Lives of the English Poets / From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's Lives

by Henry Francis Cary

His father, who had before resided at Smith-hill in the county of Roscommon, (which has by some been erroneously said to be the birth-place of his son, Oliver,) removed thence to Pallas, and afterwards to his Rectory of Kilkenny West, in the county of Westmeath; and in the latter of these parishes, at Lissoy, or Auburn, he built the house described as the Village-Preacher's modest mansion in the Deserted Village. His mother was daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the diocesan school at Elphin. Their family consisted of five sons and three daughters.

In a letter from his elder sister, Catherine, the wife of Daniel Hodson, Esq. inserted in the Life of Goldsmith, which an anonymous writer, whom I suppose to have been Cowper's friend, Mr. Rose, from a passage in Mr. Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, prefixed to his Miscellaneous Works, wonders are told of his early predilection for the poetical art; but those who have observed the amplification with which the sprightly sallies of childhood are related by domestic fondness, will listen to such narrations with some abatement of confidence. It seems probable, that a desire of literary distinction might have been infused into his youthful mind by hearing of the reputation of his countryman, Parnell, with whom, as we learn from his life of that poet, his father and uncle were acquainted.

He received the first rudiments of learning from a school-master who taught in the village where his parents resided, and who had served as a quarter-master during the war of the Succession in Spain; and from the romantic accounts which this man delighted to give of his travels, Goldsmith is supposed, by his sister, to have contracted his propensity for a wandering life. From hence he was removed successively to the school at Elphin, of which the Rev. Mr. Griffin was master, and to that of Athlone; kept by the Rev. Mr. Campbell; and lastly, was placed under the care of the Rev. Patrick Hughes, of Edgeworthstown, in the county of Longford, to whose instruction he acknowledged himself to have been more indebted than to that of his other teachers.

It was probably that untowardness in his outward appearance, which never afterwards left him, that made his schoolfellows consider him a dull boy, fit only to be the butt of their ridicule.

On his last return after the holidays to the house of his master, an adventure befel him, which afterwards was made the ground-work of the plot in one of his comedies. Journeying along leisurely, and being inclined to enjoy such diversion as a guinea, that had been given him for pocket-money, would afford him on the road, he was overtaken by night at a small town called Ardagh. Here, inquiring for the best house in the place, he was directed to a gentleman's habitation that literally answered that description. Under a delusion, the opposite to that entertained by the knight of La Mancha, he rides up to the supposed inn; and having given his horse in charge to the ostler, enters without ceremony; The master of the house, aware of the mistake, resolves to favour it; and is still less inclined to undeceive his guest, when he finds out from his discourse that he is the son of an acquaintance and a neighbour. A good supper and a bottle or two of wine are called for, of which the host, with his wife and daughter, are invited to partake; and a hot cake is providently ordered for the morrow's breakfast. The young traveller's surprise may be conceived, when in calling for his bill, he finds under what roof he has been lodged, and with whom he had been putting himself on such terms of familiarity.

In June, 1745, he was sent a sizer to Trinity College, Dublin, and placed under the tuition of Mr. Wilder, one of the fellows, who is represented to have been of a temper so morose as to excite the strongest disgust in the mind of his pupil. He did not pass through his academical course without distinction. Dr. Kearney (who was afterwards provost), in a note on Boswell's Life of Johnson, informs us, that Goldsmith gained a premium at the Christmas examination, which, according to Mr. Malone, is more honourable than those obtained at the other examinations, inasmuch as it is the only one that determines the successful candidate to be the first in literary merit. This is enough to disprove what Johnson is reported to have said of him, that he was a plant that flowered late; that there appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young; though when he had got into fame, one of his friends began to recollect something of his being distinguished at college. Whether he took a degree is not known.[1] On one occasion he narrowly escaped expulsion for having been concerned in the rescue of a student, who, in violation of the supposed privileges of the University had been arrested for debt within its precincts: but his superiors contented themselves with passing a public censure on him.

Having been deprived, in 1747, by death, of his father, who had with difficulty supported him at college, he became a dependant on the bounty of his uncle,[2] the Rev. Thomas Contarine; and after fluctuating in his choice of an employment in life, was at length established as a medical student at Edinburgh, in his twenty-fifth year.

Dr. Strean mentions, that he was at one time intended for the church, but that appearing before the Bishop, when he went to be examined for orders, in a pair of scarlet breeches, he was rejected.

From Edinburgh, when he had completed his attendance on the usual course of lectures, he removed to Leyden, with the intention of continuing his studies at that University.

Johnson used to speak with coarse contempt of Goldsmith's want of veracity. "Noll," said he to a lady of much distinction in literature, who repeated to me his words, "Noll, madam, would lie through an inch board." In this instance, Johnson's known partiality to Goldsmith fixes the stigma so deeply, that we can place no reliance on the account he gave of what befel him, when he imagined himself to be no longer within reach of detection. In a letter to his uncle he relates that, before going to Holland, he had embarked in a vessel for Bordeaux, that the ship was driven by a storm into Newcastle-upon-Tyne, that he was there seized on suspicion of being engaged with the rebels, and thrown into prison; that the vessel, meanwhile proceeding on her voyage, was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, where all the crew perished; and that, at the end of a fortnight, being liberated, he set sail in a vessel bound for Holland, and in nine days arrived safely at Rotterdam. After a residence of about a twelve-month at Leyden, he was involved in difficulties, occasioned by his love of gambling, a ridiculous inclination that adhered to him for the remainder of his life. He now set out with the resolution of visiting the principal parts of the Continent on foot; and, according to his own report of himself, made his way by a variety of stratagems, sometimes recruiting his finances by the acquisition of small sums proposed in the foreign universities to public disputants; at others, securing himself a hospitable reception by the exercise of a moderate share of skill in playing the flute—his "tuneless pipe," as he calls it, in that passage of The Traveller, where he alludes to this method of supplying his wants.