CHAPTER VI.

ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND. EARLY STRUGGLES IN LONDON.

BECOMES USHER IN THE SCHOOL OF DR. MILNER AT PECKHAM. ENGAGES IN THE MONTHLY REVIEW. DR. JAMES

GRAINGER.

EARLY in the year 1756 he reached England, having spent about two years on the Continent; and London, as the general resort of talent and necessity, became his first object. Here his prospects were of the most discouraging nature. Whatever advances he had made in learning, or in the knowledge of mankind in the abstract, he had made none in what is more commonly considered the practical business of life. It was doubtful what course to pursue for a livelihood ; he was in, to him, a strange land; he possessed neither friends nor money; and laboured under the disadvantage of being an Irishman, which at that period as he says in one of his letters, formed of itself an obstacle to gaining employment.

Some obscurity exists as to the exact incidents of his life on revisiting England, of the order in which they preceded each other, or whether his first attempt to obtain a livelihood was in the medical or scholastic profession. Much of his early career, of what was known to many acquaintance

during his life is now forgotten, although in this and other details he may not have thought it necessary to be explicit to such as were likely to record them; unwilling to disclose struggles which were unsuccessful or involving details distressing to his pride. Yet we know that hints and allusions fell from him in conversation, casting partial light on parts of his history, which it would have been indelicate nevertheless to pursue by direct ques tions further than he thought proper to go. After his death, an anonymous contributor to the newspapers stated, that the Poet having been bred to pharmacy had attempted to practise as an apothecary in a country town, but failing of success, proceeded to London and accepted the situation of usher to Dr. Milner. A contradiction to the former part of this account soon appeared, which brought forth the following rejoinder: it must be remembered that the authority is anonymous, although there seems no inducement for wilful misstatement or that the writer had not sufficient authority for what he says:-" A writer in a daily paper pretends to contradict some part of our account of the late Dr. Goldsmith. He says, the Doctor was not bred to pharmacy, and that he did not set up as an apothecary in a country town in Ireland. We never said that he set up in Ireland. The country town alluded to is an English town, the name of which is forgotten. But the writer of this and the former paragraph assures the public, that he had the anecdote from the Doctor's own mouth.

As to what the writer mentions of the Doctor having been a student in Edinburgh after he left Ireland, and then travelling into Germany and other parts of Europe, it is very true, and to that circumstance the public is probably indebted for his pretty poem of the Traveller.'"*

A rumour (mentioned by Mr. English who conducted the Annual Register for twenty years after Burke relinquished it) prevailed about the year 1766, of his having once attempted the stage in the line of low comedy, in a country town, when pressed for the means of subsistence. Whether this story was circulated in jest or earnest, may be doubted; want makes us familiar with strange pursuits as with strange acquaintance; and as the scheme may have seemed to him to require little preliminary knowledge and no introduction, it is just possible some such resource was tried in making his way from the coast to London, destitute as he avowedly was of money. The greater probability indeed is, that like some other stories told of him it had no foundation, or was conjectured from the seeming knowledge of such a life shown in the "Adventures of a Strolling Player," printed in the British Magazine, where the scene is placed in Kent; or from the conclusion of the story of George Primrose. It is however true that he was afterwards known to express desire to play as a piece of admirable low comedy, the character of Scrub in "The Beaux Stratagem."

* St. James's Chronicle, April 12-14. 1774.

As far as can be ascertained, after reaching London his first determination seems to have been to turn his classical knowledge to account as usher in a school. With this view he made application to one of those establishments under a feigned name; ashamed, as it appears, of an occupation from which he soon hoped to escape and which by this device might never be known. A reference as to character was however required, and knowing none in England to whom to apply, he gave the name of the gentleman already mentioned, Dr. Radcliff of Dublin; but at the same time wrote to that gentleman himself, requesting him to give no answer to the inquiry of the schoolmaster. The reason of this we may readily conceive: having given a wrong name at first expecting to be received without reference, he could not without hazard of total rejection afterwards acknowledge the deception; he sought besides, merely temporary shelter, which was probably afforded until the answer from Dublin should arrive, trusting in the mean time that his attainments and moral conduct would establish their own character; while as it was obvious that Doctor Radcliff could not recommend a fictitious person, no answer from him was better than direct denial of all knowledge of the applicant.

This story was told soon after the death of the Poet, by a writer of credit from a then living authority. In the statements mingled with it however several errors crept in, in consequence of few authentic particulars of the Poet's life being then

(1776) known; thus the real place of his birth is thought to have been Roscommon; and he is believed to have lived in England previous to visiting the Continent: while the interval between the two applications to Dr. Radcliff, instead of being passed in travelling, as this writer thinks, were really spent in London; that is, between 1756, when seeking the ushership, and 1758, when he wrote again to that gentleman, soliciting aid in procuring subscriptions for one of his forthcoming works. That his adventures as related by him to that gentleman were, as is here said amusing, we may readily believe: situated as he was while on the Continent, they must from any pen have possessed no ordinary interest; and from his own, ever abundant in humour and ease, no doubt a peculiar charm. Nor from a correspondent, to whom he stood partly in the relation of pupil, and who had known his previous struggles in Dublin, would he probably conceal much which it might not be necessary to disclose to others.

"This county" (Roscommon), writes the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell, whose connection with Bishop Percy in drawing up a memoir of the Poet has been mentioned, "boasts of a still greater honour, the birth of the much-lamented Oliver Goldsmith. I have learned a very curious anecdote of this extraordinary man, from the widow of a Dr. Radcliff, who had been his tutor in Trinity College, Dublin. She mentioned to me a very long letter from him, which she had often heard