Memoir. ** European Magazine, XXIV. 91. as he passed through Flanders; not in the objects offered for our and here, according to his first amusement.* And he afterbiographer,* he took the degree wards remembered, and made it of medical bachelor, which, the subject of a striking allusion, 1755. as early as 1763, is found how, as he approached the coast Et. 27. in one of the Dodsley of Holland, he looked down upon agreements appended to his it from the deck, as into a valley; name. Though this is by no so that it seemed to him at once means certain, it is yet likely a conquest from the sea, and enough. The records of Louvain in a manner rescued from its University were destroyed in the bosom.** He did not travel to revolutionary wars, and the means see that all was barren. He did of proof or disproof lost; but it not merely outface the poverty, is improbable that any false as- the hardship, and fatigue, but sumption of a medical degree made them his servants and would have passed without ques- ministers to entertainment and tion among the distinguished wisdom. friends of his later life, even if Before he passed through it escaped the exposure of his Flanders good use had been enemies. Certain it is, at any made of his flute; and when he rate, that he made some stay at came to the poorer provinces of Louvain, became acquainted with France, he found it greatly serits professors, and informed him- viceable. "I had some knowself of its modes of study. "I"ledge of music," says the vaga"always forgot the meanness of bond, "with a tolerable voice; "my circumstances when I could "I now turned what was once converse upon such subjects." "my amusement into a present Some little time he also seems to "means of subsistence. I passed have passed at Brussels. Of his "among the harmless peasants having examined at Maestricht" of Flanders, and among such an extensive cavern, or stone "of the French as were poor quarry, at that time much visited "enough to be very merry; for I by travellers, there is likewise "ever found them sprightly in trace. It must undoubtedly have "proportion to their wants. been at Antwerp (a "fortification "Whenever I approached a pea"in Flanders") that he saw the "sant's house towards night-fall, maimed, deformed, chained, yet "I played one of my most merry cheerful slave, to whom he refers "tunes, and that procured me in that charming essay wherein "not only a lodging, but subhe argues that happiness and "sistence for the next day. I pleasure are in ourselves, and "once or twice attempted to play "for people of fashion; but they *Life of Dr. O. Goldsmith printed for Swan 1774. 8vo. And Annual Register, XVII. 29. The Bee, II. |