an undoubted fact, that in this very manner Goldsmith himself travelled over the greater part of the Continent. He had a competent knowledge of French, knew a little Italian, and by means of these, and his acquaintance with Latin, he generally contrived to make himself understood in the several countries which he visited; but his great resource was his German flute. His knowledge of music was not indeed very scientific or extensive; what little he knew, was principally by the ear; yet his performance, such as it was, generally procured him a ready welcome at the cottages where he sought a night's hospitality, especially among the honest boors of Flanders, and the lighthearted peasantry of the South of France. When he approached a town, where his rude minstrelsy would have had to encounter severer critics, and a competition at once degrading and formidable, he abandoned his flute, and had recourse to his scholastic powers. At many of the foreign universities and monasteries, there is a custom of maintaining theses, on certain days, against any adventitious disputant. If the adventurer exhibit sufficient dexterity of reasoning to gain the applause of his judges, or, which is more frequently the case, if no one come forward to oppose him, he is entitled to claim a small gratuity in money, and a night's lodging.2 Goldsmith's necessities, and perhaps his inclination-for he was fond of disputing, and was at no time unwilling to support a paradox for the sake of argument-induced him frequently to enter the lists, and by this means he was

According to Sir John Hawkins, Goldsmith did not so much as understand the character in which music is written; in confirmation of

which he tells the following story:- "Roubiliac the sculptor, a merry fellow, once heard him play; and minding to put a trick on him, pretended to be charmed with his performance, as also, that himself was skilled in the art, and entreated him to repeat the air, that he might write it down. Goldsmith readily consenting, Roubiliac called for paper, and scored thereon a few five-lined staves, which having done, Goldsmith proceeded to play, and Roubiliac to write; but his writing was only such random notes on the lines and spaces as any one might set down who had ever inspected a page of music. When they had both done, Roubiliac showed the paper to Goldsmith, who, looking it over with seeming great attention, said it was very correct, and that if he had not seen him do it, he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him."-HAWKINS's Life of Johnson, 1787, p. 417. [The latest Life of Roubiliac (Sainte Croix, 1882), makes no mention of this.-ED.]

2 See the History of a Philosophic Vagabond,' in the Vicar of Wakefield' (chap. xx.).

enabled occasionally to secure a comfortable and honourable subsistence. Of his adventures during this pedestrian tour, he is supposed to have given a pretty faithful sketch, in his 'History of a Philosophic Vagabond,' in the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' It is probable, however, that some of the incidents introduced into that narrative, and which have been admitted upon that ground alone as having actually occurred to Goldsmith himself, are purely imaginary. Among others, the circumstance of his having accompanied a young Englishman as travelling tutor, though the story has been repeated1 with a grave circumstantiality which notices the young gentleman's name and private history, has been doubted upon good authority; and the character of the rich young attorney is at once so odious and so unnatural, that we should not regret to find this part of the story pure fiction.

2

It is not a little surprising that a man of Goldsmith's fine genius and ready talents should apparently have reaped little advantage from his extensive tour. In that polish of manners, the easy breeding, and what is called knowledge of the world, which travel is generally supposed to be the best means of acquiring, he was, through life, miserably deficient. His writings discover no acquaintance with the manners, literature, peculiar traditions, or domestic history of the different people among whom he sojourned, which he might not easily have obtained from books at home. Indeed, it may be suspected, that though the acquisition of useful knowledge was his avowed object, an idle passion for wandering was the real motive, and its gratification the sole aim, of his excursion; at least, it does not appear that from his pedestrian tour through Flanders, France, Switzerland, Italy, and part of Germany, he gained anything else besides that satisfaction which is enjoyed by less philosophic vagabonds, who, in defiance of the beadle, wander from parish to parish, under the influence of no more dignified motive than a restless love of locomotion. himself pleads guilty to something like this in one of his letters to his brother Henry, where he describes this restlessness as a family characteristic. "Whence," he writes, "whence this romantic turn that all our family are possessed with? Whence this love for every place and every country but that in which we reside? for every occupation but our own? this desire of fortune,

He

1 Annual Register' for 1774, art. in ‘Characters,' signed “G.”—ED. 2 Namely, that of his most intimate friends. See Dr. Percy.

2

and yet this eagerness to dissipate? It was while at Padua, where he resided for some months, and resumed his medical studies, that he received the unwelcome news of his uncle Contarine's illness; and the consequent discontinuance of the pecuniary assistance which he had so often received from that excellent relative, made it necessary for him to turn his attention to some less precarious means of subsistence than his musical powers, or his talent for disputation. He accordingly resolved to try his fortune in London; and, after a pedestrian journey, attended with many privations, through the greater part of France, he landed at Dover, Feb. 1, 1756.

а

When he arrived in London, the meanness of his appearance afforded ample testimony of the difficulties under which he had laboured: his finances were reduced to a few halfpence, and his prospects were sufficiently cheerless to have driven any other person to absolute despair. But to Goldsmith his present situation was not new; and he had, as he himself expressed it, ": knack of hoping," which enabled him to bear up manfully against the disappointments and mortifications which he was destined to encounter in his search after employment. He at length succeeded, on the recommendation of his friend Dr. Radcliff, in obtaining the humble situation of usher in an academy kept by Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister, at Peckham; but, as he himself had never borne with much patience the discipline of a public school, he was, perhaps, not very well qualified to enforce it. It is certain, at least, that he did not continue long in his new situation; and, unless the account of 1 See letter to his brother Henry, in the Letters.

2 An illness which rendered the good old man imbecile till the day of his death, in 1758; see Letter to Mrs. Lauder.-ED.

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3 Dr. Campbell in his Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland.' Dr. Radcliff, a mild and benevolent gentlemen, had been joint tutor with Mr. Wilder, Goldsmith's early persecutor.-PERCY.

4 Mr. Mudford, in his Memoir of Goldsmith prefixed to the 'Vicar of Wakefield' in the 'British Novelists,' says, that he remained in this situation about three years, which is certainly a mistake, as he returned from France in 1756, and we find him in the following year practising as a physician in Southwark. Mr. Mudford says he obtained his situation of usher at the recommendation of Richardson the novel writer, who had a printing office near Blackfriars; and adds, that Goldsmith was employed by Richardson in correcting the press, which is not improbable. [Mudford's statements seem to have been founded upon the Memoir (1804) by the Rev. J. Evans, of Islington, who had his account from a daughter of Dr. Milner, then also resident at Islington.-Ed.]

1

its duties, which he has given in his 'History of a Philosophic Vagabond,' be very much exaggerated, the drudgery and mortifications to which he was subjected must have severely tried a less irritable and impatient temper than Goldsmith's. But, even if we allow the picture to be highly coloured, this very exaggeration is a proof that he found his duties as usher intolerably humiliating; and, though it be admitted farther, that this disgust is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to his own peculiar temper, it must be acknowledged, that the task of educating youth, at all times sufficiently laborious and irksome, is sometimes rendered still less tolerable by unnecessary mortifications, and an ungenerous attempt at degradation, on the part of those who, being themselves engaged in the same employment, might be expected to have greater sympathy with their hard-working subordinates. He next procured, though not without some difficulty, the situation of shopman, or rather journeyman, to a chemist near Fish Street Hill; but soon after, either from ambition, or from his natural love of change, he commenced medical practitioner, and attempted to establish himself at Bankside, Southwark. To this step he was encouraged by his friend Dr. Sleigh, with whose residence in London he had become acquainted through mere accident. From this gentleman, who had been his fellow-student at Edinburgh College, and whose friendly services he had experienced upon an occasion already mentioned, he met with a very cordial reception; though his appearance was so much altered by a year or two of wandering, and probably by the present very indifferent state of his wardrobe, that his friend did not immediately recognize him. Dr. Sleigh not only assisted him with his advice-the contribution most frequently offered, though least palatable, to a friend in distress-but he also liberally shared with him his purse while he remained in London.3 From Bankside, Goldsmith afterwards migrated to the neighbourhood of the Temple; but in neither place was his practice sufficient to secure him a decent competency. His own account of the matter was, that he had an extensive circle of patients,

'Life,' prefixed to early editions of the Poems. Jacobs is given as the name of this chemist. Prior says that his shop used to be pointed out at the corner of Monument Yard.-ED.

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2 Life,' prefixed to the early editions of the Poems.

3 Dr. Sleigh was a native of Cork, where he subsequently settled as a physician.

but no fees. At last necessity drove him to seek employment from the booksellers, the usual patrons of indigent genius; and he commenced, as an occasional writer in the Reviews, that literary career which afterwards became so distinguished. About the same time, he made his first attempt at dramatic composition, and spent some time upon a tragedy, which he appears never to have finished.1

3

In 1758 he was appointed, through the influence of Dr. Milner, physician to one of our factories in India, on the coast of Coromandel. Why he did not avail himself of this appointment, the contingent emoluments of which he himself estimated at a thousand pounds per annum,2 is not known: perhaps he found it difficult to raise the necessary funds for his equipment: or, perhaps, a literary engagement had greater charms for him than the duties of his profession. In the previous year, 1757, he met, at Dr. Milner's table, Mr. Griffiths, the editor and proprietor of the 'Monthly Review,' and the result was that in April of that year he accepted an engagement to write for the 'Review.' To a person of his limited prospects, the terms of this new engagement were sufficiently favourable: he wrote regularly for about five hours a-day; and, in recompense of his labour, had board, lodging, and a handsome salary. This agreement continued for about five months, and was then dissolved by mutual consent, though our author still continued to contribute to the 'Review ’ occasionally. His articles it is difficult, perhaps impossible, now to distinguish. They probably consisted chiefly of short criticisms, under the department of Foreign Literature, for which his travels might be supposed to have qualified him, or in the "Monthly Catalogue," which contained short notices of new publications. At all events, he considered his work as mere drudgery, and never made any farther use of his contributions to this periodical. Its ultra-whig principles could not have been very agreeable to his jacobite partialities; and there is reason to believe that he afterwards quarrelled with its conductors, for his earlier publications are reviewed in it with illiberal severity. Apparently

1 This tragedy he submitted, so far as it had been written, to Richardson, the author of Clarissa Harlowe.' He probably received little encouragement to finish it.

2 Letter to Mr. Hodson, his brother-in-law: see letter "[Nov. 1758]" in the Letters, at the end of this volume.-ED.

3 Dr. Percy, 'Life,' p. 60.