himself as a travelling tutor to Mr. S***, who, young as he was, possessed more worldly wisdom than his instructor, and had been brought up in a different school. He was nephew to a pawnbroker, and articled clerk to an attorney; a hopeful subject for Goldsmith's delicacy of taste, and romantic ideas to polish into the travelled gentleman. He bargained to keep the money himself; a stipulation, which (to use the words. of his biographer) cramped the views and propensities of Goldsmith.' This illsorted pair quarrelled, and parted at Marseilles; and our poet, once more on foot, pursued his journey through France, to the northern districts of Italy. He visited Verona, Florence, Venice; at Padua he staid six months, and is said to have taken a medical degree there. At length his curiosity was satisfied; or more probably, he was at last wearied with the difficulties, and disgusted with the mortifications inseparable from so ill supplied, and ill conducted a tour, and he returned home in the same vagrant manner in which he set out, and reached England about the breaking out of the war, in 1755-6.

When he arrived in London, he had a few halfpence in his pocket, and he found himself (to use his own words) without friends, recommendation, money, or impudence.' Immediate exertion was necessary; and to support himself, he applied to an academy near London for the place of as

sistant. For some reason or other, probably thinking that the situation which he solicited for the purpose of relieving his present necessities, was a degradation to his character, and profession, he assumed a fictitious name. This led to further embarrassment; but he was relieved by the kindness of his friend Dr. Radcliffe, and obtained the situation. It is said that his letter of thanks to Dr. Radcliffe was accompanied with a very interesting account of his travels and adventures.

It is not to be expected that a situation which makes more galling demands on the patience, the temper, and the intellects of a scholar than any other, should have been long submitted to by the capricious feelings and desultory habits of a poet and a wit. To him its duties must have been irksome beyond endurance. The language he has put into the mouth of the wanderer's cousin may have had a retrospect to himself. '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 the misery of an usher did not end here, the consummation of wretchedness was to come. 'After the fatigues of the day, the poor usher of an academy is obliged to sleep in the same bed with a Frenchman, a teacher of that language to the oys, who disturbs him every night, an hour peraps, in papering and filleting his hair, and

stinks worse than a carrion with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the bolster.'

Goldsmith's countenance was never, in his best days, very prepossessing: and at this time his equipment was hardly respectable. His accent was broadly Irish: we cannot therefore wonder, that in his attempts to procure a situation from the medical practitioners he was unsuccessful. At length, a chymist near Fish-street-hill took him into his laboratory, where his medical knowledge rendered him a useful assistant. Soon after this, he discovered that his friend Dr. Sleigh was in town; sought him out, and was cordially received by him. Sleigh's heart was as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and friendship with him. By the recommendation of his friend, Goldsmith left the laboratory of the chymist, and set up as a medical practitioner at Bankside, in Southwark, whence he afterwards removed to the Temple. His practice was, as might be expected, among the poor, for he had no introduction to the higher classes; and his patients were more numerous than his fees. He therefore engaged himself to the booksellers as a regular Swiss in their service;' and thus with very little practice as a physician, and with very little reputation as a poet, he made a shift to live.' situation at this time is best described in his own

6

His

letter.

IT

TO DANIEL HODSON, ESQ. AT LISHOY, NEAR BALLYMAHON, IRELAND.

DEAR SIR,

may be four years since my last letters went to Ireland, and from you in particular I received no answer, probably because you never wrote to me. My brother Charles, however, informs me of the fatigue you were at in soliciting a subscription to assist me, not only among my friends and relations, but acquaintance in general. Though my pride might feel some repugnance in being thus relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no diminution. How much am I obliged to you, to them, for such generosity or (why should not your virtues have the proper name) for such charity to me at that juncture. Sure I am born to ill fortune to be so much a debtor, and unable to repay. But to say no more of this; too many professions of gratitude are often considered as indirect petitions for future favours. Let me only add, that my not receiving that supply was the cause of my present establishment in London. You may easily imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, or impudence, and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many in such circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's end, or the suicide's halter. But with

all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other.

I suppose you desire to know my present situation, as there is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty, but it were well for us if they only left us at the door; the mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company at the entertainments: and want, instead of being gentleman usher, often turns master of the ceremonies. Thus upon hearing I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends; but whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor, or four pair of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour, nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection: unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place, who never received, when in it, above common civility; who never brought any thing out of it, except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the itch, be