lay chiefly among the Irish students, who were al ways ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among them he was a prime favourite and somewhat of s leader, from his exuberance of spirits, his vein of humour, and his talent at singing an Irish song and telling an Irish story.

His usual carelessness in money matters attended him. Though his supplies from home were scanty and irregular, he never could bring himself inte habits of prudence and economy; often he was stripped of all his present finances at play, often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded charity o generosity. Sometimes among his boon compan ions he assumed a ludicrous swagger in mone matters, which no one afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. At a convivial meeting with a number of his fellow-students, he suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which of the two should treat the whole party to the play The moment the proposition had bolted from his lips, his heart was in his throat. "To my great though secret joy," said he, "they all declined the challenge. Had it been accepted, and had I proved the loser, a part of my wardrobe must have been pledged in order to raise the money."

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his pen during his residence at Edinburgh; and, indeed, his poetical powers, highly as they had been estimated by his friends, had not, as yet, produced anything of superior merit. His convivial talents seem to have gained him attentions in a high quarter, which, however, he had the good sense to appreciate correctly. "I have spent," says he, in one of his letters, "more than a fortnight every

second day at the Duke of Hamilton's; but it seems they like me more as a jester than as a companion; so I disdained so servile an employment, as unworthy my calling as a physician."

After spending two winters at Edinburgh he prepared to finish his medical studies on the Continent, for which his uncle Contarine agreed to furnish the funds. "I intend," said he, in a letter to his uncle," to visit Paris, where the great Farheim, Petit, and Du Hammel de Monceau instruct their pupils in all the branches of medicine. I shall spend the spring and summer in Paris, and the be ginning of next winter go to Leyden. The great Albinus is still alive there, and 'twill be proper to go, though only to have it said that we have studied in so famous a university. *** I shall carry just £33 to France, with good store of clothes, shirts, &c., &c., and that, with economy, will serve."

Thus slenderly provided, he set off for Leith to take shipping for Holland. Medical instruction was the ostensible motive for his expedition, but the real one was doubtless his long-cherished desire to see foreign parts. When arrived at Leith there was a ship about to sail for Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers. Goldsmith could not resist a sudden impulse, and, instead of embarking for Holland, soon found himself ploughing the seas pound to the other side of the Continent. Scarcely had the ship been two days at sea, when she was driven by stress of weather to Newcastle-uponTyne. Of course Goldsmith and his fellow-voyagers went on shore to "refresh themselves after the fatigues of their voyage. "" Of course they frolicked and made merry, when, late in the even

ing, in the midst of their hilarity, the door was burst open, a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered with fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial party prisoners. It seems that Goldsmith's chance companions were Scotchmen in the French service, who had been in Scotland enlisting soldiers for the French army. It was in vain that Goldsmith protested his innocence; he was marched off with his fellow-revellers to prison, whence he with difficulty obtained his release at the end of a fortnight. With his customary facility, how. ever, he found everything turn out for the best. His imprisonment had saved his life. The ship had proceeded without him on her voyage, but had been wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and all the crew drowned.

A vessel being now on the point of sailing for Holland, he embarked, and in nine days arrived at Rotterdam, from whence he proceeded, without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Hollanders. "The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature from him of former times: he in everything imitates a Frenchman but in his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But the downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat, laced with black riband; no coat, but seven waistcoats and nine pair of breeches, so that his hips reach up almost to his armpits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company or

make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of his appetite! why, she wears a large fur cap, with a deal of Flanders lace; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on two petti

coats.

"A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats, and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe."

The country itself awakened his admiration. "Nothing," said he, " can equal its beauty; wherever I turn my eyes, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, vistas present themselves; but when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond description. No misery is to be seen here; every one is usefully employed." And again, in his noble description in "The Traveller."

"To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride,
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amid the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile,
The slow canal, the yellow blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign."

He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures of Gaubius on chymistry and Albinus

on anatomy; though his studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his precarious remittances should arrive. Sometimes he had to borrow small sums, which he always scrupulously paid, sometimes he taught the English language, and sometimes, unfortunately, he resorted to the gambling-tables which in those days abounded in Holland. This last resource terminated, as usual, in stripping him of every shilling.

A generous friend, who had often counselled him in vain against his unfortunate propensity, now stepped in to his relief, but on condition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Goldsmith gladly consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other parts. He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his studies there, and was furnished by his friend with money for the journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist just before quitting Leyden. The tulip mania was still prevalent in Holland, and some species of that splendid flower brought immense prices. In wandering through the garden Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip fancier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was an opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of that generous uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his hand was in his pocket; a number of choice tulip-roots were purchased and packed up for Mr. Contarine; and it was not until he had paid for them that he bethought himself that he had spent