CHAP. I.J SCHOOLDAYS AND HOLIDAYS.

has it in charge to dispense largely, variously, and freely 1739.
to others; and in the endeavour to show that the heart JEt. 11.
of Oliver G-oldsmith was indeed rightly placed, it may
perhaps appear that his head also profited by so good an
example.

At the age of eleven he was removed from Mr. Griffin's,
and put to a school of repute at Athlone, about five miles
from his father's house, and kept by a reverend Mr.
Campbell.* At about the same time Ms brother Henry
went as a pensioner to Dublin University, and it was
resolved that in due course Oliver should follow him: a deter-
mination, his sister told Doctor Percy, which had replaced
that of putting him to a common trade,f on those evidences
of a certain liveliness of talent which had broken out at uncle
John's being discussed among his relatives and friends,
He remained at Athlone two years ,* and, when Mr. Camp-
bell's ill-health obliged him to resign his charge, was
removed to the school of Edgeworthstown, kept by the
reverend Patrick Hughes. Here he stayed more than three ™7T3
years, and was long remembered by the school acquaintance
he formed; among whom were Mr. Beatty, Mr. Nugent,
Mr. Roach, and Mr. Daly, to whom we are indebted for

Polite Learning, chap. x. So, too, in his Life of Bolingbroke, he excuses the youthful
excesses and irregularities of the statesman by the remark that this period of his
career "might have been compared to that of fermentation in liquors, which grow
'(muddy before they brighten ; but it must also be confessed that those liquors
" which never ferment are seldom clear." Miscell. Works (Ed. 1837), iii. 388.
The same observation (as usual with anything that is a favourite with him) again
and again reappears in his various writings. * Percy Memoir, 6.

-)• " Oliver was his second son, and bom very unexpectedly after an interval of
" seven years from the birth of the former child, and the liberal education which
'' their father was then bestowing on his eldest son bearing hard upon his small
" income, he could only propose to bring up Oliver to some mercantile employment."
Mrs. Hodson's narrative, in the Percy Memoir, 3. In the next page she adds, '(he
" began at so early a period to show signs of genius that he quickly engaged the
" notice of all the friends of the family, many of whom were in the church." intended to