00000078.htm

CHAP. II.] COLLEGE.

contempt and failure. He would write street-ballads to lW-
save himself from actual starving; sell them at the -^¹⁹-
Rein-Deer repository in Mountrath-court for five shillings
a-piece; and steal out of the college at night to hear them
sung.*

Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by
some dusky wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the
ill-lighted streets, this poor neglected sizar watched, waited,
lingered, listened there, for the only effort of his life which
had not wholly failed. Few and dull perhaps the beggar's
audience at first, but more thronging, eager, and delighted,
as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware. Cracked enough,
I doubt not, were those ballad-singing tones; very harsh,
extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without
meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest
music which this earth affords fall with them on the ear of
Goldsmith. Gentle faces pleased, old men stopping by
the way, young lads venturing a purchase with their last
remaining farthing ; why, here was a world in little, with
its fame at the sizar's feet! " The greater world will be
" listening one day " perhaps he muttered, as he turned with
a lighter heart to his dull home.

It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five
shillings of the Rein-deer repository reached home along
with him. It was the most likely, when he was at his
utmost need, to stop with some beggar 011 the road who
might seem to him even more destitute than himself. Nor
this only. The money gone,—often, for the naked shivering
wretch, had he slipped off a portion of the scanty clothes he *
wore, to patch a misery he could not otherwise relieve. To
one starving creature with five crying children, he gave at

* Prior, L 7ff.



	CHAP. II.] COLLEGE. contempt and failure. He would write street-ballads to lW- save himself from actual starving; sell them at the -^¹⁹- Rein-Deer repository in Mountrath-court for five shillings a-piece; and steal out of the college at night to hear them sung.* Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets, this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, lingered, listened there, for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and dull perhaps the beggar's audience at first, but more thronging, eager, and delighted, as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware. Cracked enough, I doubt not, were those ballad-singing tones; very harsh, extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest music which this earth affords fall with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces pleased, old men stopping by the way, young lads venturing a purchase with their last remaining farthing ; why, here was a world in little, with its fame at the sizar's feet! " The greater world will be " listening one day " perhaps he muttered, as he turned with a lighter heart to his dull home. It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five shillings of the Rein-deer repository reached home along with him. It was the most likely, when he was at his utmost need, to stop with some beggar 011 the road who might seem to him even more destitute than himself. Nor this only. The money gone,—often, for the naked shivering wretch, had he slipped off a portion of the scanty clothes he * wore, to patch a misery he could not otherwise relieve. To one starving creature with five crying children, he gave at * Prior, L 7ff.