Let us be thankful that it was no worse, and that parti- 1747. cipation in a college riot was after all the highest of his Et. 19. college crimes. Twice indeed he was cautioned for neglecting even his Greek lecture; but he was also thrice commended for diligence in attending it; and Doctor Kearney said he once got a prize at a Christmas examination in classics. The latter seems doubtful; but at any rate the college riot was the worst to allege against him, and in this there was no very active sin. A scholar had been arrested, though the precincts of the university had always been held privileged from the intrusion of bailiffs, and the students resolved to take rough revenge. It was in the summer of 1747. They explored every bailiff's den in Dublin, found the offender by whom the arrest was made, brought him naked to the college pump, washed his delinquency thoroughly out of him; and were so elated with the triumph, and everything that bore affinity to law, restraint, or authority, looked so ludicrous in the person of this drenched bailiff's-runner, their miserable representative, that it was on the spot proposed to crown and consummate success by breaking open Newgate, and making a general jail delivery. The Black Dog, as the prison was called, stood on the feeblest of legs, and with one small piece of artillery must have gone down for ever; but the cannon was with the constable, the assailants were repulsed, and some townsmen attracted by the fray unhappily lost their lives. Five of the ringleaders were discovered, and expelled the college; and among five lesser offenders who were publicly admonished for being present, "aiding and abetting,"* the name of Oliver Goldsmith occurs. * "Quod seditioni favisset et tumultuantibus opem tulisset." Memoir, 16. See Percy D 1747. More galled by formal University admonition than by Et. 19. Wilder's insults, and anxious to wipe out a disgrace that seemed not so undeserved, Goldsmith tried in the next month for a scholarship. He lost the scholarship, but got an exhibition:* a very small exhibition truly, worth some thirty shillings, of which there were nineteen in number, and his was seventeenth in the list. In the way of honour or glory this was trifling enough; but, little used to anything in the shape of even such a success, he let loose his unaccustomed joy in a small dancing party at his rooms, of humblest sort. Wilder heard of the affront to discipline, suddenly showed himself in the middle of the festivity, and knocked down the poor triumphant exhibitioner. It seemed an irretrievable disgrace. Goldsmith sold his books next day, got together a small sum, ran away from college, lingered fearfully about Dublin till his money was spent, and then, with a shilling in his pocket, set out for Cork. He did not know where he would have gone, he said, but he thought of America. For three days he lived upon the shilling; parted by degrees with nearly all his clothes to save himself from famine; and long afterwards told Reynolds, what his sister relates in her narrative, that of all the exquisite meals he had ever tasted, the most delicious was a handful of grey peas given him by a girl at a wake after twenty-four hours' fasting. vision of America sank before this reality, and he turned his feeble steps to Lissoy. His brother had private intimation of his state, went to him, clothed him, and carried him back to college. "Something of a reconciliation," says Mrs. Hodson, was effected with the tutor. The Probably the tutor made so much concession as to promise * Percy Memoir, 16. + Ibid, 7, 8. Ibid, 5. 1748. not to strike him to the ground again; for certainly no other improvement is on record. The insults, the merciless Et. 20. jests, the "Oliver Goldsmith turned down,"-continue as before.* We still trace him less by his fame in the class-room than by his fines in the buttery-books. The only change is in that greater submission of the victim which marks unsuccessful rebellion. He offers no resistance; makes no effort of any kind; sits, for the most part, indulging day-dreams. A Greek Scapula has been identified which he used at this time, scrawled over with his writing. "Free. Oliver “Goldsmith;" "I promise to pay, &c. Oliver Goldsmith ;"'+ are among the autograph's musing shapes. Perhaps one half the day he was with Steele or Addison in parliament; perhaps the other half in prison with Collins or with Fielding. We should be thankful, as I have said, that a time so dreary and dark bore no worse fruit than that. The shadow cast over his spirit, the uneasy sense of disadvantage which obscured his manners in later years, affected himself singly; but how many they are, whom such suffering, and such idleness, would have wholly and for ever corrupted. The spirit hardly less generous, cheerful, or An anecdote, "often told in conversation to Bishop Percy," obtained one of these turnings down for the rebellious sizar. Wilder called on Goldsmith, at a lecture, to explain the centre of gravity; which, on getting no answer, he proceeded himself to explain calling out harshly to Oliver at the close, "Now, blockhead, "where is your centre of gravity?" The answer-which was delivered in a slow, hollow, stammering voice, and began "Why, Doctor, by your definition, I think it "must be "-disturbed every one's centre of gravity in the lecture room; and, turning the laugh against Wilder, turned down poor Oliver. Mr. Prior found the latter brief record duly entered under the date of May 9, 1748, on consulting the senior lecturer's book in Dublin University. i. 90. + Prior, i. 94. Who can possibly doubt the original from whom the man in black's experiences were taken. Citizen of the World, xxvii. "The first opportunity he [my father] "had of finding his expectations disappointed, was in the middling figure I made at "the university: he had flattered himself that he should soon see me rising into "the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was mortified to find me utterly "unnoticed and unknown. His disappointment might have been partly ascribed self-supported than Goldsmith's, has been broken by them Æt. 21. utterly. 1749. He took his degree of bachelor of arts on the 27th February, 1749;* and as his name stood lowest in the list of sizars with whom he was originally admitted, so it stands also lowest in a list still existing of the graduates who passed on the same day, and thus became entitled to use the college library. But it would be needless to recount the names that appear above his; for the public merits of their owners ended with their college course, and oblivion has received them. Nor indeed does that position of his name necessarily indicate his place in the examination; it being then the usage to regulate the mere college standing of a student through the whole of his course, by his position obtained at starting. But be this as it might, Mr. Wilder and his pupil now parted for ever and when the friend of Burke, of Johnson, and of Reynolds, next heard the name of his college tyrant, a violent death had overtaken him in a dissolute brawl. "to his having overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mathematical Shaw Mason's Statistical Account, iii. 358. "Feb. 27, 1749, he was admitted "bachelor of arts, two years after the regular time. In the roll of those 66 qualified for admission to the college library, it appears that Oliver Goldsmith "took the oaths necessary to those who desire that privilege. The time for this "is immediately after obtaining the degree of bachelor of arts." Mr. Prior supposes that he first had examined this library record, but Mr. Shaw Mason had been there before him. great changes. She had removed, in her straitened circum- Et. 21. stances, to a cottage at Ballymahon, " situated on the "entrance to Ballymahon from the Edgeworthstown-road on "the left-hand side."* His brother Henry had gone back to his father's little parsonage house at Pallas; and, with his father's old pittance of forty pounds a year, was serving as curate to the living of Kilkenny West, and was master of the village school, which after shifting about not a little had become ultimately fixed at Lissoy. His eldest sister, Mrs. Hodson, for whom the sacrifice was made that impoverished the family resources, was mistress of the old and better Lissoy parsonage house, in which his father had lived his latter life. All entreated Oliver to qualify himself for orders; and when they joined uncle Contarine's request, his own objection was withdrawn. But he is only twentyone; he must wait two years; and they are passed at Ballymahon. It is the sunny time between two dismal periods of his life. * Shaw Mason's Statistical Account, iii. 357. |