in the shape of Uncle Contarine, intervened. He provided the scapegoat with fifty pounds, and started him off to London to study law. The instructions of the fairy were not minded. On the road Oliver fell into bad company, and soon was back again, this time in genuine humiliation and disgrace.

Once more he was forgiven and once more sent off, Edinburgh being his destination this time. It had been declared that he "would make an excellent medical man." His suffering relatives were now to be free of him,—free of him forever, for he never returned to Ireland. In his loving heart he always carried memories of the Lissoy fireside, and in home letters referred with warmth to the time when he should visit it. But before that was possible his mother and Uncle Contarine had passed away, and his longing died with them.

At Edinburgh, in 1753, Goldsmith became a member of the Medical Society, and also, in keeping with his lifelong character, a leader of the young Irish students in fun and frolic. A year later he was moved to sail for Leyden, where he had ten months of teaching his native tongue, and other ways of support which were not so reputable, before he set out on his Continental tour.

He would often, said a London associate of after days, speak "with pleasantry of his distresses on the Continent, such as living on the hospitalities of the friars in convents, sleeping in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German flute." The best story of his life at this time is the last part of Chapter XX. of "The Vicar of Wakefield." For George Primrose you have merely to put the name of Oliver Goldsmith. is probably poor "Goldy's" experience, even in the tutorship of the conceited pupil who "understood the art of guiding in money concerns" much better than he.

It

In February, 1756, he entered London, and here began the experiences which George Primrose relates in the first part of Chapter XX. Goldsmith, too, was usher in an academy, and he, too, wrote for bread, consuming "that time in efforts after excellence which takes up but little room, when it should have been more advantageously employed in the diffusive productions of fruitful mediocrity." "The public were more importantly employed than to observe the easy simplicity of his style, or the harmony of his periods."

He attempted to practice medicine. He did all sorts of anonymous hack work for publishers, living the while in garrets, and in so great poverty and human-heartedness that he pawned his clothes to help his distressed landlady. Still, with what he termed “a knack at hoping," he wrote to a

friend:

"There will come a day, no doubt it will I beg you may live a couple of hundred years longer only to see the day-when the Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my character, give learned editions of my labors, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard me now or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will they bewail the times that suffered so much genius to be neglected!" And at another time he wrote to his brother: "It gives me some pain to think I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. . . . Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig, and you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. . . . I have contracted an hesitating, disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill nature itself."

But the spring of 1759 brought Goldsmith better fortune. In

April of that year was published his first considerable work, "An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe." Engagements on periodicals followed, and among his essays are found papers which he contributed to the "Bee," the "Busybody," and the "Critical Review." His contributions to the "Public Ledger" gave greatest delight. The writing came about in this way. He had been engaged by Publisher Newbery to write twice a week at the rate of a guinea per article. In an introductory paper he brought a Chinese visitor to London. In a second, the philosophic mandarin gave his impressions of the Thus began the famous work known as "The Citizen of the World," a series of letters supposed to be written by a Chinaman living according to English habits, and detailing his observations and experiences to friends in China, who also sent letters to him. The series is a spirited and gentle satire on the English people and institutions, relieved here and there by such character sketches as Beau Tibbs, the Man in Black, and the Pawnbroker's Widow, and also by the thin vein of a love story running to the end.

town.

Goldsmith could now remove to better lodgings, and ask his friends-even the great Dr. Johnson-to supper. "One of the company (Mr. Percy, afterwards bishop), being intimate with our great lexicographer, was desired to call upon him and take him with him. As they went together, the former was much struck with the studied neatness of Johnson's dress. He had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything about him was so perfectly dissimilar from his usual habits and appearance that his companion could not help inquiring the cause of this singular transformation. 'Why, sir,' said Johnson, 'I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of

cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example.'”

In the wit and mirth of that evening began the friendship that was to throw a mellow light over the best literature of the second half of the eighteenth century. It is made up of the persistent sweetness and humor of Goldsmith, the aggressive dogmatism and unbending integrity of Johnson, and the loyalty of each when one was tried by the faults of the other.

Apprenticeship to Newbery continued after Goldsmith had finished the Chinese papers. It is claimed that he worked on children's books, and produced the graceful story of "Goody Two Shoes." We know that at this period he wrote the "Life of Beau Nash," "The History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," and other histories, compilations, and prefaces. Newbery endeavored to regulate the improvident author's life, and to keep him in better surroundings by paying his landlady every quarter, and deducting the amount from Goldsmith's earnings. Espionage such as that must have been hard for both, but it was doubtless money in the pocket of the publisher and of his hack. Goldsmith had, with his remaining guineas, the pleasure of buying breeches such as those he wore before the bishop in youthful days when he wished to take orders, and also coats to match. His love of gay apparel brought him into the bondage of debt to his tailor.

He also went in gay company. There was the serene Joshua Reynolds, living in his hospitable house in Leicester Square, and winning fame and wealth at once by his cunning brush; there was Johnson, whom they all deferred to and worshiped; there was Smollett, his novels-all but "Humphrey Clinker"-written; and Burke, rising into fame; and Garrick, big with the applause of

his audiences. There were also lesser lights, such as Dodsley and Hawkins and Beauchamp and Langton and Churchill and Lloyd. Coming to the edge of this group, too, was the thin Laird of Auchinleck, who was to report their fame and preserve their personalities in the most wonderful memoir ever written in English. Around Reynolds's table many of them met, or at the Mitre Tavern. "Wisest men," wrote Goldsmith to his brother, "often have friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool."

Moreover, from all this love and fashion of sociability and kindliness there came, in 1763, the famous Literary Club, members of which met one night every week for supper and talk. We hear also of Davies's bookshop, the proprietor an ex-actor and wit, who made it a favorite lounging place for poets, playwrights, and literary gossips.

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It is at this period that we have our first glimpse of "The Vicar of Wakefield." "I received, one morning," said Johnson, a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit, told the landlady I should soon return, and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for