Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography

by Washington Irving

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

A Biography

By Washington Irving

CONTENTS

[ PREFACE ]

[ CHAPTER ONE -- I. Birth and Parentage—Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race—Poetical Birthplace—Goblin House—Scenes of Boyhood—Lissoy—Picture of a Country Parson—Goldsmith’s Schoolmistress—Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster— Goldsmith’s Hornpipe and Epigram—Uncle Contarine—School Studies and School Sports—Mistakes of a Night]

[ CHAPTER TWO -- II. Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family—Goldsmith at the University—Situation of a Sizer—Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor—Pecuniary Straits—Street Ballads—College Riot—Gallows Walsh—College Prize—A Dance Interrupted]

[ CHAPTER THREE -- III. Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop—Second Sally to see the World—Takes Passage for America—Ship sails without him—Return on Fiddleback—A Hospitable Friend—The Counselor]

[ CHAPTER FOUR -- IV. Sallies forth as a Law Student—Stumbles at the Outset—Cousin Jane and the Valentine—A Family Oracle—Sallies forth as a Student of Medicine—Hocus-pocus of a Boarding-house—Transformations of a Leg of Mutton—The Mock Ghost—Sketches of Scotland—Trials of Toryism—A Poet’s Purse for a Continental Tour]