OLIYBE GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES.

the captain never inquired after him, setting sail with as
Mt. 23. much indifference as if he had heen on board. " You know,
" mother," lie remarks, " that no one can starve while lie lias
" money in his pocket:" and, being reduced by the practice of
this apophthegm, to Ms last two guineas, he bought the
generous beast, Fiddleback, for one pound seventeen, and with
five shillings in his pocket turned homewards. Then had
come one of those sudden appeals to a sharp and painful
susceptibility, when, as he afterwards described them to his
brother, charitable to excess, he forgot the rules of justice,
and placed himself in the situation of the wretch who was
thanking him for his bounty. Penniless in consequence,
he bethought him of a college acquaintance on the road, to
whose house he went. With exquisite humour he describes
this most miserly acquaintance, who, to allay his desperate
hunger, dilated on the advantages .of a diet of slops, and set
him clown to a porringer of sour milk and a heel of musty
cheese; and, being asked for the loan of a guinea, earnestly
recommended the sale of Fiddleback, producing what he
called a much better nag to ride upon which would cost
neither price nor provender, in the shape of a stout oaken
cudgel. His adventures ended a little more agreeably at
last however, in a more genial abode, where an acquaintance
of the miser entertained him. He had " two sweet girls to
" his daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpsichord ;
" and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first
" time I heard them; for, that being the first time also that
" either of them had touched the instrument since their
" mother's death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down
"• their father's cheeks."*

* The letter descriptive of this adventure, as printed in various editions of
Goldsmith's works, is in all respects confirmatory of the narrative as given by

CHAPTER IV.

—4_,

PREPARING- FOR A MEDICAL DEGREE.

1752—1755.

1752, THE years of idleness must nevertheless come to a close.
Jit. 24. To do nothing, no matter how melodiously accompanied by
flute and harpsichord, is not what a man is born into this
world to do; and it required but a casual word, from a not
very genial visitor to close for ever Goldsmith's liappy nights
at uncle Contarine's. There was a sort of cold grandee of
the family, Dean G-oldsmith of Cloyne, who did not think
it unbecoming his dignity to visit the good clergyman's
parsonage now and then; and Oliver having made a remark
which showed him. no fool, the dean gave it as his opinion
to Mr. Contarine that his young relative woiilcl make an
excellent medical man. The hint seemed a good one, and
was the dean's contribution to his young relative's fortune.
The small purse was contributed by Mr. Contarine ; and
in the autumn of 1753, Oliver Goldsmith started for
Edinburgh, medical student.

Anecdotes of amusing simplicity and forgetfuliiess in. this
new character are, as usual, more rife than notices of his
course of study. But such records as have been preserved
of the period rest upon authority too obviously dou."btful to

 Williams's Miscellanies . , 425