"With a view to some mercantile employment, was instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, by a schoolmaster in his father's village, who had been a quartermaster in the army in Queen Anne's wars, in that detachment that was sent to Spain; having travel. led over a considerable part of Europe, and being of a very romantic turn, he used to entertain Oliver with his adventures, and the impression these made on his scholar were believed by the family to have given him that wandering and unsettled turn which so much appeared in his future life."

There is no mention here of James Freeny, or Irish rogues and rapparees. The quartermaster's own adventures are all that are adverted to as the sub. ject of his discourse. The way in which " Freeny the robber and the Irish Rogues and Rapparees" get into the matter is an amusing illustration of the way in which history is made. Mr. Prior mentions, and without any connexion with Goldsmith's schoolmaster farther than this, that Goldsmith was at Byrne's school, and living in his own father's house at the time, that

"One of the causes alleged for his backwardness was devoted attachment to the fictions and marvellous stories which make so much of the amusement of children in all places, and of which Ireland has a more than ordinary store. He read with avidity; but the selection then and till a very recent period found in the village schools, cottages, and houses, occupied by persons above the class of peasantry in Ireland, was of the worst kind. His understanding and morals could derive no benefit from the perusal of such stories as the 'History of the Irish Rogues and Rapparees ;' 'Lives of celebrated Pirates ;' 'History of Moll Flanders ;' of Jack the Bachelor' (a notorious smuggler); of Fair Rosamond' and Jane Shore;' of Dona Rozena, the Spanish Courtezan;' the Life and Adventures of James Freeny, a famous Irish robber;' and others of a similar description, then the principal amusement for boys at school.'

Mr. Prior here but conjectures the class of books likely to have been in Goldsmith's hands, without giving the

slightest evidence that they were so. He gives this as a reason for Goldsmith's backwardness at school; and his next biographer improves on the conjecture-drops all mention of the books, and represents the master as teaching "wild legends of an Irish hovel," &c. We regret that we have no means of referring to Mr. Mangin's essay on "Light Reading," from which we believe much of the information about Goldsmith's early connexions is originally derived; but Mr. Prior tells us that "Byrne was well versed in the fairy superstitions of the country, and that he used to translate extemporaneously Virgil's Eclogues into Irish verse." This is converted into what it never ought to have suggested, and into what must mislead Mr. Forster's readers, whose own carelessness misled him. "He seems to have preferred a Virgil in Irish verse to a Roman Virgil, and to have had more faith in fairies than in fluxions." Prior has no right to complain of Mr. Forster not quoting him here. The grievance would be if he had; for though the passage in Prior plainly gave rise to Forster's, it is as plainly altogether misunderstood, or misstated. We ourselves doubt whether the books Mr. Prior mentions had much effect on Goldsmith. Books of the classand some of them which he has named -were, in our own early days, and are, perhaps, still taken round to country fairs; but we do not attribute as much to these things as Mr. Prior and Mr. Forster seem to do. Mr. Prior's list is taken from Moore's "Captain Rock," omitting such additions to the stock as he knew to have been made since Goldsmith's day; and the class of persons to whom such books are mischievous are those for whose use they are written. The schoolmaster who teaches Virgil, and the boy who learns it, are not very likely to attach much moment to rubbish of the kind. We see no trace through Goldsmith's writings of the evil which this literature would be likely to produce; and one particle of evidence, further than that some of these books were seen, an after time, in other men's

at

houses, we have not. Thus is History written! Actual fact, evidenced by Goldsmith's own writings, as in the case of Carolan, becomes idle and unmeaning legend; conjecture, more or less plausible, is made the basis of what is presented to readers as fact; and all mention of the conjecture on which the whole rests, being carefully or carelessly withheld, there is nothing whatever to suggest how little or how much is reality. The extract which we have given from Goldsmith himself, and the sentence from Mrs. Hodson, are all that remain of this tissue, thus skilfully woven together. As we before said, the task of the future biographer of Goldsmith will be omission, not addition.

Mrs. Hodson's recollections of her brother, from his earliest age, represent him as "different from other children; subject to particular humours: for the most part, uncommonly serious and reserved; but when in gay spirits, none were so agreeable as he."

. At the age of seven or eight, he discovered a natural turn for rhyming, and often amused his father and his friends with early poetical attempts. When he could scarcely write intelligibly, he was always scribbling verses which he burned as he wrote them. His sister, says a former biographer, "has in this slight sketch, probably without knowing it, portrayed every feature of the little Edwin of Beattie's Minstrel"

"He was no vulgar boy, Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye; Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsie. Silent when glad-affectionate, though shy, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why."

The quotation, perhaps, might have been continued

"The neighbours stared, and sighed, yet blessed the lad

Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad."

A poet's conception of how a poet's mind is formed, is not, however, always true; or, rather, poets, like other men, form themselves in the thousand different ways that surrounding circumstances, resisted or yielded to, enforce. Beattie's young minstrel was trained differently from Gold. smith-the minstrel gave from his own spirit life to the dead nature around

From his father's house he passed, in his eleventh year, to an uncle's, in the neighbourhood of Elphin, where he remained two years. His reputation for quick and lively talents made the family determine on sending him to college; and to acquire the necessary preparatory education, he was removed to Athlone, about five miles from his father's house, to the school of the Rev. Mr. Campbell. Campbell's health broke down, and Oliver was sent to Edgeworthstown School, from which, after four years' instruction from Mr. Hughes, he passed, with considerable classical knowledge, to the Irish University. His expenses at school, and afterwards, in a great degree, at college, were derived from the joint contributions of different members of his family. He was, from the first, familiar with precarious and accidental means of support. This was not his fault; but it accounts for his having been able, from the most part, to have preserved buoyant spirits under circumstances that would have broken the heart of others for his having been at all times ready to work industriously for such means of support as offered-and for the kind of life, from hand to mouth, as it is called, which, if it was not his choice-as assuredly it cannot be fairly calledyet he did not quarrel with. Oliver entered college with some of the advantages which are given by the Irish University to proficients in classical learning. He entered as a sizar. There is at present, and we believe

and

there was, in Oliver's time, an examination for the sizarship, instead of its being given, as at first, on the nomination of the fellows. Success in the examination is, in general, a pretty good proof that time at school has not been thrown away. In fact, at the time we speak of, and long after, the Irish schoolmasters did their business far better than the Irish University. Greek and Latin was flogged into boys, at the country schools, in such quantities, that even entire idleness at college was seldom sufficient to make the man forget all he had learned before he came there. Of Goldsmith's learning, no part whatever can be traced to the University: he was idle; he lounged about the college gates. To students entering college in Goldsmith's circumstances, the foundation does not give entire support; when parents or friends are unable to assist, young men, in general, look round them for remunerative employment, casily found, in aiding the studies of others. Goldsmith, unfortunately for himself, was likely, for a while, to have received from home enough to render this resource unnecessary. His father's death soon, however, varies the scene, and he continues a loiterer about college, getting into one scrape or other, and getting out of them again, as other men have done; often without a shilling, and remembered for wars with bailiffs, as if already inspired by some anticipative instincts of his na ture against his future foes. Still there was nothing very unaccountable in all this-nothing that his generous uncle was not likely to pardon-nothing that could harden against him the hearts of his brother or his sisters-nothing that could prevent his surviving parent from dwelling on the class of thoughts which Wordsworth has asscribed to an afflicted mother when hoping against hope:

"He was among the prime in worth,

Well born, well bred: I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base,
And never blush was on my face."

Goldsmith took his degree at the usual time. Mr. Forster says "he was lowest in the list." It had been stated by Malone, on what seemed sufficient authority, that Goldsmith graduated two years after the regular time. This mistake, Prior, on the authority of some college records, corrected; but Prior adds. ." His name appears last in the list of those who acquired a similar degree on the same day, as it is last in the list of sizars on the day of entering it." The record that Prior found, it would appear, is the only one that remains, and does nothing to fix Goldsmith's place in his class. It purports to be a record of those admitted on a certain day, to the privilege of reading in the college library, and proves nothing whatever but the time at which he graduated. In such a list, the name of a person who had actually graduated, but who did not attend to claim the privilege, of which instances frequently occur, would not be found. On the supposition of persons being placed, in the particular list, in the order in which they stood in their class, which is probable from what Prior says, it says nothing, or next to nothing, against Goldsmith, as at that time college standing depended on a man's place at entrance, which affected his place on the books through his whole course. Goldsmith went in for a scholarship; he failed, but obtained an exhibition. The value of the exhibition which he obtained depended on the rents received from the estates of Erasmus Smith; and the sum of thirty shillings seems all that this "academic laurel," as it has been called, was worth to Goldsmith. The Church was the profession for which Goldsmith was intended. We do not know what amount of professional knowledge bishops of that day expected from candidates for ordination, nor whether the University took any pains to supply divinity students with the means of instruction; but Goldsmith's biographers tell us, that he returned to Lissoy, because having graduated at twenty-one, and not of being of age

to take orders till twenty-three, he had nothing to do in the interval. The interval is said to have been idly spent in rambling from one relative's house to another. Of this there is no sufficient evidence; and a part of the time, at least, was spent in assisting as a teacher in his brother's school; and during this same period, he seems to have made himself master of French, with the assistance of a Roman Catholic priest, the Irish priests being at that time educated abroad, and conscquently familiar with the language. In due time Goldsmith applied for orders, and some half dozen incredible stories are told of the reasons why he did not succeed. Mr. Wills, whose biography of the poet, though apparently unknown to Mr. Forster, is, in every respect, superior to every other, has told us, no doubt, the true cause, -"His studies had not lain in theological literature, and he was refused on examination."t Money was made out to enable him to pay the necessary expenses for a law student, but the fifty pounds was placed in the hands of Goldsmith himself, and passed into those of sharpers. More money was made out-not much in all-and he went to attend medical classes in Edinburgh. We next find him a wanderer over Europe-a philosophical vagabond, to use his own language, begging his way among the poor, and bullying it now and then at one academic institution or another ; for among the advantages offered to learning in many of the colleges abroad, one was a dinner and a bed to the accomplished logician. On Goldsmith's return to London and the neighbourhood, he found employment, occasionally, in apothecaries' shops. He made some unsuccessful attempts to get appointed surgeon to some government establishment. He acted as private tutor. He found his way at last to an academy at Peckham, where he so conducted himself as to be remembered with kindness, and where the people of the place so conducted themselves with reference to him, as to have the place remembered by him with detestation; the place we say

emphatically, for it was not in 'Goldsmith's nature to entertain dislike of persons. In judging of things, his effort was to judge them truly. The schoolmaster was not to be blamed for the low estimate with which society regarded his position; and the evils of that position, thus unduly estimated, the usher could not, but share. Goldsmith has been cruelly wronged by his biographers, who have ascribed to him an irritable and thinskinned vanity, seeking for causes of offence. Of this we deliberately think there is no evidence whatever. Of that vanity which finds its chief pleasure in the excess of sympathy with others, which lays a man open to being laughed at, but which seizes its share of the joke, and laughs loudest, Goldsmith had his share, and his share was a plentiful one. Among the many attempts which he made to obtain bread, one was practising as a physician. Reynolds told of his hiding with his hat a rent or patch in the second-hand velvet coat in which he thought fit to make his appearance. Among his patients was a compositor in Richardson's (the novelist) printing-office; and this poor man found the means of recommending the yet poorer man, for whose medical care he felt himself indebted, to some humble employment as corrector of the press. The school and the press are nearly related, and when Goldsmith's drudgery was shifted to a school, some accident brought Dr. Griffiths, the compiler of the Monthly Review," who was in want of an author, to the school where poor Goldsmith was grinding. A bargain was struck, and Goldsmith finds himself in London, an inmate of Griffiths' house, his engagement being for a year, with bed and board, and, Mr. Prior says, also an adequate salary. The bed and board were a good part of the bargain for Goldsmith; as the lady of the house, at his school, used to say to him, "You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your money, as I do for some of the young gentlemen." To which he would good. humouredly answer, "In truth, madam, there is great need." Are we to

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infer that poor Goldsmith's salary was not much more in amount than the boys' pocket money?

When Mr. Forster has, in his rapid and graceful narrative, reached this period of Goldsmith's life, he pauses to call his reader's attention to the position of an author by profession at the time when Goldsmith found himself installed in the office. The passage is one of those which gives its great and distinguishing value to his work-one which will render his work of continuing value after the incidents of Goldsmith's life shall have been more accurately told by future writers, and after much of his own mystifications of fact shall have perished, even as the fancies of the Malones, and the Percys, and the Cumberlands have already gone.

"Fielding had died in shattered hope and fortune, at what should have been his prime of life, three years before. Within the next two years, poor and mad, Collins was fated to descend to his early grave. Smollett was toughly fighting for his every-day existence. Johnson, within some half dozen months, had been tenant of a sponginghouse. No man throve that was connected with letters, unless connected with their trade or merchandise as well, and, like Richardson, could print as well as write books."

Mr. Forster proceeds to illustrate this by quotations from Smollett and Burke. Smollett complains of being misled into authorship by friends who did not explain to him the life of “incredible labour and chagrin on which he was entering." Burke says, "writers of the first talents are left to the capricious patronage of the public."

Forster says that Goldsmith's lot was cast at an unhappy time. It was a time of transition-"The patron was gone, and the public had not come. That the patron was gone was in spite of some instances of successful authorship in a few favoured cases, nothing but a blessing. The patronage of individuals must have been at all times capricious, and secured by unbecoming compliances; that of the state, when fettered by

any conditions, expressed or implied,

was, if possible, worse.

"It called a class of writers into existence whose degradation and disgrace reacted upon the Man of Genius;

who flung a stigma on his pursuits, and made the name of man-of-letters the synonyme for dishonest hireling. Of the £50,000 which the Secret Committee found to have been expended by Walpole's ministry on daily scribblers for their daily bread, not a sixpence was received either then or when the Pelhams afterwards followed the example, by a writer whose name is now enviably known. All went to the Guthries, the Amhursts, the Arnalls, the Ralphs, and the Oldmixons. A Cook was pensioned, a Fielding solicited Walpole in vain. What the man of genius received * was nothing but the shame of being confounded as one who lived by using his pen, with those who lived by its prostitution and abuse."

We

At such a period did Goldsmith commence his precarious trade. His engagement with Griffiths was for a year; it ended, however, in the fifth month. He complained that his papers were garbled, and there is evidence enough that the Review which was then almost the sole arbiter of fame, was made an instrument in the hands of Griffiths and his wife, and that Goldsmith was regarded as a mere hireling. thank Mr. Forster for placing distinctly before the public some of his reviews; they do more than a thousand pages of explanation would to disprove the imputation of envy with which he has been everywhere, as we think, in contradiction to most of the evidence adduced, taxed by almost every writer since Boswell's day. It is curious enough that there is reason to suspect Boswell's dislike to Goldsmith was partly national, neither the Scotch nor Irish being at the time quite well received in English society, and the jealousies of each to the other feeling. The Scottish literary men at being in some degree affected by this that time were beginning to invade English literature, and, with the industry of factious and friendly zeal, literary journals. sought to praise each other in the Any reader of

Hume's correspondence will be comhimself, dauntless critic and ready for pelled to acknowledge this, and David perhaps, once, and reviewed again and up-hill work, read and reviewed-read, again, the Epigoniad, a poem by a countryman, Wilkie, for whom he claimed the laurels of Homer, and worked heaven and earth to prove