at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess, that, whether from national partiality, or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute." Goldsmith's ramblings took him into Germany and Switzerland, from which last-mentioned country he sent to his brother in Ireland the first brief sketch, afterwards amplified into his poem of the "Traveller."

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel young gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who had been suddenly elevated into fortune and absurdity by the death of an uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had been an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger in money-matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted than he and Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor and the pupil from the following extract from the narrative of the "Philosophic Vagabond."

"I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a proviso that he could always be permitted to govern himself. My pupil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money-concerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West Indies; and his guarlians, to qualify him for the management of it,

TRAVELLING SHIFTS.

77

Thus

had bound him apprentice to an attorney. avarice was his prevailing passion; all his questions on the road were, how money might be saved, which was the least expensive course of travel, whether anything could be bought that would turn to account when disposed of again in London? Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for nothing he was ready enough to look at; but if the sight of them was to be paid for, he usually asserted that he had been told that they were not worth seeing. He never paid a bill that he would not observe how amazingly expensive travelling was; and all this though not yet twenty-one."

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows forth his annoyances as travelling tutor to this concrete young gentleman, compounded of the pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the West Indian heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They had continual difficulties on all points of expense until they reached Marseilles, where both were glad to separate.

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of "bear-leader," and with some of his pay, as tutor, in his pocket, Goldsmith continued his half vagrant peregrinations through part of France and Piedmont and some of the Italian States. He had acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shifting along and living by expedients, and a new one presented itself in Italy. skill in music," says he, in the "Philosophic Vagabond," "could avail me nothing in a country where every peasant was a better musician than

"My

I; but by this time I had acquired another tal ent, which answered my purpose as well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant, for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these learned piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottages of the peasantry. "With the members of these establishments," said he, "I could converse on topics of literature, and then I always forgot the meanness of my circumstances."

At Padua, where he remained some months, he is said to have taken his medical degree. It is probable he was brought to a pause in this city by the illness of his uncle Contarine; who had hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occasional, though, of course, slender remittances. Deprived of this source of supplies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially to his brotherin-law, Hodson, describing his destitute situation. His letters brought him neither money nor reply. It appears, from subsequent correspondence, that his brother-in-law actually exerted himself to raise a subscription for his assistance among his relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without success. Their faith and hope in him were most probably at an end; as yet he had disappointed them at every point, he had given none of the anticipated proofs of talent, and they were too

HIS MAGIC FLUTE.

79

poor to support what they may have considered the wandering propensities of a heedless spendthrift.

Thus left to his own precarious resources, Goldsmith gave up all further wandering in Italy, without visiting the south, though Rome and Naples must have held out powerful attractions to one of his poetical cast. Once more resuming his pilgrim staff, he turned his face toward England, "walking along from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and seeing both sides of the picture." In traversing France his flute

- his magic flute! was once more in requisition, as we may conclude by the following passage in his "Traveller" :

"Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,

Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir

With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still,
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages: Dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of three-score."

6

CHAPTER VI.

Landing in England. - Shifts of a Man without Money. The Pestle and Mortar. - Theatricals in a Barn.- Launch upon London. - A City Night-Scene. Struggles with Penury.-Miseries of a Tutor. A Doctor in the Suburb. Poor Practice and second-hand Finery.-A Tragedy in Embryo.-Project of the Written Mountains.

FTER two years spent in roving about the Continent," pursuing novelty," as he said, "and losing content," Goldsmith landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to have had no definite plan of action. The death of his uncle Contarine, and the neglect of his relatives and friends to reply to his letters, seem to have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneliness and destitution, and his only thought was to get to London, and throw himself upon the world. But how was he to get there? His purse was empty. England was to him as completely a foreign land as any part of the Continent, and where on earth is a penniless stranger more destitute? His flute and his philosophy were no longer of any avail; the English boors cared nothing for music; there were no convents; and as to the learned and the clergy, not one of them would give a vagrant scholar a supper and night's lodging for the best thesis that ever was argued. "You may easily imagine," says he, in a subse