CHAPTER V.

TRAVELS.
1755—1756.

To understand what was probably passing in Goldsmith's 1755.
mind at the curious point of his fortunes when, without any -35t. 27.
settled prospect in life, and devoid even of all apparent
means of self-support, he quitted Ley den, the Inquiry into
the Present State of Polite Learning, the nrst Hterary piece
which a few years afterwards he published on his own
account, will in some degree serve as a guide. The Danish
writer, Baron de Holberg, was much talked of at this time,
as a celebrated person recently dead. His career impressed
Goldsmith. It was that of a man of obscure origin, to
whom literature, other sources having failed, had given great
fame and high worldly station. On the death of his father,
Holberg had found himself involved "in. all that distress
" which is common among the poor, and of which the great
" have scarcely any idea." But, persisting in a determina-
tion to be something, he resolutely begged his learning and
his bread, and so succeeded that " a life begun in contempt
" and penury ended in opulence and esteem." Goldsmith
had his thoughts more especially fixed upon this career,l of the roots, and sent them