He now pursued his journey without any further interruption, and arrived at his mother's house in the sudden and unexpected manner already narrated. Once more reconciled to his friends, he did not fail to transmit to his kind benefactor suitable acknowledgments expressive of the grateful sense he entertained of such unlooked-for and generous hospitality.

It was now considered essential that he should fix on a profession, the pursuit of which might divert him from idle and expensive habits. After various consultations, it was determined that he should begin the study of the law, and his uncle Contarine agreed to advance the necessary funds. Provided with money for the expenses of his journey, and to enable him to enter on his studies at the Temple, Oliver set out for London, but his customary imprudence again interfered. He fell by accident into the company of a sharper in Dublin, and being tempted to engage in play, was soon plundered of all his money, and again left to find his way home without a shilling in his pocket.

His friends now almost despaired of him. Notwithstanding the brilliancy of his natural talents, it was feared that his habitual carelessness and improvidence would form a bar to his success in any profession whatever. That it would be vain for him to pursue the study of the law with such dispositions was obvious; and, of course, it was necessary once more to cast about for a profession. After various consultations, therefore, it was finally determined that physic should be his future pursuit; and his kind uncle, who had been prevailed on to pardon him once more, took him again under his protection, and at last fixed him at Edinburgh as a student of medicine, about the end of the year 1752. On his arrival in that city, he had no sooner deposited his trunk in lodgings than he sallied out to see the town. He rambled about until a late hour, and when he felt disposed to turn his face homeward, recollected for the first time that he knew neither the name nor address of his landlady. In this dilemma, as he was wandering at random, he fortunately met with the porter who had carried his baggage, and who now served him as a guide.

In the University of Edinburgh, at that time becoming famous as a school of medicine, he attended the lectures of the celebrated Monro, and the other professors in medical science. What progress he made in this study, however, is not particularly ascertained. Riotous conviviality, and tavern adjournments, whether for business or pleasure, were at that time characteristic of Edinburgh society; and it does not appear that our poet was able to resist the general contagion. His attention to his studies was far from being regular. Dissipation and play allured him from the class-room, and his health and his purse suffered in consequence. About this period, his contemporaries have reported, that he sometimes also sacrificed to the Muses, but of these early effusions no specimen seems to have been preserved.

The social and good-humoured qualities of our poet appear to have made him a general favourite with his fellow-students. He was a keen participator in all their wild pranks and humorous frolics. He was also a prime table companion: always ready with story, anecdote, or song, though it must be confessed that in such exhibitions he was far from being successful. His narrations were too frequently accompanied by grimace or buffoonery; nor was his wit of that chaste and classical kind that might have been expected from his education. On the contrary, it was generally forced, coarse, and unnatural. All his oral communications partook of these defects; and it is a fact not less true than singular, that even in after life he was never exempt from them, although accustomed to the politest literary society.

When conversing on this feature in our poet's character, his friend Dr Johnson many years afterwards, justly, but perhaps rather severely, remarked, « The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this: he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing: he would not keep his knowledge to himself."

On another occasion, Johnson being called on for his opinion on the same subject, took a similar view of it, with much cri

tical acumen, and all his usual power of amplification. «Goldsmith," said he, « should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. A game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith's putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one, unless he can easily spare it; though he has a hundred chances for him, he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state: when he contends, if he get the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he do not get the better, he is miserably vexed. »

Though now arrived at an age when reflection on passing objects and events might have been occasionally elicited, yet it does not appear that any thing of that kind worth preserving occurred in our poet's correspondence with his friends. The only circumstance which seems to have excited particular re◄ mark was the economy of the Scotch in cooking and eating; and of this he would sometimes give rather a ludicrous account. His first landlady, he used to say, nearly starved him out of his lodgings; and the second, though somewhat more liberal, was still a wonderful adept in the art of saving. When permitted to put forth all her talents in this way, she would perform surprising feats. A single loin of mutton would sometimes be made to serve our poet and two fellow-students a whole week ; a brandered chop was served up one day, a fried steak another, collops with onion sauce a third, and so on, till the fleshy parts were quite consumed, when finally a dish of broth was made from the well-picked bones on the seventh day, and the landlady rested from her labours.

After he had attended some courses of lectures at Edinburgh, it was thought advisable that he should complete his medical studies at the University of Leyden, then celebrated as a great medical school: his uncle Contarine furnishing the funds. Goldsmith accordingly looked out at Leith for a vessel for Holland;

but finding one about to sail for Bordeaux, with his usual eccentricity engaged a passage. He found himself, however, in an awkward dilemma about the time of embarkation. He had become security to a tailor for a fellow-student in a considerable amount. The tailor arrested him for debt; and, but for the interference of Mr. Lachlan Maclane and Dr. Sleigh, he would have been thrown into prison. Rescued from this difficulty he embarked, but encountered a storm, and a detention, and an escape from shipwreck, and finally arrived safe at Rotterdam, instead of Bordeaux: all which is thus related by himself, in an extract from a letter, without date, to his generous uncle Contarine.

« Some time after the receipt of your last, I embarked for Bordeaux, on board a Scotch ship, called the St Andrew, Captain John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and as another inducement, I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to be my company. Well, we were but two days at sea when a storm drove us into a city of England, called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh us, after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one day on shore, and on the following evening, as we were all very merry, the room door bursts open, enters a sergeant and twelve grenadiers, with their bayonets screwed, and puts us all under the king's arrest. It seems my company were Scotchmen in the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the French army. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence; however, I remained in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then. Dear sir, keep this all a secret, or at least say it was for debt; for if it were once known at the university, I should hardly get a degree. But hear how Providence interposed in my favour; the ship was gone on to Bordeaux before I got from prison, and was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and every one of the crew were drowned. It happened the last great storm. There was a ship at that time ready for Holland; I embarked, and in nine days, thank my God, I arrived safe at Rotterdam, whence I travelled by land to Leyden, and whence I now write.»

VOL I.

B

He proceeds in the same letter to amuse his friends with a whimsical account of the costume and manners of the Hollanders; which we also extract for the entertainment of the reader.

« You may expect some account of this country; and though I am not well qualified for such an undertaking, yet I shall endeavour to satisfy some part of your expectations. Nothing surprised me more than the books every day published descriptive of the manners of this country. Any young man who takes it into his head to publish his travels, visits the countries he intends to describe; passes through them with as much inattention as his valet de chambre; and consequently, not having a fund himself to fill a volume, he applies to those who wrote before him, and gives us the manners of a country, not as he must have seen them, but such as they might have been fifty years before. The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature from him of former times: he in every thing imitates a Frenchman, but in his easy disengaged air, which is the result of keeping polite company. The Dutchman 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 head of lank 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 almost up to his arm-pits. 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 petticoats.

« A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. I take it that this continual smoking is what gives the man the ruddy healthful complexion he generally wears, by draining his superfluous moisture; while the woman,