renewed the tale of my distress, and asking "how he thought I could travel above an hundred miles upon one half-crown?" I begged to borrow a single guinea, which I assured him should be repaid with thanks. "And you know, Sir," said I," it is no more than I have often done for you.” To which he firmly answered, "Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here nor there. I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this sickness of mine has left me bare of cash. But I have bethought myself of a conveyance for you; sell your horse and I will furnish you a much better one to ride on." I readily grasped at his proposal, and begged to see the nag; on which he led me to his bed-chamber, and from under the bed he pulled out a stout oak stick. “Here he is," said he; "take this in your hand, and it will carry you to your mother's with more safety than such a horse as you ride." I was in doubt when I got it into my hand whether I should not, in the first place, apply it to his pate; but a rap at the street-door made the wretch fly to it, and when I returned to the parlour, he introduced me, as if nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentleman who entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious and worthy friend, of whom he had so often heard him speak with rapture. I could scarcely compose myself; and must have betrayed indignation in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor at law in the neighbourhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite address.

After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to dine with him at his house. This I declined at first, as I wished to have no further communication with my old hospitable friend; but at the solicitation of both I at last consented, determined as I was by two motives; one, that I was prejudiced in favour of the looks and manner of the counsellor; and the other that I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And there indeed I found every thing that I could wish, abundance without profusion, and elegance without affectation. In the evening when my old friend, who had eaten very plentifully at his neighbour's table, but talked again of lying down with the lamb, made a motion to me for retiring, our generous host requested I should take a bed with him, upon which I plainly my old friend that he might go home and take care of

told

the horse he had given me, but that I should never re-enter his doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving me to add this to the other little things the counsellor already knew of his plausible neighbour.

And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile me to all my follies; for here I spent three whole days. The counsellor 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. I every day endeavoured to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged to stay. On my going the counsellor offered me his purse, with a horse and servant to convey me home; but the latter I declined, and only took a guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the road.1

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Ballymahon.

1 Malone thought this letter not genuine. He doubted other portions of the Hodson narrative also; but he said of this letter that, even if it was written by Goldsmith, he thought its story fictitious-that Goldsmith was romancing in fact. Percy answered by averring his general belief in the narrative by Goldsmith's sister, though he said some slight inaccuracies and deficiencies-as of names and dates-might be pardoned in a statement made mainly from memory forty years after the events. As regards the genuineness of this particular letter, Prior and Forster concur in thinking it discloses Goldsmith's style; and also that the events detailed are not out of character with other known facts of Goldsmith's career. Percy printed only a summary of the letter. Prior first printed it entire, having got it from the Mason MSS. Percy's summary, however, which purports to be the very words of Mrs. Hodson's narrative, has a few touches and details that are wanting in the letter as given from the Mason MSS. Compare, for instance, the account of Goldsmith's entertainment by his curmudgeon college friend at Percy's pp. 10-12, with the account above.-ED.

LETTER II.

TO THE REV. THOMAS CONTARINE.1

MY DEAR UNCLE,

[EDINBURGH] May 8, 1753.2

In your letter (the only one I received from Kilmore), you call me the philosopher who carries all his goods about him. Yet how can such a character fit me, who have left behind in Ireland every thing I think worth possessing; friends that I loved, and a society that pleased while it instructed? Who but must regret the loss of such enjoyments? Who but must regret his absence from Kilmore, that ever knew it as I did? Here as recluse as the Turkish Spy at Paris, I am almost unknown to every body, except some few who attend the professors of physic as I do.

Apropos, I shall give you the professors' names, and, as far as occurs to me, their characters; and first, as most deserving, Mr. Munro, Professor of Anatomy: this man has brought the science he teaches to as much perfection as it is capable of; and not content with barely teaching anatomy, he launches out into all the branches of physic, when all his remarks are new and useful. 'Tis he, I may venture to say, that draws hither such a number of students from most parts of the world, even from Russia. He is not only a skilful physician, but an able orator, and delivers things in their nature obscure in so easy a manner, that the most unlearned may understand him. Plume, Professor of Chemistry, understands his business well, but delivers himself so ill, that he is but little regarded. Alston, Professor of Materia Medica, speaks much, but little to the purpose. The Professors of Theory and Practice (of Physic) say nothing but what we may find in books laid before us, and speak that in so drowsy and heavy a

1 Mr. Contarine had married Goldsmith's aunt. At this time he held the living of Kilmore, near Carrick-on-Shannon. He is said to

have come of the Contarini of Venice.-ED.

2 First published in Prior's 'Life,' 1837.-ED.

manner, that their hearers are not many degrees in a better state than their patients.

You see, then, dear Sir, that Munro' is the only great man among them; so that I intend to hear him another winter, and go then to hear Albinus, the great professor at Leyden. I read (with satisfaction) a science the most pleasing in nature, so that my labours are but relaxation, and I may truly say, the only thing here that gives me pleasure. How I enjoy the pleasing hope of returning with skill, and to find my friends stand in no need of my assistance! How many happy years do I wish you! and nothing but want of health can take from you happiness, since you so well pursue the paths that conduct to virtue. I am, my dear Uncle, your most obliged,

Most affectionate nephew,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

P.S.-I draw this time for 6l., and will draw next October but for 4l., as I was obliged to buy every thing since I came to Scotland, shirts not even excepted. I am a little more early the first year than I shall be for the future, for I absolutely will not trouble you before the time hereafter.

My best love attend Mr. and Mrs. Lawder, and Heaven preserve them! I am again your dutiful nephew, O. G.

I have been a month in the Highlands. I set out the first day on foot, but an ill-natured corn I have got on my toe has for the future prevented that cheap method of travelling; so the second day I hired a horse, of about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot he could not) as pensive as his master. In three days we reached the Highlands. This letter would be too long if it contained the description I intend giving of that country, so shall make it the subject of my next.*

1 Alexander Monro, 1697-1767; since termed "the father of the medical school of Edinburgh." Dr. Alston is again mentioned in the Introduction to Botany contributed to Brookes' Natural History,' 1763; see the Prefaces in vol. iv.-ED.

2 This promised letter, if written, is not known to exist.-ED.

LETTER III.

TO ROBERT BRYANTON, ESQ., AT BALLYMAHON, IRELAND.

MY DEAR BOB,

EDINBURGH, September 26, 1753.

How many good excuses (and you know I was ever good at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful silence! I might tell how I wrote a long letter on my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an answer; I might allege that business (with business, you know, I was always pestered) had never given me time to finger a pen. But I suppress those and twenty more as plausible, and as easily invented, since they might all be attended with a slight inconvenience,—of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth. An hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turn-spit dog gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write; yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address.

1

Yet what shall I say, now I am entered? Shall I tire you with a description of this unfruitful country; where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarcely able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet with all these disadvantages, enough to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. The poor have pride ever ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen to despise them, they are masters of their own admiration, and that they can plentifully bestow upon themselves.