Bob Bryanstone, afterwards, seem to have been his only friends. The college life of Goldsmith is not one on which we dwell with pleasure. His tutor, the Rev. Theaker Wilder, a man of some mathematical ability, was violent in temper, insolent, and overbearing in manners, and of a harsh, vicious, and brutal nature. Oliver detested mathematics, and so incurred the wrath of his tutor, which the indolence and thoughtlessness of the pupil gave too many occasions to gratify. He was subjected to taunts, ridicule, and insults almost daily, sometimes even to personal chastisement from one who, exercising over him the rights of a master over a servant, persecuted him with unremitting rancour. Still Oliver was not without some white days in his college career. More than once he received "the thanks of the house" for his attendance at morning lecture, and this, too, in midwinter, at seven o'clock. It is useless to speculate what the young man's progress might have been under kindlier treatment. Brutality first outraged and then discouraged a sensitive nature. He sought relief from his wretchedness sometimes in dissipation, often in reckless disrespect of discipline-he wasted his time, neglected his studies, and dissipated the scanty supplies which his father could afford him. But even those supplies were soon to cease. Early in 1747, that father was snatched from him. How truly the son loved and revered the parent is proved in that enduring and pious monument which, in after years, he reared to his memory. The image of that father seems ever present when he would portray humanity in its loveliest aspects. First sketching him, with all his pleasant foibles and large-heartedness, in the "Citizen of the World," then recurring to the subject for a fuller treatment and a more accurate delineation in the “Vicar of Wakefield," and at last lavishing all the riches and all the power of his love in the production of that portrait of the pastor in the "Deserted Village," so exquisite, so pathetic, so finished, and so lovely, that it seems to this hour unrivalled in its excellence. Scant as were the young man's resources before, they now become scantier. His widowed mother leaves the parsonage, and takes a lodging in Ballymahon, living "in low circumstances and indifferent health, nigra veste senescens;" and he is cast pretty much on his own ways and means. The genius that brutality checked was quickened at the call of "squalid poverty." To supply the pressing wants of daily life, he wrote ballads for street minstrels. There was a printer of the name of Hicks who Forster adopted it. The building was taken down in 1837, when the portion of the pane on which the name was written was preserved, and is now in the manuscript room of the college. My friend, the Rev. Dr. Todd, F.T. C. D., the learned librarian, has kindly permitted me to give a fac-simile of it (the only one ever published) in this work, and communicated to me the history of its preservation. When the buildings were about being taken down, Provost Lloyd, at the suggestion of Dr. Todd, had the sash of the window on which the name was written removed to the library. "On examining it," writes the Doctor, "I thought it was not the genuine scratch, which I well remembered, and I mentioned my suspicions to the Provost. Shortly afterwards the last occupant of the rooms sent to the Provost the bit of glass which contained the genuine name, which you have seen. He had attempted to cut the piece out of the window, but, owing to the thickness of the glass, he broke it in several places, and to repair the accident, he had the fragments put together and imbedded in a piece of wood." The counterfeit pane was long shown in the library as the original, which all the time lay safely locked up in the MS room. published broadsides at the sign of the Reindeer, far away in Mountrath Street, at the other side of the city. Queer things they were-dying declarations and last speeches of wretches going to be hanged; sacred songs with grotesque illustrations; elegies on defunct celebrities; and popular songs to boot. Thither he brought his songs, and sold them for a crown apiece,* often spending the money on his way home, yielding to some sudden impulse of sensibility awakened by the sight of real or feigned distress. Then in the evening he would steal out of college, and, with all the vanity of an author, follow the steps of the ballad singers and listen to his own songs. Who shall tell what visions of future fame filled the brain of "the poor scholar" of Trinity as he made his way back to the college? The dreams that visited his pillow in the garret may have transformed the humble auditory of the darkly-lighted street into an admiring throng of the fair and the great and the learned, listening in brilliant saloons to the muse of the world's favourite. Ah! who knows? Surely no man ever attained to intellectual greatness, above all to literary greatness, who has not been vouchsafed, to comfort him in his struggles and keep his hope from dying out utterly, these prophetic glimpses of "coming events," which cast not "their shadows" but their lustre "before," upon the gloomy foreground of the present. And so he struggles on-now penniless, pawning books and other property for the exigencies of existence; now flinging away his scanty shillings with the recklessness of a millionaire; now studying fitfully, now joining in some daring breach of discipline, led on by a love of fun and an exuberance of spirits that prudence could not repress, nor poverty extinguish. Under such an impulse it was that, with other wild lads, he followed "Gallows Walsh" into the haunts of the city bailiffs, and dragged forth the offender who dared to arrest a student, bore their victim within the walls, and soused him in the cistern. That was but a trifle; who cared about a bum-bailiff? But they went further. Wild with excitement, they rushed to Newgate Prison, which they attempted to force, were repulsed by the fire of the gaoler, resulting in the death of two and the wounding of several more. The college authorities visited the offenders with well-merited punishment; four were expelled, and Goldsmith, with others, was "publicly admonished." The admonition was not without its fruits. Oliver took it to heart and read for a scholarship. He failed, but the same page of the college books that records the successful candidates, under date of June 15th, 1747, gives his name amongst those who were comforted for their failure by an "exhibition" of trifling value. It was, possibly, to celebrate this solitary honour† that Goldsmith assembled in his " * I have searched through all the volumes of broadsides in Trinity College for one of Goldsmith's songs, but without success, though I found many of Hicks' publications. In a letter with which Sir James Prior has recently favoured me, he says, "As to the premium, I fear there is no proof now in existence that he obtained it. Dr. Kearney, indeed, was an excellent authority, as being once a fellow-student and chambers a few friends, including some of the other sex. They had supper, and a dance followed. In the midst of the festivity Wilder burst in upon them. He assailed the master of the feast, first with coarse and violent vituperation, and then struck him. Such an insult, in the presence of his guests, was intolerable. Smarting under the degradation, the sensitive spirit of the trueborn gentleman could not endure to meet those in whose presence he was disgraced. He fled from college, and in a few days, when reduced to his last shilling, left the city for Cork, with the intention of going to America. We pass over the history of his sufferings. Starving and half naked, he at last made his way to his brother Henry, and finally was induced to return to college. The spring Commencements of 1749 terminated his college life, when he took his degree of B.A. on the 27th of February.* As he passed out for the last time through the wicket in that massive gate beside which he so often loitered, how little did he think that the time would come when he should stand therc, in the mimic bronze, for ever-no loiterer now; friendless, nameless, neglected-but honoured and admired, one of the great names that fill all lands, and ennoble their own! There he awaits a day, not far distant, when on that vacant pedestal at the opposite side of the gate shall arise and rejoin him his great fellow-countryman, the friend of his later years, who had entered this very college the same year, and, like him, had found his fame in London, and became one of the lights of the world-Edmund Burke.† But no such thought cheered the heart of the poor scholar as he made his way back to Ballymahon, to the humble lodgings of his straitened mother. He was now close to all afterwards fellow of the college. We need, therefore, scarcely doubt it." Prior, however, was unable to find any record of the fact, and there is little that has escaped his diligence. I have renewed the search with no better success, but with a stronger conviction that no such honour was obtained by Goldsmith. ⚫ Of this fact, inferentially proved by Prior, I have got direct evidence by the inspection of the Book of Registry of degrees, through the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Luby. The following is the entry :-"Die Februarii vicesimo septimo, 1749. Admissi ad gradum Baccalaureatus in Artibus." Then follow the names of the graduates, and amongst them that of "Oliverus Goldsmith." Wilder, his old enemy, was junior proctor, and so saw the first and last of him. "I perceive," writes Sir James Prior to me," that you have been lately inaugurating his statue in Dublin. The fixing it there should have been done long before; but as it promises to be the precursor of other men of eminence, let us not quarrel now with the delay. A statue is, indeed, an admirable method of commemorating men of distinction. Seen daily or hourly in the streets, we cannot forget the personage. We do not shake hands with, but may gaze or glance at him; pause to recall some trait of character, or memorable incident of his life; and, perhaps, are tempted homeward to examine such of his pages (if an author) as throw new or additional interest over fame already well won." I avail myself of this opportunity of giving to the public an inscription written by Sir James Prior for the pedestal of the statue of Goldsmith : "Where Genius dwelt and grew in Classic Halls, And if we may, a kindred fame pursue. "Goldsmith! We greet thee here.-Away too long- the haunts of his early life, and gave way to his indolent and reckless habits. We find him wandering from the house of one friend to that of anotheralways careless, joyous, and convivial, and sharing in the athletic sports of the country; now lolling in the window of his mother's house, playing the flute, or composing verses; now at the club which he established at George Conway's inn, at Ballymahon, presiding amid uproarious mirth, and singing songs and playing cards; then he would stray by the river-side, to catch a trout or to hunt an otter; besides, he went, now and then, to help brother Henry, who had succeeded to his father's curacy, and earned his livelihood by the drudgery of a school, at the old house at Pallas. But all this time was not utterly wasted. Assuredly his mind was drawing in from the scenes around him, and from the incidents and associates of daily life, that which, "hived in his bosom like the bag o' the bee," he stored up to reproduce in later times in such exquisite sweetness. Two years thus spent, and Oliver is rising twentythree, with no occupation. His uncle Contarine proposes the family profession. He presents himself, after much persuasion, to the Bishop of Elphin for holy orders, and fails. Whether the defect was in the inner or outer man-ignorance of theology or a pair of scarlet breeches-posterity is never likely tɔ know, nor will they ever regret the result. He next tries tutor-life in the family of a Mr. Flinn, of Roscommon. One can scarcely fancy an occupation more unsuitable and distasteful to him; and so, after a year of dependence, he suddenly terminated the connection (in consequence of a dispute at the card-table, says his sister Hodson), and in a few days after disappeared from his mother's house. Thirty pounds in his pocket and a good horse under him, he sallied forth, whither? Who knows? A strange account he gave of himself when, in six weeks after, he reappeared, penniless, bestriding a skeleton which he dubbed with the name of "Fiddleback." He went, he says, to Cork, sold his horse, took his passage to America in a ship which very improperly sailed while he was enjoying himself with his friends. When he had spent his time and all his money, except two guineas, he bought "Fiddleback," and turned his face towards home; divided his last crown with a poor woman; put up with a miserly old college friend for a day; changed his quarters to the house of a hospitable counsellor, with whose two sweet daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpsicord, he lingered day after day, till at last he reappeared at Ballymahon. The story, whether true or false, is told with much humour and sang-froid, and is certainly not inconsistent with Goldsmith's nature. Perhaps it was his first essay in novel writing-a reality or two for a foundation, and a picturesque superstruction of fiction. Uncle Contarine came to his aid, and, with inexhaustible liberality, supplied him with fifty pounds to go to London and study the law. Aias! Dublin lay in the route to London, as Cork did to America. Each was fatal to Oliver's destination. At Dublin he fell in with |