STUDENT LETTERS.
I omit from consideration the letter Oliver is alleged, on no evidence at all, to have written to his mother in 1751 after his adventures in Ireland and attempted voyage to America. This is obviously a hash-up by some later pen of the story which was written out after the poet’s death by his sister Mrs. Catherine Hodson for the purposes of the “Percy Memoir,” the original of which in Mrs. Hodson’s own writing and spelling is among the papers which I exhibit. The earliest of Goldsmith’s own letters which is known to have survived was that written from Edinburgh by Oliver to his benefactor Uncle Contarine on 8 May, 1753. This was unearthed by Sir James Prior at a later period of his investigations, having been “long though vainly sought in various quarters,” and is published in his Vol. I, 1837, pp. 145-7. What has happened to it since I have not been able to discover. Oliver describes in it his progress with his medical studies, and winds up thus: “How I enjoy the pleasing hope of returning with skill, and to find my friends stand in no need of my assistance! How many happy years do I wish you! and nothing but want of health can take from you happiness, since you so well pursue the paths that conduct to virtue.”
There is another letter of about the same period addressed by Oliver from Edinburgh to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson of Lissoy, of which only a fragment now exists. It was formerly in the Rowfant collection of the late Mr. Locker-Lampson, but now belongs to Mr. F. R. Halsey of New York. In it Oliver speaks of his attending the public lectures: “I am in my lodging. I have hardly any society but a folio book, a skeleton, my cat and my meagre landlady. I read hard, which is a thing I never could do when the study was displeasing.” He refers to his impecunious position and to the sacrifices his relations had made on his behalf. He asks his dear Dan to remember him to every friend. “There is one on whom I never think without affliction, but conceal it from him.” (This apparently refers to Uncle Contarine). “Direct to me at Surgeon Sinclairs in the Trunk Close, Edinburgh.”
The next letter of this student series is to his school-friend and companion, Robert Bryanton of Ballymahon, dated from Edinburgh “Sepr. ye 26th 1753.” The original of this letter is the earliest in point of date which I am able to exhibit to you this afternoon. Oliver commences by a humorous apology for not having written before. “I might allege that business had never given me time to finger a pen: but I suppress those and twenty others equally plausible and as easily invented, since they might all be attended with a slight inconvenience of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth: an hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother’s side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland: no turn-spit dog gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write: yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address.”
This letter was a long one, with clever references to the Scottish scenery and people, the relations of the sexes, the characteristics of the Scotch women, and other light hearted topics. It was published by Percy in the Edition of 1801, with a number of genteel emendations, such as “mouth puckered up so as scarcely to admit a pea” in replacement of “mouth puckered up to the size of an Issue,” and the omission of the last paragraph and also the postscript: “Give my sincere regards (not compliments do you mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my mother if you see her: for as you express it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, Student of Physick in Edinburgh.”
The next letter in order of date is a second one to Uncle Contarine, not dated but ascribed to the close of 1753 or January, 1754. It was retrieved by Prior for his Life of 1837 (I, 154), but its present whereabouts is unknown. It announces Oliver’s intention to go to France in the following February, to spend the spring and summer in Paris, and go to Leyden at the beginning of the next winter. He sends his earnest love to his cousin Jenny (Mrs. Lawder) and her husband, asks after “my poor Jack” (doubtless his youngest brother), and describes himself as “dear Uncle, Your most devoted Oliver Goldsmith.”
The next letter is an important and very interesting one, and describes Oliver’s compulsory change of plans. It was sent from Leyden some time in the summer of 1754, and is written on three pages of a foolscap sheet of unusually large size, 15 × 9¾ inches. The fourth page has, as you will see, this address upon it: “To | the Revd. Mr. Thos. Contarine, at Kilmore near | Carrick on Shannon in Ireland,” with the words added “This letter is chargd. 1s. 8d.” It appears therefrom that he embarked from Edinburgh on board a Scotch ship bound for Bordeaux and that a storm drove them into Newcastle, where he was arrested.
“Seven men and me were one day on shore, and the following evening, as we were all verry merry, the room door bursts open; enters a Sergeant and Twelve Grenadiers with their bayonets screwd, and puts us all under the King’s arrest. It seems my Company were Scotch men in the French service. 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. Dr. Sr. keep this all a secret, or at least say it was for debt: for it were once known at the university I should hardly get a degree.”
As to his future movements, Goldsmith says in this letter from Leyden:
“Physic is by no means taught so well as in Edinburgh.... I am not certain how long my stay here will be: however I expect to have the happiness of seeing you at Kidmore, if I can, next March.”
Oliver describes in much humorous detail the scenery of the country and characteristics of the Dutch people. He says:
“The downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in Nature. Upon a head of lank hair he wears a half-cockd narrow-leav’d hat, lacd with black ribon: no coat but seven waistcoats and nine pairs of breeches so that his hips reach almost up to his arm-pits. This well cloathed 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 friez cap with a deal of flanders lace and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats. Is it not surprizing how things shoud ever come close enough to make it a match?”
Bishop Percy prints the whole of this letter, except that he delicately bowdlerised one or two phrases in it, and from the Percy version it has reappeared in every one of the succeeding biographies.