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GOLDSMITH, OLIVER (1728–1774)
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See also:GOLDSMITH, See also:OLIVER (1728–1774) , See also:English poet, playwright, novelist and See also:man of letters, came of a See also:Protestant and Saxon See also:family which had See also:long been settled in See also:Ireland., He is usually said to have been See also:born at See also:Pallas or Pallasmore, Co. See also:Longford; but See also:recent investigators have contended, with much
show of See also:probability, that his true birthplace was See also: From the humble See also:academy kept by the old soldier Goldsmith was removed in his ninth year. He went to several See also:grammar-See also:schools, and acquired some knowledge of the See also:ancient See also:languages. llis life at this See also:time seems to have been far from happy. He had, as appears from the admirable portrait of him by See also:Reynolds at Knole, features harsh even to ugliness. The small-pox had set its See also:mark on him with more than usual severity. His stature was small, and his limbs See also:ill put together. Among boys little tenderness is shown to See also:personal defects; and the ridicule excited by poor Oliver's See also:appearance was heightened by a See also:peculiar simplicity and a disposition to blunder which he retained to the last. He became the See also:common See also:butt of boys and masters, was pointed at as a fright in the See also:play-ground, and flogged as a See also:dunce in the school-See also:room. When he had risen to See also:eminence, those who had once derided him ransacked their memory for the events of his early years. and recited repartees and couplets which had dropped from him, and which, though little noticed at the time, were supposed, a See also:quarter of a See also:century later, to indicate the See also:powers which produced the See also:Vicar of See also:Wakefield and the Deserted Village. On the 1th of See also:June 1744, being then in his sixteenth year, Oliver went up to Trinity See also:College, See also:Dublin, as a See also:sizar. The sizars paid nothing for See also:food and tuition, and very little for lodging; but they had to perform some See also:menial services from which they have long been relieved. Goldsmith was quartered, not alone, in it See also:garret of what was then No. 35 in a range of buildings which has long since disappeared. His name, scrawled by himself on one of its window-panes is still preserved in the college library. From such garrets many men of less parts than his have made their way to the See also:woolsack or to the episcopal See also:bench. But Goldsmith, while he suffered all the humiliations, threw 'away all the advantages of his situation. He neglected the studies of the See also:place, stood See also:low at the See also:examinations, was turned down to the bottom of his class for playing the buffoon in the lecture-room, was severely reprimanded for pumping on a See also:constable, and was caned by a brutal See also:tutor for giving a See also:ball in the See also:attic See also:storey of the college to some See also:gay youths and damsels from the See also:city. While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided between squalid See also:distress and squalid dissipation, his father died, leaving a See also:mere See also:pittance. In See also:February 1746 the youth obtained hisbachelor's degree, and See also:left the university. During some time the humble dwelling to which his widowed mother had retired was his See also:home. He was now in his twenty-first year; it was necessary that he should do something; and his See also:education seemed to have_fitted him to do nothing but to See also:dress himself in See also:gaudy See also:colours, of which he was as fond as a See also:magpie, to take a See also:hand at See also:cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the See also:flute, to See also:angle in summer and to tell See also:ghost stories by the See also:fire in See also:winter. He tried five or six professions in turn without success. He applied for ordination; but, as he applied in See also:scarlet clothes, he was speedily turned out of the episcopal See also:palace. He then became tutor in an opulent family, but soon quitted his situation in consequence of a dispute about pay. Then he determined to emigrate to See also:America. His relations, with much See also:satisfaction, saw him set out for See also:Cork on a See also:good See also:horse, with £3o in his See also:pocket. But in six See also:weeks he came back on a miserable hack, without a See also:penny, and informed his mother that the See also:ship in which he had taken his passage, having got a See also:fair See also:wind while he was at a party of See also:pleasure, had sailed without him. Then he resolved to study the See also:law. A generous See also:uncle, Mr Contarine, advanced £5o. With this sum Goldsmith went to Dublin, was enticed into a gaming-house and lost every See also:shilling. He then thought of See also:medicine. A small See also:purse was made up; and in his twenty-See also:fourth year he was sent to See also:Edinburgh. At Edinburgh he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and picked up some superficial See also:information about See also:chemistry and natural See also:history. Thence he went to See also:Leiden, still pretending to study physic. He left that celebrated university, the third university at which he had resided, in his twenty-seventh year, without a degree, with the merest smattering of medical knowledge, and with no See also:property but his clothes and his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. He rambled on See also:foot through See also:Flanders, See also:France and See also:Switzerland, playing tunes which everywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him a supper and a See also:bed. He wandered as far as See also:Italy. His musical performances, indeed, were not to the See also:taste of the Italians; but he contrived to live on the See also:alms which he obtained at the See also:gates of convents. It should, however, be observed that the stories which he told about this See also:part of his life ought to be received with great caution; for strict veracity was never one of his virtues; and a man who is ordinarily inaccurate in narration is likely to be more than ordinarily inaccurate when he talks about his own travels. Goldsmith,' indeed, was so regardless of truth as to assert in See also:print that he was See also:present at a most interesting conversation between See also:Voltaire and See also:Fontenelle, and that this conversation took place at See also:Paris. Now it is certain that Voltaire never was within a See also:hundred leagues of Paris during the whole time which Goldsmith passed on the See also:continent. In February 1756 the wanderer landed at See also:Dover, without a shilling, without a friend and without a calling. He had indeed, if his own unsupported See also:evidence may be trusted, obtained a See also:doctor's degree on the continent; but this dignity proved utterly useless to him. In See also:England his flute was not in See also:request; there were no convents; and he was forced to have recourse to a See also:series of desperate expedients. There is a tradition that he turned strolling player. He pounded drugs and ran about See also:London with phials for charitable chemists. He asserted, upon one occasion, that he had lived "among the beggars in See also:Axe See also:Lane." He was for a time See also:usher of a school, and See also:felt the miseries and humiliations of this situation so keenly that he thought it a promotion to be permitted to earn his See also:bread as a bookseller's hack; but he soon found the new yoke more galling than the old one, and was glad to become an usher again. He obtained a medical See also:appointment in the service of the See also:East See also:India See also:Company; but the appointment was speedily revoked. Why it was revoked we are not told. The subject was one on which he never liked to talk. It is probable that he was incompetent to perform the duties of the place. Then he presented himself at Surgeons' See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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