1755. remembered his fellow-student when years had made him Et. 27. famous, and said (much, it may be confessed, in the tone of ex-post-facto prophecy) that in all his peculiarities it was remarked there was about him an elevation of mind, a philosophical tone and manner, and the language and information of a scholar. * Being much in want of the philosophy, it is well that his friends should have given him credit for it; though his last known scene in Leyden showed greatly less of the philosophic mind than of the gentle, grateful heart. Bent upon leaving that city, where he had now been nearly a year without an effort for a degree, he called upon Ellis, and asked his assistance in some trifling sum. It was given; but, as his evil, or (some might say) his good genius would have it, he passed a florist's garden on his return, and seeing some rare and high-priced flowers which his uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such things, had often spoken and been in search of, he ran in without other thought than of immediate pleasure to his kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent them off to Ireland. He left Leyden next day, with a guinea in his pocket, one shirt to his back, and a flute in his hand. * Prior, i. 170. + Percy Memoir, 33, 34. CHAPTER V. TRAVELS. 1755-1756. 1755. To understand what was probably passing in Goldsmith's mind at the curious point of his fortunes when, without any Et. 27. settled prospect in life, and devoid even of all apparent means of self-support, he quitted Leyden, the Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning, the first literary piece which a few years afterwards he published on his own account, will in some degree serve as a guide. The Danish writer, Baron de Holberg, was much talked of at this time, as a celebrated person recently dead. His career impressed Goldsmith. It was that of a man of obscure origin, to whom literature, other sources having failed, had given great fame and high worldly station. On the death of his father, Holberg had found himself involved "in all that distress "which is common among the poor, and of which the great "have scarcely any idea." But, persisting in a determination to be something, he resolutely begged his learning and his bread, and so succeeded that "a life begun in contempt "and penury ended in opulence and esteem." Goldsmith had his thoughts more especially fixed upon this career, 1755. when at Leyden, by the accident of its sudden close in that At. 27. city. The desire too of extensive travel, his sister told Mr. 66 Handcock, had been always a kind of passion with him. "Being of a philosophical turn," says his later associate and friend, Doctor Glover," and at that time possessing a "body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart not "easily terrified at danger, this ingenious, unfortunate man "became an enthusiast to the design he had formed of seeing the manners of different countries."* And an enthusiast to the same design, with precisely the same means of indulging it, Holberg had also been. "His ambition," I turn again to the Polite Learning, "was not to be restrained, or his thirst of knowledge satisfied, until he had seen the "world. Without money, recommendations, or friends, he undertook to set out upon his travels, and make the tour "of Europe on foot. A good voice, and a trifling skill in music, were the only finances he had to support an under"taking so extensive; so he travelled by day, and at night sung at the doors of peasants' houses to get himself a lodging. In this manner, while yet very young, Holberg passed through France, Germany, and Holland." With exactly the same resources, still also very young, Goldsmith quitted Leyden, bent upon the travel which his Traveller has made immortal. 66 66 66 It was in February, 1755. For the exact route he took, the nature of his adventures, and the course of thought they suggested, it is necessary to resort for the most part to his published writings. His letters of the time have perished. * Malone's edition of the Poems (1777), p. iii. And see the Annual Register, xvii, 29, 30. + Inquiry into Polite Learning, chap. vi. No reader of Goldsmith could fail to be struck by this parallel to his own adventures; but Mr. Prior appears to think the discovery of the resemblance a piece of property of his own. 66 66 It was common talk at the dinner table of Reynolds that the 1755. wanderings of the philosophic vagabond in the Vicar of Et. 27. Wakefield had been suggested by his own, and he often admitted at that time, to various friends, the accuracy of special details. "He frequently used to talk," says one * who became very familiar with him in later life," of his "distresses on the continent, such as living on the hospi"talities of the friars in convents, sleeping in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German flute, with great pleasantry." If he did not make more open confession than to private friends, it was to please the booksellers only; who could not bear that any one so popular with their customers as Doctor Goldsmith had become, should lie under the horrible imputation of a poverty so deplorable. "Countries wear very different appearances," he had written in the first edition of the Polite Learning, "to travellers of different circumstances. A man who "is whirled through Europe in a post-chaise, and the pilgrim who walks the grand tour on foot, will form very "different conclusions. Haud inexpertus loquor." In the second edition, the haud inexpertus loquor disappeared; but the experience had been already set down in the Vicar of Wakefield. Louvain attracted him of course, as he passed through Flanders; and here, according to his first biographer, he took the degree of medical bachelor, which, as early as 1763, is This was a young Irish law student named Cooke, who had chambers near him in the Temple, who will have frequent mention in the course of my narrative, and who contributed to the European Magazine not long after Goldsmith's death a series of papers from which I have derived many most interesting and authentic details. It is surprising to me that they should have escaped the attention of the compilers and editor of the Percy Memoir. + European Magazine, xxiv. 91. Life of Dr. O. Goldsmith, printed for Swan, 1774. 8vo. And Annual Register, xvii, 29. Æt.27. 1755. found in one of the Dodsley agreements appended to his name. Though this is by no means certain, it is yet likely enough. The records of Louvain University were destroyed in the revolutionary wars, and the means of proof or disproof lost; but it is improbable that any false assumption of a medical degree would have passed without question among the distinguished friends of his later life, even if it escaped the exposure of his active enemies. Certain it is, at any rate, that he made some stay at Louvain, became acquainted with its professors, and informed himself of its modes of study. "I always forgot the meanness of my circumstances when I could converse upon such subjects." Some little 66 time he also seems to have passed at Brussels. Of his having He Before he passed through Flanders good use had been made of his flute; and when he came to the poorer provinces of France, he found it greatly serviceable. "I had some "knowledge of music," says the vagabond," with a tolerable + Animated Nature, i. 230. *The Bee, ii. |