galle(i "by formal University admonition than by
M.IQ. Wilder's insults, and anxious to wipe out a disgrace that
seemed not so undeserved, Goldsmith tried in the next
month for a scholarship. He lost the scholarship, but got
an exhibition :* a very small exhibition truly, worth some
thirty shillings, of which there were nineteen in number, and
his was seventeenth in the list. In the way of honour or
• glory this was trifling enough; but, little used to anything in
the shape of even such a success, he let loose his unaccus-
tomed joy in a small dancing party at his rooms, of humblest
sort.
Wilder heard of the affront to discipline, suddenly showed
himself in the middle of the festivity, and knocked down the
poor triumphant exhibitioner.f It seemed an irretrievable
disgrace. Goldsmith sold his books next clay, got together
a small sum, ran away from college, lingered fearfully about
Dublin till his money was spent, and then, with a shilling in
his pocket, set out for Cork. He did not know where he
would have gone, he said, but he thought of America. For
three clays he lived upon the shilling; parted by degrees with
nearly all his clothes to save himself from famine ; and long
afterwards told Reynolds, what his sister relates in her
narrative, that of all the exquisite meals he had ever tasted,
the most delicious was a handful of grey peas given him
by a girl at a -wake after twenty-four hours' fasting.$ The
vision of America sank before this reality, and he turned
his feeble steps to Lissoy. His brother had private inti-
mation of his state, went to him, clothed him, and carried
him back to college. " Something of a reconciliation," says
Mrs. Hodson, was effected with the tutor.
Probably the tutor made so much concession as to promise
* Percy Memoir, 16. f Ibid, 7, 8. $ JUd, 5.