His mother's house at Ballymahon, where she lived as a widow about twenty years, is still pointed out to the curious; it forms one corner of the road to Edgeworthstown. Some shop accounts have been preserved, in which Oliver, under the familiar title of Master Noll, is found figuring as his mother's messenger for tea and sugar; it was only to the next door. Opposite to his mother's house stood George Conway's inn, where he used to spend many a gay and jovial evening, in the company of those who resorted thither, and often amused them with a story or a song. Here he was naturally a great authority in matters of learning. From scenes and characters occurring here, it is believed he drew the first idea of Tony Lumpkin; at all events, in such a circle he saw traits of human life and action that would be found as old gold at the necessary time. At Ballymulvey House, in the neighborhood, he spent many happy hours with his friend, and quondam college and school companion, Mr. Robert Bryanton, and also with him made excursions into the surrounding country, sometimes shooting, sometimes fishing in the Inny, which runs through the town. In these rambles he made himself as familiar with nature and her wild children as he did with man in towns; he traced the haunts of the wild fowl, and hunted the otter in the waters that there communicate with the Shannon. There are many objects in the neighborhood of Ballymahon still proudly pointed out as belonging to the haunts of Goldsmith: the islets in the river; the ruins of a mill, in his time in full activity; the places on the river side where he used to sit and play on his flute; as well as the house of a Mr. Gannon, where, as he himself tells us in his Animated Nature, he first saw a seal, this gentleman having two for ten years in his house.
In this portion of his life there are many rich and amusing incidents, which it is to be regretted we can not here introduce, particularly that most amusing account of his visit to an old college friend, who had often pressed him to come and "command his stable and his purse," but who turned out as such friends often do. But we have over-stepped his sojourn at college, and must turn back to it.
Trinity College, Dublin, is a noble structure; and, with its spacious courts and extensive gardens, more fittingly deserving the name of parks, one would think a place where the years of studentship might—especially in the heart of such a city—be very agreeably spent. But Goldsmith entered there under circumstances that were irksome to him, and, to add to the matter, he met with a brute in his tutor. The family income did not allow him to occupy a higher rank than that of a sizer, or poor scholar, and this was mortifying to his sensitive mind. The sizer wears a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, a plain black cloth cap without a tassel, and dines at the fellows' table after they have retired. It was at that period far worse; they wore red caps to distinguish them, and were compelled to perform derogatory offices: to sweep the courts in the morning, carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fellows' table, and wait in the hall till they had dined. No wonder that a mind like that of Goldsmith's writhed under the degradation! He has recorded his own feelings and opinions on this custom: "Sure pride itself has dictated to the fellows of our colleges the absurd fashion of being attended at meals, and on other public occasions, by those poor men who, willing to be scholars, come in upon some charitable foundation. It implies a contradiction for men to be at once learning the liberal arts, and, at the same time, treated as slaves; at once studying freedom and practicing servitude." A spirited fellow at length caused the abolition of the practice of the sizers acting as waiters, and that, too, on grand occasions before the public, by flinging the dish he was carrying on Trinity Sunday at the head of a citizen in the crowd, assembled to witness the scene, who made some jeering remarks on the office he had to perform.
His tutor, a great brute—let his name be known: it was Wilder—proceeded sometimes to actual corporeal castigation; and, with Oliver's natural tendency to poetry rather than to dry classical and mathematical studies, like many other poets, including Scott and Byron, he cut no great figure at college; and, like the latter, detested it. Among his cotemporaries at the college was Edmund Burke, but they appear to have known little of each other. To add to Goldsmith's uncomfortable position, there occurred a riot of the students, who, hearing that one of their body had been arrested in Fleet-street, rushed to the rescue, seized the bailiffs, dragged them to the college, and pumped them soundly in the old cistern. They next attempted to break open Newgate, and make a general jail delivery, but failed for want of cannon. In the subsequent inquiry Goldsmith came in, not for any severe punishment, but for a college censure. Feeling his self-respect deeply wounded by his brutal tutor entering his chambers on one occasion when he had a party of merry comrades there, and in their presence inflicting personal chastisement upon him, he quitted college, selling his books, and set off to Cork to embark for some foreign country; but his money failed; he was compelled to sell his clothes from his back, and, brought to the utmost condition of misery and starvation, he thus reached his brother's house, who again clothed him, and brought him back to college, endeavoring to propitiate the brutal tutor. His father dying, he was reduced to the deepest distress. His generous uncle Contarine helped him all he could, but, with Oliver's careless habits, he was still often reduced to the utmost straits. He was sometimes compelled to pawn his books, and borrow others to study from. His condition became that of squalid poverty, and at length he was driven to the extremity of writing street-ballads, which he found a ready sale for, at five shillings a copy, at a shop known as the sign of the Reindeer, in Mountrath-street. Eventually obtaining the degree of B.A., he quitted the University, and, as we have seen, retreated to his own native neighborhood and friends.
All chance of succeeding as a clergyman, to which office he, moreover, had an aversion, appearing out of the question, and having either no inclination, or not sufficient spirit of plodding for the pursuit of law, which had been recommended to him, by assistance of his friends he crossed over to Edinburgh, and commenced in that University the study of physic. We have no clew to the exact lodgings of Goldsmith during his stay in Edinburgh, which was two winters. Men in the poverty of Goldsmith, as a student, seldom record very traceably their whereabouts. The tradition is, however, that the lodgings he chiefly occupied were in the College Wynd; and this is very likely, both because the situation is very convenient for the college, and because the character of the place agrees pretty much with the sort of entertainment he describes himself to have found in them. The College Wynd is a narrow alley of wretched houses, now inhabited only by the lowest grade of population. It is probable, however, that in it was the better class of lodgings which Goldsmith occupied in this city. The house in which he located himself at first was also a boarding-house, but of such a description that he used, in after days, to amuse his friends in London with an account of the economy of the table. A leg of mutton, as he told the story, dished up in various ways by the ingenuity of his hostess, served for the better part of dinner during a week; a dish of broth being made on the seventh day from the bone. He soon fled from this luxurious abode, and joined several other students, his friends and countrymen, who were better accommodated, most likely in this College Wynd. He had the advantage of studying under the elder Monro; he became a member of the Medical Society; but was soon more noted for his convivial talents and habits than for his industrious study. He made a trip into the Highlands on a pony, he says, of the size of a ram, and wrote a humorous account of Scotland and the people to his friend, Robert Bryanton, of Ballymahon. Through some Irish connection he was invited to the Duke of Hamilton's, whose duchess at that time was one of the celebrated Gunnings; but he said he soon found himself liked rather as a jester than as a companion, and he at once disdained the company of dukes on any such terms. Among his college friends was that Lauchlan Macleane, whom Sir David Brewster has of late again been endeavoring to prove to be the real Junius, though his claims were long ago sifted, and rejected by public opinion; particularly from the cogent facts that Macleane was the private secretary of Lord Shelburne at the very time that his lordship was violently attacked by Junius, under another signature, in 1767, according to Woodfall's evidence, which would convert Macleane into Junius at the cost of all character; and, secondly, because Macleane was himself ridiculed by Junius, under the signature of Vindex, in 1771.
Having, with his usual incaution in such matters, become security for a fellow-student, he would not have been able to quit Edinburgh had it not been for Macleane and Dr. Joseph Fenn Sleigh, a Quaker, and afterward a popular physician at Cork. Saved from arrest by their kindness, he embarked for Bordeaux, but was driven into Newcastle-on-Tyne, where, the ship proving to be engaged in enlisting soldiers for the French army, he was seized and cast into prison for a fortnight before he could prove his innocence. In the mean time the ship had escaped out of the harbor. He had lost his passage, and his passage-money and luggage, but saved his life, for the ship was wrecked, and every soul perished. He then went over to Rotterdam, studied at Leyden for a year, but, as far as appears, took no degree; and thence set off, on foot, on that tour of which so much has always been said in connection with his name. With his usual good-natured thoughtlessness, when about to set forward from Leyden, provided with a small fund by his uncle Contarine, being struck, in the garden of a florist, with some beautiful bulbous flowers, and recollecting in his gratitude his uncle Contarine's admiration of those flowers, he spent most of the money in purchasing a quantity of them to ship to Ireland for him, as the most welcome present he could think of, and then set out, almost penniless, on his journey. His tour extended through Flanders; and France, at Paris attending the chemical lectures of Rouelle, and being introduced to Voltaire; a small portion of Germany; thence through Switzerland, visiting some of its most celebrated scenes, and climbing some of its highest mountains, as the Jura, into Italy, where he extended his journey to most of the northern cities, Mantua, Milan, Padua, Florence, Verona, Venice, and the wilds of Carinthia, but never reached Rome or Naples. His necessities became too great to permit him to go farther. In France his flute was, among the peasantry, as represented in his Traveler, a never-failing resource; not so in Italy. There the higher taste for music made his rude skill useless; but he found many of his countrymen residents in the monasteries, and these were always ready to relieve his wants. He found also another resource, which he relates in his Philosophic Vagabond: "My skill in music could avail me nothing in Italy, where every peasant was a better musician than I; but by this time I had acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents, there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought my way toward England; walked along from city to city, examined mankind more closely, and, if I may so express it, saw both sides of the picture."
There is no question that this hardy enterprise of making the tour of Europe on foot, and pushing his way as he could, by his powers of argument or his flute, though, as he observed, it made him a debtor in almost every kingdom in Europe, yet immensely extended his knowledge of human nature. He was the first man, through his close observation of the French people, to predict their breaking up the despotism of the old monarchy. "As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom. When I consider that these Parliaments, the members of which are all created by the court; the presidents of which can only act by immediate direction; presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who, till of late, received directions from the throne with implicit humility; when this is considered, I can not help fancying that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs successively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country will certainly once more be free." This was a remarkable prophecy; the sagacity of Goldsmith penetrated the eventful future twelve years before the mind of Burke, by treading the same ground, arrived at the same conclusion.
In 1756 Oliver Goldsmith reached England, destined now to the end of his life to become the scene of his varied struggles, his poverty, and his fame. It were a long story to follow him minutely through all his numerous pursuits of an existence, his various changes of residence for a long time, without much advance toward profit or reputation. The early part of his career is lost in obscurity and conjecture. He stepped upon the shore of England a nameless adventurer, destitute of cash, and uncertain as to what means of livelihood he should embrace. The struggle which now and for some time went on was for life itself. He was reduced to the most desperate circumstances. He applied for assistance to his relations in Ireland, but whether they could no longer help him, or whether they now regarded his continual wanderings, and continual drain upon them, as the confirmed signs of a thriftless vagabond, none came. It is said that in this situation he tried the stage in a country town, and his intimate acquaintanceship with the interior of the wretched country play-house, as displayed in The Adventures of a Strolling Player, and the conclusion of the story of George Primrose, renders it very probable. He was driven by utter need, according to the by-word of the Irishman, to be almost "any body's customer." The next resource was, trusting to his scholastic acquirements to procure an engagement as an usher in a country school. But his appearance must have been against him; reference he had none in this country to give, and though he applied to his old kind tutor in Dublin, Dr. Radcliffe, not the brute Wilder, he requested his recommendation to be given to him under a feigned name, being ashamed of hereafter having his present condition associated with his own. Dr. Radcliffe was obliged to be silent. Goldsmith held this situation, it may be supposed, under these circumstances for no long period; but the very location of the school is unknown; it has been said to be in Yorkshire, and also in Kent, near Ashford or Tenterden. What sort of a life he had of it in this "Do-the-boys Hall," wherever it was, we may learn from the curious catechism he puts into the mouth of the cousin of one of his heroes. "Ay, this is indeed a very pretty career that has been chalked out for you. I have been an usher at a boarding-school myself; and may I die by an anodyne necklace, but I had rather be under-turnkey in Newgate. I was up early and late. I was browbeat by the master; hated for my ugly face by the mistress; worried by the boys within, and never permitted to stir out to receive civility abroad. But are you sure you are fit for a school? Let me examine you a little. Have you been bred apprentice to the business?" "No." "Then you won't do for a school. Have you had the small-pox?" "No." "Then you won't do for a school. Can you lie three in a bed?" "No." "Then you won't do for a school. Have you got a good stomach?" "Yes." "Then you will by no means do for a school!"
Driven from such a purgatory even for want of a character, Goldsmith, with The Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wakefield in his hand, was once more wandering the streets of London amid a thousand other equally destitute wretches. He applied to apothecary after apothecary, trusting to his medical education, for employment with them; but, with all the traces of vagabond indigence upon him, and without any recommendation to show, his repulses were certain. A chemist of the name of Jacob, residing at the corner of Monument or Bell Yard, on Fish Hill, taking compassion on his destitute condition, at length gave him employment. It may be supposed to be about this time that his lodgings were of that magnificent description with which he once in after life startled a circle of good company, breaking out suddenly in some fit of forgetful enthusiasm with, "When I lived among the beggars in Ax Lane." His first gleam of better fortune was finding his old Edinburgh college friend, Dr. Sleigh, in London, who received him in all his squalor with the warmth of true friendship, and enabled him to commence as physician in Bankside, Southwark. It did not answer, and the next glimpse of him is acting as a corrector of the press in the printing-office of Richardson the novelist. The next fortunate circumstance was meeting with Mr. Milner, one of his old Edinburgh fellow-students, whose father, Dr. Milner, a Dissenting minister, kept a classical school at Peckham, in Surrey. By him he was recommended to his father, to assist him in his school duties. Dr. Milner was suffering under severe illness, and Goldsmith's services were accepted. Here he continued for some time, it has been said by part of the family, three years; and this connection led to the one which brought him into the direct field of authorship. Mr., afterward Dr. Griffiths, a bookseller of Paternoster Row, had started the Monthly Review, and was beating up for contributors. Goldsmith, whom he had become acquainted with at Dr. Milner's, was one invited. The engagement is calculated to make both proprietors and authors of the present day smile. Goldsmith was regularly boarded and lodged in the bibliopole's house—the hired servant of literature. How satisfactory this odd arrangement of keeping a tame author turned out, may be guessed by the fact that the engagement for a year ended in five months. The great fact at which Goldsmith kicked was, that not only Griffiths, but his wife, was in the regular habit of acting as the censor, and altering the articles written for the Review.