Oliver Goldsmith | Page 8

promote a mercenary match. In the first transports of his feelings he is
said to have uttered a wish that his daughter might never have a child to
bring like shame and sorrow on her head. The hasty wish, so contrary
to the usual benignity of the man, was recalled and repented of almost
as soon as uttered; but it was considered baleful in its effects by the
superstitious neighborhood; for, though his daughter bore three
children, they all died before her.
A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to ward off the
apprehended imputation, but one which imposed a heavy burden on his
family. This was to furnish a marriage portion of four hundred pounds,
that his daughter might not be said to have entered her husband's family
empty-handed. To raise the sum in cash was impossible; but he
assigned to Mr. Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until
the marriage portion should be paid. In the meantime, as his living did
not amount to £200 per annum, he had to practice the strictest economy
to pay off gradually this heavy tax incurred by his nice sense of honor.
The first of his family to feel the effects of this economy was Oliver.
The time had now arrived for him to be sent to the University, and,

accordingly, on the 11th of June, 1747, when sixteen years of age, he
entered Trinity College, Dublin; but his father was no longer able to
place him there as a pensioner, as he had done his eldest son Henry; he
was obliged, therefore, to enter him as a sizer or "poor scholar." He was
lodged in one of the top rooms adjoining the library of the building,
numbered 35, where it is said his name may still be seen, scratched by
himself upon a window frame.
A student of this class is taught and boarded gratuitously, and has to
pay but a very small sum for his room. It is expected, in return for these
advantages, that he will be a diligent student, and render himself useful
in a variety of ways. In Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's
admission, several derogatory and indeed menial offices were exacted
from the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for conferring
benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep part of the
courts in the morning, to carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the
fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until that body had dined. His very
dress marked the inferiority of the "poor student" to his happier
classmates. It was a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a
plain black cloth cap without a tassel. We can conceive nothing more
odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which attached the idea of
degradation to poverty, and placed the indigent youth of merit below
the worthless minion of fortune. They were calculated to wound and
irritate the noble mind, and to render the base mind baser.
Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks upon youths of proud
spirits and quick sensibilities became at length too notorious to be
disregarded. About fifty years since, on a Trinity Sunday, a number of
persons were assembled to witness the college ceremonies; and as a
sizer was carrying up a dish of meat to the fellows' table, a burly citizen
in the crowd made some sneering observation on the servility of his
office. Stung to the quick, the high-spirited youth instantly flung the
dish and its contents at the head of the sneerer. The sizer was sharply
reprimanded for this outbreak of wounded pride, but the degrading task
was from that day forward very properly consigned to menial hands.
It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered college in

this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was affected by the inferior
station he was doomed to hold among his gay and opulent
fellow-students, and he became, at times, moody and despondent. A
recollection of these early mortifications induced him, in after years,
most strongly to dissuade his brother Henry, the clergyman, from
sending a son to college on a like footing. "If he has ambition, strong
passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him
there, unless you have no other trade for him except your own."
To add to his annoyances the fellow of the college who had the peculiar
control of his studies, the Rev. Theaker Wilder, was a man of violent
and capricious temper, and of diametrically opposite tastes. The tutor
was devoted to the exact sciences; Goldsmith was for the classics.
Wilder endeavored to force his favorite studies upon the student by
harsh means, suggested by his own coarse and savage nature. He
abused him in presence