OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK i.
1749. He lias escaped one scene of misery; another is awaiting
-ast 21. him; and what possibilities of happiness lie in the interval,
it is his nature to seize and make the most of. I-le assists his
brother Henry in the school; runs household errands for his
mother, as if lie were still what the village gossips called
him, "Master Noll;"* writes scraps of verse to please his
uncle Contarine ; and, to please himself, gets cousin
Bryanton and Tony Lumpldns of the district, with wander-
ing "bear-leaders of genteeler sort, to meet at an. old inn by
his mother's house, and Tbe a club for story-telling, lor an
occasional game of whist, and for the singing of songs. 1H irst
in these accomplishments, great at Latin quotations, as
admirer of happy human faces greatest of all, —• Oliver pre-
sides. Cousin Bryanton had seen his disgrace in college,
and thinks this a triumph indeed. So seems it to the hero
of the triumph, on whose taste and manners, still only
forming as yet in these sudden and odd extremes, many an
* I su'bjoin a ourious passage from Mr. Sluuv Mason's-volume already quoted, in
which what appears to be a miaatatemeut of dates is either "bo be explained by
supposing that the entries as to "Master Null" refer to a period before the family
had removed from Lissoy, or by the suggestion iu the text that tli© young bachelor
of arts utill ran the errands of his boyhood, and retained its familiar name, "The
" writer of thin ummnt purchased some old books a few yeai's ago, tit an auction in
" Bullymaluai; and among them an account-book, kept by a Mrs. Edwards, and a
" Mm Barah Shore, who lived in the next house to Mrs. Q-oldimith. In this
" village record, were Hevoml shop accounts from the year 1740 to 17C6, Some
" of the entries in the earliest of these accounts ran thus 3—' Tea by Master Null—
'' Oaah. 'by ditto;'—from which it appears, that the young poet was then perhaps his
(t mother's only messenger. One of the accounts, in 1756, mo>y be considered a
'' atatiatioal curiosity, ascortaimng the use and price of green ton, in this part of
" tho oountry, sixty years ago." (Mr. Mawon wrote in 1818.)
"Mrs. Goldsmith, to Sarah Shore, Dr.
*'Brought forward . . . . . , . 15». Bd,
" Jan. 16, Half an ounce of green tea . . . 0 8J
1' A quarter of a pound of lump sugar . ... 08
*' A pound of Jamaica siTgar ... . .08
'' An ounce of green tea ... ... 07
'( Half a pound of rice . ... . .02
" A quarter of an ounce of green tea . . . . 02."
Statistical Account, iii, JS58.