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GOL money on the road, and returned to Ballymahon upon a lean horse. His friends now took counsel and decided that Oliver should study law. A purse was made up, to which his worthy uncle Contarine contributed fifty pounds. No sooner did he reach Dublin than he lost his money in play, returned in disgrace, found the door of his justly-irritated mother's house closed against him, and took shelter with that uncle who seemed ever ready to forgive and befriend him. Divinity and law had failed; physic was suggested; once more uncle Contarine's pocket supplied him; and in 1754 he is a medical student at Edinburgh. After two years' study—not undiversified by occasional outbreaks of his characteristic imprudence and love of pleasure—he went to Leyden. How he got on there it is hard to say; and though he heard Albinus lecture on anatomy and Gaubius on chemistry, it is probable he attended less to his professional studies than to the acquisition of general knowledge. Whether from want of money or want of qualification, he does not appear to have taken a degree in medicine, and after near a year's residence he left Leyden "with a guinea in his pocket, one shirt to his back, and a flute in his hand." Oliver is now twenty-six years old, ardent, inquisitive, improvident, yet self-reliant. In February, 1755, he sallies forth to gratify one of the most passionate longings of his soul: to see the moral, intellectual, and physical features of the countries of southern Europe; to study men and manners. Of the incidents of his travel, it is to be regretted that he kept no accurate record; we track him from place to place by his letters, and learn his feelings and impressions in the works which he afterwards gave to the world. He went to Louvain, where it is believed he took the degree of bachelor of medicine; he wandered through Flanders and France, indebted often to his flute for bed and board. "Whenever," he says, "I approached a peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day." In Paris he is said to have made the acquaintance of several distinguished men; and in his rambles through Switzerland he visited Geneva, and conversed with Voltaire, Diderot, and Fontenelle. Thence over the Alps into Italy, seeing Florence, Verona, Mantua, and Milan; and so after some further rambling he fought his way towards England, walking from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and, as he says himself, "seeing both sides of the picture." It was in February, 1756, that he found himself in London. Who can say what were the shifts and struggles for life of the unknown and penniless stranger? No relief came from home; he could not, without a character, obtain the post even of an apothecary's drudge. He lived, as he afterwards said, "among the beggars in Axe Lane." At last a fellow-student of Edinburgh helped him with purse and interest, and he commenced to practise as a physician amongst the humble folks of Bankside. This was little better than starvation, and so he got an introduction to Richardson, and became his reader and corrector of the press. Next he went to superintend a school at Peckham during the illness of the master. Dr. Milner, and there he became acquainted with Griffiths the bookseller and proprietor of the Monthly Review. Griffiths discovered his value, though he drove a hard bargain with him, working him like a slave for a wretched stipend and his board and lodging. For five months he toiled and suffered till toil and suffering became intolerable, and he quarrelled with his task-master. His shifts to support existence are as desperate as ever. Once again he goes to Dr. Milner; then he returns to London to write and starve: "in a garret, writing for bread and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score." At last, in 1758, he obtained an appointment of medical officer to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel, but was rejected at the examination in Surgeons' Hall, deeply mortifying to him, but happily for the world. Back again he is, as by a fatality, thrown upon literature, and so he writes for the Critical Review, the opponent of the Monthly. Once more he works for Griffiths and produced a bad life of Voltaire. Meantime he had applied every spare moment in preparing a work which he was long excogitating, the "Essay on the Polite Literature of Europe." To this he looked as that which was to give him a permanent place in literature—something beyond a hack writer of ephemeral essays. Out it came, published by the Dodsleys in April, 1759. It was in advance of any similar effort in that day. "No one," justly remarks Mr. Forster, "was prepared, in a treatise so grave, for a style so enchantingly graceful." A reputation came with it, though not much wealth, for he was still improvident and indigent; but better than wealth came in the acquaintance of Percy and others, but above all, of Johnson. Shortly after, he was engaged to bring out, in weekly numbers, the Bee, which appeared in October, 1759. It had not the success it deserved, and, notwithstanding some charming essays, died after its eighth number. Newberry and Smollett now enlisted him to aid in the Public Ledger; in which appeared those delightful letters which were afterwards collected under the title of "The Citizen of the World." Other literary labours he undertook at the same time, for he now began to be valued and sought; and leaving his miserable room in Green Arbour Court, he took lodgings in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, in 1760. Here it was that his intercourse with Johnson became more intimate. The giant of English literature had stamped him with his imprimatur, and with Percy, bishop of Dromore, supped with him. Other great names were soon enrolled in the list of his friends—Reynolds, Hogarth, Garrick, and Burke. His life was now easier, though his joyous temperament and reckless disregard of money kept him still only just above want. Hard work, too, brought failing health, and in 1762 he removed to the purer air of the then suburban Islington. It was in the following year that he published the "History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son"—the basis of his after "History of England." The anonymous work had great success, and was attributed to Lord Chesterfield, Lord Orrery, and Lord Lyttleton. A high honour now awaited him—one for which the highest in birth might sue in vain—he was admitted as one of the original members of that distinguished social galaxy which some years after obtained the name of the Literary Club. Whatever might be the precarious income which Goldsmith picked up by his multifarious writings, it could not keep him out of extravagance and debt; and so we find him, in 1764, arrested by his landlady for arrears of rent. In this dilemma he applied to Johnson, who sent him a guinea, and followed it soon after. He found the poor author had converted the guinea into a bottle of madeira, which he was drinking in a state of great excitement. Johnson corked the bottle and calmed the drinker. "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 £60." This was the world-renowned "Vicar of Wakefield." Strange to say, Johnson did not seem fully to estimate its merits, and thought it well paid for. So, too, thought the purchaser, for he kept the manuscript over till after the publication of "The Traveller." This last had been the thoughtful labour of many an hour. In it were treasured the philosophic reflections of his two years' travel, expressed in language which had received again and again the careful emendation of many a moment snatched from other work. It was published by Newbery on the 16th December, 1764, bearing the author's name, and dedicated to his brother Henry. By those who were best calculated to pronounce a judgment the merit of the poem was at once recognized. "There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time," said Johnson; and others accorded as high praise. Langton remarked, "there is not a bad line in that poem;" and Fox pronounced it "one of the first poems in the English language." The reviews and literary journals then began to see its beauties, and at last the general public believed in it. Edition after edition was called for, and translations were made into more than one continental language; and for this poem he received only twenty guineas! Goldsmith's reputation was now placed on a solid basis, so that some of his previous writings were collected and published with his name. An anecdote singularly illustrative of Goldsmith's nature is recorded. The duke of Northumberland sent for him; told him he had read his poem and was much delighted with it; and, as he was going to Ireland, said he would be glad to do him any kindness: to which Goldsmith replied that he "had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help." But he asked nothing for himself. "Thus," says the narrator of the interview, "did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him!" But while rejecting other offers of this kind, and failing to improve opportunities of patronage, he was induced once more to look for professional success, thinking that his literary reputation would now aid him. Accordingly we find him turning out, in June, 1765, to practise medicine, "in purple