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gloomy austerity. On the contrary, he was pleasant in conversation, and playful in his manners. He instituted an assembly for the more polished, and a bowling green for the rustick part of his parishioners; and he frequently promoted the amusements of both companies by his own attendance.

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OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

IN the memoirs of this extraordinary man, prefixed to his poetical works, he is said to have been born in 1729, at Elphin, in the county of Roscommon; but on the tablet erected to his mémory in Westminster Abbey, by his most intimate friends, the date of his birth is 1731, and the place is stated to be Fernes, in the county of Longford. This difference is very remarkable, and it may be justly pronounced as an instance, on one side or the other, of a very culpable neg ligence in not making due enquiry concerning what doubtless might have been accurately determined.

The father of Goldsmith was a clergyman who gave him a good education, and sent him to the University of Dublin, where he was admitted a sizar, in 1744, which seems to give the preference to the first mentioned year, for the time of his birth. At Dublin he had for a fellow student, Mr. Edmund Burke.

Of Goldsmith's proficiency in academical learning we have no other account than that which he gave of himself to Mr. Malone, "that though he made no great figure in mathematicks, which was a study much in repute there, he could turn an Ode of Horace better than any of them."

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After attending a few lectures on anatomy, he went to Edinburgh, with the view of adopting physick as his profession. But though he continued there three years, his application to the peculiar studies of the place, was little, and his prudence less. By becoming surety for a fellow student, he was involved in difficulties, and to avoid the consequences he made a precipitate retreat from Edinburgh. But his steps were traced, and he was taken at Sunderland. The kindness of Dr. Sleigh, and another college friend, relieved him from this embarrasment, and, being once more at liberty, in a spirit of thoughtless extravagance, he took ship, and landed at Rotterdamı: from thence he travelled through Flanders, and at Louvaine took the degree of bachelor of physick. After perambulating a great part of Europe, he landed at Dover, with a few pence in his pocket, and making his way to London, applied to several apothecaries for employment as a journeyman. His appearance and brogue were against him, and being reduced to the lowest state of distress, a chemist near Fish Street Hill, out of compassion, took him into his laboratory.

Soon after this, he learnt that his friend Sleigh was in London, and having discovered his abode, he waited upon him. "It was Sunday," said Goldsmith," when I paid him a visit; and it is to be supposed, in my best cloaths. Sleigh scarcely knew me; such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did recollect

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