The Complete Poetical Works | Page 6

lad. He forthwith sold
his books and belongings, and ran away, vaguely bound for America.
But after considerable privations, including the achievement of a
destitution so complete that a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl
at a wake, seemed a banquet, he turned his steps homeward, and, a
reconciliation having been patched up with his tutor, he was received
once more at college. In February, 1749, he took his degree, a low one,
as B.A., and quitted the university, leaving behind him, for relics of
that time, a scratched signature upon a window-pane, a 'folio' Scapula
scored liberally with 'promises to pay,' and a reputation for much
loitering at the college gates in the study of passing humanity. Another
habit which his associates recalled was his writing of ballads when in

want of funds. These he would sell at five shillings apiece; and would
afterwards steal out in the twilight to hear them sung to the
indiscriminate but applauding audience of the Dublin streets.
What was to be done with a genius so unstable, so erratic? Nothing,
apparently, but to let him qualify for orders, and for this he is too young.
Thereupon ensues a sort of 'Martin's summer' in his changing life,--a
disengaged, delightful time when 'Master Noll' wanders irresponsibly
from house to house, fishing and flute-playing, or, of winter evenings,
taking the chair at the village inn. When at last the moment came for
his presentation to the Bishop of Elphin, that prelate, sad to say,
rejected him, perhaps because of his college reputation, perhaps
because of actual incompetence, perhaps even, as tradition affirms,
because he had the bad taste to appear before his examiner in flaming
scarlet breeches. After this rebuff, tutoring was next tried. But he had
no sooner saved some thirty pounds by teaching, than he threw up his
engagement, bought a horse, and started once more for America, by
way of Cork. In six weeks he had returned penniless, having substituted
for his roadster a sorry jade, to which he gave the contemptuous name
of Fiddleback. He had also the simplicity to wonder, on this occasion,
that his mother was not rejoiced to see him again. His next ambition
was to be a lawyer; and, to this end, a kindly Uncle Contarine equipped
him with fifty pounds for preliminary studies. But on his way to
London he was decoyed into gambling, lost every farthing, and came
home once more in bitter self-abasement. Having now essayed both
divinity and law, his next attempt was physic; and, in 1752, fitted out
afresh by his long-suffering uncle, he started for, and succeeded in
reaching, Edinburgh. Here more memories survive of his social
qualities than of his studies; and two years later he left the Scottish
capital for Leyden, rather, it may be conjectured, from a restless desire
to see the world than really to exchange the lectures of Monro for the
lectures of Albinus. At Newcastle (according to his own account) he
had the good fortune to be locked up as a Jacobite, and thus escaped
drowning, as the ship by which he was to have sailed to Bordeaux sank
at the mouth of the Garonne. Shortly afterwards he arrived in Leyden.
Gaubius and other Dutch professors figure sonorously in his future
works; but whether he had much experimental knowledge of their

instructions may be doubted. What seems undeniable is, that the old
seduction of play stripped him of every shilling; so that, like Holberg
before him, he set out deliberately to make the tour of Europe on foot.
'Haud inexpertus loquor,' he wrote in after days, when praising this
mode of locomotion. He first visited Flanders. Thence he passed to
France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, supporting himself mainly by
his flute, and by occasional disputations at convents or universities.
'Sir,' said Boswell to Johnson, 'he 'disputed' his passage through
Europe.' When on the 1st February, 1756, he landed at Dover, it was
with empty pockets. But he had sent home to his brother in Ireland his
first rough sketch for the poem of 'The Traveller'.
He was now seven-and-twenty. He had seen and suffered much, but he
was to have further trials before drifting definitely into literature.
Between Dover and London, it has been surmised, he made a tentative
appearance as a strolling player. His next ascertained part was that of
an apothecary's assistant on Fish Street Hill. From this, with the
opportune aid of an Edinburgh friend, he proceeded--to use an
eighteenth-century phrase--a poor physician in the Bankside,
Southwark, where least of all, perhaps, was London's fabled pavement
to be found. So little of it, in fact, fell to Goldsmith's share, that we
speedily find him reduced to the rank of reader and corrector of the
press to Samuel Richardson, printer, of Salisbury Court,