CONTENTS. ACCOUNT of the Life and Writings of the Page On a beautiful Youth struck blind by Lightning... 115 A new Simile, in the manner of Swift.............. 116 Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog....................................................... 120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH was the youngest of the four sons of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, and was born the 29th of November, in the year 1731, at Fernes, in Ireland. Having passed some time in the study of the classics, under the tuition of Mr. Hughes, on the 11th of June 1744 he was admitted a sizer in Trinity college, Dublin. His genius, which afterwards broke forth with such distinguished lustre, had not yet unfolded itself; for we cannot find that, during his continuance at the university, he manifested such appearances of men tal vigour as to entitle him to a pre-eminence over the generality of his fellow-students. In February 1749, however, which was two years after the regular course of those things, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Having, while he remained in Dublin, turned his thoughts to the profession of physic, and attended some courses of anatomy, in the year 1751 he visited Edinburgh, and applied himself to the study of the different branches of medicine under the respective professors in that university. His thoughtless though beneficent disposition soon involved him in difficulties. He had made himself responsible for the debt of a fellow-student, who being either unable or unwilling to discharge it, Mr. Goldsmith was obliged abruptly to leave Scotland, in order to avoid the horrors of a prison. In the beginning of the year 1754 he arrived at Sunderland; but being pursued by a legal process, on account of the debt we have just mentioned, he was arrested. At Edinburgh he had formed an intimacy with Mr. Lauchlin Maclaine and Dr. Sleigh, who still resided in the college at that place; and these gentlemen being informed of his unhappy situation, |