selves; but when you enter their towns, you are charmed beyond description. No misery is to be seen here: every one is usefully employed. Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast. There, hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is all a continued plain There you might see a well-dressed duchess issuing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip planted in dung, but I never see a Dutchman in his own house but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox.

Physic is by no means taught here so well as at Edinburgh, and in all Leyden there are but four British students, owing to all necessaries being so extremely dear, and the professors so very lazy (the chemical professor excepted), that we do not much care to come hither. I am not certain how long my stay here may be. However, I expect to have the happiness of seeing you at Kilmore, if I can, next March.

Direct to me, if I am honoured with a letter from you, to Madame Drallion's, at Leyden. Thou best of men, may Heaven guard and preserve you, and those love. you

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

With what diligence he pursued the studies of his profession is not known: he is said to have attended the lectures of Gaubius, the favourite

pupil of Boerhaave, on Chemistry, and those of Albinus on Anatomy; but his friend Dr. Ellis informs us, that an invincible propensity for play gained possession of his mind, and that, heedless of remonstrance, he gave way to its seductions, till he lost his last shilling. To this friend he now came for advice under his new difficulties. Dr. Ellis saw the necessity of his leaving Holland, and suggested a tour through different countries, at once to divert his mind from his dangerous pursuits, and to enlarge the circle of his knowledge. He also lent him money to enable him to prosecute his journey; but his assistance and advice were equally in vain: the greater part of the sum that was to procure him the advantage of well-directed travel, was spent in the purchase of some rare and costly flower roots; the remainder is supposed to have been squandered at the gaming-table; and he was obliged to set out on the tour of Europe, with one clean shirt, and with an empty pocket.

As a compensation for that thoughtless disposition that was hurrying Goldsmith for ever to the verge of ruin, nature had bestowed on him some of her rarest and choicest gifts; a light heart, and an easy, cheerful, buoyant frame of mind. There was a bow of promise shining amid all his storms. 'Blessed with a good constitution (I use the language of his biographer) and adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless,

perhaps happy disposition, which takes no care for to-morrow, he continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable privations, and neither poverty, fatigue, nor hardship seems to have damped his ardour nor interrupted his progress: it is a well-authenticated fact, that this ingenious man performed the tour of Europe on foot, and that he finished the arduous and singular undertaking without any other means than was obtained by an occasional display of his scholarship, or a tune upon his flute. In his Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Literature in Europe, he has observed, that countries wear very different appearances to travellers of different circumstances. The man who is whirled through Europe in his postchaise, and the pilgrim who performs the grand tour on foot, will form very different conclusions. "Haud inexpertus loquor."

That Goldsmith did visit several parts of Europe on foot, and that he had no resources on which he could rely, but the variety and power of his talents, cannot be doubted.12 It is generally said that his musical powers commanded the hospitality of the peasants, and that his scholarship procured him a ready welcome to the houses of the learned, and the establishments of the religious: I would that any scholar of our days could

12 Mr. Campbell says, 'assistance from his uncle must have reached him, as he remained six months at Padua;' and it probably was the case.

say the same. The last century has broken down the fortunes of the peasant, and swept away the inhabitants of the monastery: a traveller, however gifted, who should now adopt the system that supported Goldsmith through so long a tour, would find his Philosophical Thesis' and his Tuneful Pipe' but a bad passport to the hospitality of the continent.

He

To the knowledge of national manners, habits, and institutions, which he acquired in this singular journey, we are indebted for his finest poem-the Traveller. The first sketch of it is said to have been written after his arrival in Switzerland, and was sent to his brother Henry, in Ireland. stayed some time at Geneva; he there engaged himself as a travelling tutor to Mr. S ***, who, young as he was, possessed more worldly wisdom than his instructor, and had been brought up in a different school. He was nephew to a pawnbroker, and articled clerk to an attorney; a hopeful subject for Goldsmith's delicacy of taste and romantic ideas, to polish into the travelled gentleman. He bargained to keep the money himself; a stipulation which (to use the words of his biographer) cramped the views and propensities of Goldsmith.' This ill-sorted pair quarrelled, and parted at Marseilles; and our poet, once more on foot, pursued his journey through France, to the northern districts of Italy. He visited Verona, Florence, Venice; at Padua he staid six

months, and is said to have taken a medical degree there. At length his curiosity was satisfied, or, more probably, he was at last wearied with the difficulties, and disgusted with the mortifications, inseparable from so ill-supplied and ill-conducted a tour, and he returned home in the same vagrant manner in which he set out, and reached England about the breaking out of the war, in 1755-6.

When he arrived in London, he had a few halfpence in his pocket, and 'he found himself (to use his own words) without friends, recommendation, money, or impudence.' Immediate exertion was necessary; and, to support himself, he applied to an academy near London for the place of assistant. For some reason or other, probably thinking that the situation which he solicited for the purpose of relieving his present necessities was a degradation to his character and profession, he assumed a fictitious name. This led to further embarrassment; but he was relieved by the kindness of his friend Dr. Radcliffe, and obtained the situation. It is said that his letter of thanks to Dr. Radcliffe was accompanied with a very interesting account of his travels and adventures.

It is not to be expected that a situation which makes more galling demands on the patience, the temper, and the intellects of a scholar than any other, should have been long submitted to by the capricious feelings and desultory habits of a poet