OLIYEB, GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. f-Booli L
1751 Bourdeaux; but, taken for a Jacobite in Newcastle- on-
^Bt.26, and in Sundeiiand arrested by a tailor, the ship 0 ailed- on
without him, and sank at the mouth of the Garonne.*
facts are stated on his own authority ; but whether
all exactly credible, or whether credit may not rather
to the suggestion that they were mere fanciful modes 01
carrying off the loss, in other ways, of money gi'V*311 ^°
enable him. to carry on studies in which it cannot now be
supposed that he took any great interest, I shall leave to
the judgment of the reader.
Certain it is that at last he got safe to the learned city;
and wrote off to his uncle, among other sketches of claair^csto
obviously meant to give him pleasure, what he th.ou.g3xt of
the three specimens of womankind he had now seen, out of
Ireland. "A Dutch woman and Scotch will well bear an
"opposition. The one is pale and fat, the other lean, and
"ruddy: the one walks as if she were straddling after a
" go-cart, and the other takes too masculine a stride. I
" shall not endeavour to deprive either country of its sliare
" of beauty; but I must say, that of all objects on this
" earth, an English farmer's daughter is most charaaing."
In the same dehghtful letter he observingly corrects the
vulgar notion of the better kind of Dutchman, amusingly
comparing him with the downright Hollander, while in.
* " I embarked from Bourdeaux onboard a Scotch ship, called tie St. Andrews,
" Captain John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and, aa
' ' another inducement, I -was let to know that six agreeable passengers -were to be
"my company. Well, we were but two days at sea, when, a storm drove tt.s into
"a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh.
" us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one day on. shore,
" and on the following evening, as we were all very merry, the room door "bursts
'* open : enters a Serjeant and twelve grenadiers, with their bayonets screwed, and
" puts us all under the king's arrest. It seems my company were ScotchLmen ia
' ' the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the BVenoli
" army. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence; however, I remained
" in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then.**