OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AISTO TIMES- fBDOK L
1752- But first let me remark that no traditions remain °
•^ 24. character or extent of his- studies. It se eras tolerably certain
that any learned celebrity he may have got in tlae schools,
paled an ineffectual fire before his amazing social repute,
as inimitable teller of a humorous story and capital singer
of Irish songs* But he was really fond, of chemistry, and
was remembered favourably by the celebrated Black ; other
well known fellow- students, as William Farr, and his
whilome college acquaintance, Lauchlan HVTacleane, conceived
a regard for him, which somewhat later IFarr seems to liave
had the opportunity of showing; certainly of kind quakcr
Sleigh, afterwards known as the eminent physician of that
name, as painter Barry's first patron, Bixorike's friend,, and one
of the many victims of Foote's witty xnalice, so mucli may
without contradiction be affirmed;! and. it is therefore to be
supposed that his eighteen months' residence in Edinburgh
was, on the whole, not unprofitable. It Ixad its mortifications,
of course; for all his life had these. f£ _Aji ugly and a poor
" man is society only for himself; and such society tlae world
"lets me enjoy in great abundance : " *c nor do I envy my
" dear Bob his blessings, while I may sit down and laugh at
"the world; and at myself, the most ridioulous object in it : "
are among his expressions of half bitter-, half good-natured
candour, in a letter to his cousin Bryairfccm,J
* "We may aford to smile at his first biographer's notice of this fact, which
forms one of the ** interpolations" complained of by Mstlone. *' These endetwoura
"to amuse, It must be confessed, -were however, fr/om an inordinate desire of
"gaining applause, and of setting the table in a roar,»too often blended 'with
'" grimace and buffoonery, from which, defects, notwithstanding he was afterwards
" introduced into the politest company, his conversatioB, ~was never wnolly exempt."
Percy Memoir, 19. t See Burke' s Oorrespondence, I. 35.
$ The letter to Bryanton quoted above was first printed in the Antfoolopia
Ifibernica of 1793, and thence transferred to the London, magazines of the same year*
A mutilated copy was afterwards printed in the Percy J$dT&moir (22 — 26). But' I <3t»
not feel myself at liberty to suppress any of the expressions of this letter ; aa
other biographers, though with the original letter bedFore them, appear to have