earlier days, than to vouchsafe| recognition to the unthriving, depressed, insulted Oliver.*

1747.

Et. 19.

Happy night, worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky wall, or creeping within A year and a half after he darkling shadows of the illhad entered college, at the lighted streets, the poor neglected commencement of 1747, sizar watched and waited there, his father suddenly died. The lingering and listening, for the scanty sums required for his sup- only effort of his life that had not port had been often intercepted, wholly failed. Few and dull perbut this stopped them altogether. haps the beggar's audience at It may have been the suffering first, but more thronging, eager, incident to that sorrow for which and delighted, as he shouted he cared the least, but "squalid his newly-gotten ware. Cracked "poverty," relieved by occa- enough, I doubt not, were those sional gifts according to his small ballad-singing tones; very harsh, means from uncle Contarine, by extremely discordant, and passpetty loans from Bryanton or ing from loud to low without Beatty, or by desperate pawning meaning or melody; but not the of his books of study, was Gold- less fell with them on the ear of smith's lot thenceforward. Yet Goldsmith the sweetest music even in depths like these arose that this earth affords. Gentle the consciousness of faculties re- faces pleased, old men stopping served for better fortune than by the way, young lads venturcontinual contempt and failure. ing a purchase with their last reHe would write street-ballads to maining farthing; why, here was save himself from actual starv-a world in little, with its fame at ing; sell them at the Reindeer the sizar's feet! "The greater repository in Mountrath-court for "world will be listening one five shillings a-piece; and steal"day" perhaps he muttered, as out of the college at night to he turned with a lighter heart to hear them sung. ** his dull home.

"When he had got high in fame," It is said to have been a rare said Johnson to Boswell, "one of his occurrence when the five shil"friends began to recollect something of

66

66

"his being distinguished at college. Gold-lings of the Reindeer repository "smith in the same manner recollected reached home along with him. more of that friend's early years, as he It was more likely, when he was grew a greater man," Boswell, vi. 310. at his utmost need, to stop with This, we must admit, is the general rule. Barnard, Dean of Derry, who held the some beggar on the road who bishoprics successively of Killaloe and had seemed to him more destiLimerick, and who was upwards of tute even than himself. Nor this eighty when he died at Wimbledon in 1806, will frequently appear in these only. The money gone, he had pages. Marlay became bishop of Water- often, for the naked shivering ford, and is described by Malone as an amiable, benevolent, and ingenious man. wretch, slipped off a portion of ** Prior, I. 75. the scanty clothes he wore, to

1747.

Et. 19.

patch a misery he could not which only more attract us by otherwise relieve. To one starv- intruding on our senses; and the ing creature, with five crying conscience is too apt to dischildren, he gave at one time the charge itself of the greater blankets off his bed, and crept duty by instant and easy himself into the ticking for shel- attention to the less. Let ter from the cold. For this me observe also, that, in the case anecdote Mr. Edward Mills, of a man dependent on others, Goldsmith's relative and fellow- the title to such enjoyment as student, is the authority. He this largeness and looseness of occasionally furnished Oliver, sympathy involves, has very obwhen in college, with small sup-vious and controlling limits. So plies, and gave him a breakfast much it is right to interpose when now and then; for which kindly anecdotes of this description are purpose having gone to call him told. To Goldsmith, all the cirone morning, Goldsmith's voice cumstances considered, they are from within his own room shouted really very creditable; and it is out that he was a prisoner, and well to recollect them when the they must force the door to help "neglected opportunities" of his him out. Mills did this; and youth are spoken of. Doubtless found him so fastened in the there were better things to be ticking of his bed, into which he done, by a man of stronger purhad taken shelter from the cold, pose. But the nature of men is that he could not escape unas- not different from that of other sisted. Late on the previous living creatures; it gives the winter night, unable otherwise to temper and disposition, but not relieve a woman and her five the nurture or culture. These children who seemed all perish- Goldsmith never rightly had, exing with cold, he had brought cept in such sort as he could himout his blankets to the college-self provide; and now, assuredly, gate and given them to her. he had not found them in his

It is not meant to insist on college. "That strong steady these things as examples of con- "disposition which alone makes duct. "Sensibility is not Bene-"men great," he avowed himself "volence;" nor will this kind of deficient in:* but were other disagonised sympathy with distress, positions not worth the caring even when graced by that active for? "His imagination might

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self-denial of which there is here "have been too warm to relish small proof, supply the solid "the cold logic of Burgersdicius, duties or satisfactions of life. "or the dreary subtleties of There are distresses, vast and re- "Smiglesius: "** but with nomote, with which it behoves us still more to sympathise than with those, less really terrible,

*See post, Book II. Chap. IV. Letter to his brother-in-law Hodson.

**Such is his remark, with probable

thing less cold or dreary might a | Never had he stood up in his warm imagination have been class that this learned savage did cherished? When, in after years not insult him. Having a comic

at the house of Burke, he as well as tragic side, and such 1747. talked these matters over wit as he possessed being part Et. 19. with Edmund Malone, he of his malice, Mr. Wilder made said that though he made no for himself continual mirth out great figure in mathematics, of the misery he occasioned to which was a study in much re- this awkward, ugly, "ignorant," pute there, he could turn an ode most sensitive young man. of Horace into English better than any of them.* His tutor, Mr. Theaker Wilder, thought him fitter to turn a lathe.

66

*

been blessed with such a friend. All the letter is good, but I quote only a line or two:-"It is very possible that two and "two make four, but I would not give in-"four farthings to demonstrate this ever "life, give me the amusements of it. The so clearly; and if these be the profits of "people I behold all around me, it seems, "know all this and more, and yet I do "not know one of them who inspires me "with any ambition of being like him." Works, Ed. Mitford (1835), 11. 7-9. "Gray

"regretted his want of mathematical

66

"he would never allow that it was neces

This tutor, this reverend structor of youth, was the same who, on one occasion in Dublin streets, sprang at a bound from the pavement on a hackney-coach which was passing at its swiftest pace, and felled to the ground the driver who had accidentally knowledge," says Norton Nicholls, "yet touched his face with the whip. "sary, in order to form the mind to a So, mathematics being Mr. Thea-"habit of reasoning or attention. Does ker Wilder's intellectual passion, "not Locke require as much attention as "Euclid?" Works, v. 52. On the other the same strength, agility, and hand, Goldsmith has taken occasion to ferocity which drove him into put into the mouth of the Man in Black a brawls with hackney-coachmen, ing to friends of his own early dislike of wiser explanation than he gave in talkhe carried to the demonstrations mathematics, and this I will presently of Euclid; and for this, all his life afterwards, even more than poet Gray, did poor Goldsmith wage war with mathematics. **

quote. In his Enquiry he characterizes them as too much studied at our universi"intellects are equal." Chap. XII.

ties, and "a science to which the meanest

"Theaker Wilder, a man of the most "morose and merciless temper, thencereference to himself, on Parnell's want "forth persecuted him with unremitting of success at Dublin University. Miscel-"cruelty, especially at the quarterly exlaneous Works, III. 358. See also the "aminations, when he would insult him seventeenth of his Essays (on a Taste for "before his fellow-students by sarcastic the Belles Lettres), in which he contrasts Swift's failure at college with his success in after-life.

*Boswell, II. 189. Watkins's Anecdotes of Men of Learning and Genius, 513.

"taunts and ironical applauses of the "severest malignity." Percy Memoir, 15. "He was a younger son," says Mr. Shaw Mason, "of the family of Castle Wilder, "in the county of Longford." Statistical **Gray, while yet as young as Gold- Account, III. 357. "I well remember," smith, complained from Cambridge to writes Dr. Wilson to Malone, "for he West in much the same language that "was in the class below me, that his Goldsmith might have employed in "tutor (Wilder), examining him in the Dublin, if at this early time of life he had "Sen. Soph. Class, commenced his judg

There came to be no limit or of 1747. They explored every pause to the strife between them. bailiff's den in Dublin, found the The tutor's brutality rose even to offender by whom the arrest was personal violence; the pupil's made,brought him naked to 1747. shame and resentment hardened the college pump, washed into reckless idleness; and the his delinquency thoroughcollege career of Oliver Gold- ly out of him; and were so elated smith was a proclaimed and with the triumph, and everything wretched failure. that bore affinity to law, restraint,

Æt. 19.

Let us be thankful that it was or authority looked so ludicrous no worse, and that participation in the person of this drenched in a college riot was after all the bailiff's-runner, their miserable gravest of his college crimes. representative, that it was on the Twice indeed he was cautioned spot proposed to consummate for neglecting even his Greek and crown success by breaking lecture, but he was also thrice open Newgate, and making a commended for diligence in at- general jail delivery. The Black tending it, and Doctor Kearney Dog, as the prison was called, said he once got a prize at a stood on the feeblest of legs, and Christmas examination in clas-with one small piece of artillery sics. The latter seems doubtful; must have gone down for ever; but at any rate the college riot but the cannon was with the conwas the worst to allege against stable, the assailants were rehim, and in this there was no pulsed, and some townsmen atvery active sin. A scholar had tracted by the fray unhappily been arrested, though the pre- lost their lives. Five of the ringcincts of the university had al- leaders were discovered, and exways been held privileged from pelled the college; and among the intrusion of bailiffs, and the five lesser offenders who were students resolved to take rough publicly admonished for being revenge. It was in the summer present aiding and abetting,* the name of Oliver Goldsmith occurs. More galled by formal Uni"the good tutor often fell into, to think versity admonition than by Wil"he was witty when he was simply mali- der's insults, and anxious to wipe "cious." Wilder published in 1768, when out a disgrace that seemed not elaborate edition of Sir Isaac Newton's so undeserved, Goldsmith tried Universal Arithmetic, in the preface to in the next month for a scholarwhich, expressing likes and dislikes in a ship. He lost the scholarship, characteristically peremptory way, he but gained an exhibition: **

"ments with a Male, and concluded them "with a Valde Bene. 'Twas a mistake that

he was D.D. and a senior fellow,

an

describes himself as having been appointed, when a junior fellow, to succeed Mr. Maguire as "teacher of the "mathematicks to the undergraduates of "the university." See post, Book III. Chap. VI,

a

"Quod seditioni favisset et tumul"tuantibus opem tulisset." See Percy Memoir, 16. **Percy Memoir, 16,

very small exhibition truly, worth of America sank before this resome thirty shillings, of which ality, and he turned his feeble there were nineteen in number steps to Lissoy. His brother had

and his was seventeenth private intimation of his state, 1747. in the list. In the way of went to him, clothed him, and Æt. 19. honour or glory this was carried him back to college. trifling enough; but, little used "Something of a reconciliation," to anything in the shape of even says Mrs. Hodson, was effected such a success, he let loose his with the tutor. unaccustomed joy in a dancing Probably the tutor made so party of the humblest descrip- much concession as to promise tion at his rooms, which had not to strike him to the ground more of tragical than trifling is- again; for certainly no other improvement is on record.

sue.

An

Wilder heard of the affront to anecdote, "often told in converdiscipline, suddenly showed him-"sation" to Bishop Percy, exself in the middle of the fes-hibits the sizar at his usual distivity, and knocked down the advantage. Wilder called on poor triumphant exhibitioner. * Goldsmith, at a lecture, to exIt seemed an irretrievable dis-plain the centre of gravity; which, grace. Goldsmith sold his books on getting no answer, he pronext day, scraped together a ceeded himself to explain: callsmall sum, ran away from col-ing out harshly to Oliver at the lege, lingered fearfully about close, "Now, blockhead, where Dublin till his money was spent, "is your centre of gravity?" The and then with a shilling in his answer, which was delivered in pocket set out for Cork. He did a slow, stammering, hollow voice, not know where he would have and began "Why, Doctor, by gone, he said, but he thought of "your definition, I think it must America. For three days he "be" - disturbed every one's lived upon the shilling; parted centre of gravity in the by degrees with nearly all his lecture room; and, turning clothes to save himself from the laugh against Wilder, famine; and long afterwards told turned down poor Oliver. * Reynolds, what his sister relates so the insults, the merciless jests, in her narrative, that of all the the "Oliver Goldsmith turned exquisite meals he had ever "down," continue as before. We tasted the most delicious was a still trace him less by his fame handful of grey peas given him in the class-room than by his by a girl at a wake after twenty-fines in the buttery-book. The four hours' fasting. ** The vision Mr. Prior found the latter brief re

*Percy Memoir, 7, 8. For later news of Dr. Wilder see post, Book III. Chap. VI. ** Ibid, 5.

1748.

Æt. 20.

And

cord duly entered under the date of May 9, 1748, on consulting the senior lecturer's book in Dublin University. 1. 90.