Oliver Goldsmith A Biography

Excerpt

PREFACE

I. Birth and Parentage—Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race—Poetical
Birthplace—Goblin House—Scenes of Boyhood—Lissoy—Picture of a Country
Parson—Goldsmith's Schoolmistress—Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster—
Goldsmith's Hornpipe and Epigram—Uncle Contarine—School Studies and
School Sports—Mistakes of a Night

II. Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family—Goldsmith at the
University—Situation of a Sizer—Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor—Pecuniary
Straits—Street Ballads—College Riot—Gallows Walsh—College Prize—A
Dance Interrupted

III. Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop—Second Sally to see the World—Takes
Passage for America—Ship sails without him—Return on Fiddleback—A
Hospitable Friend—The Counselor

IV. Sallies forth as a Law Student—Stumbles at the Outset—Cousin Jane and
the Valentine—A Family Oracle—Sallies forth as a Student of
Medicine—Hocus-pocus of a Boarding-house—Transformations of a Leg of
Mutton—The Mock Ghost—Sketches of Scotland—Trials of Toryism—A Poet's
Purse for a Continental Tour

V. The agreeable Fellow-passengers—Risks from Friends picked up by the
Wayside—Sketches of Holland and the Dutch—Shifts while a Poor Student at
Leyden—The Tulip Speculation—The Provident Flute—Sojourn at Paris—
Sketch of Voltaire—Traveling Shifts of a Philosophic Vagabond

VI. Landing In England—Shifts of a Man without Money—The Pestle and
Mortar—Theatricals in a Barn—Launch upon London—A City Night
Scene—Struggles with Penury—Miseries of a Tutor—A Doctor in the
Suburb—Poor Practice and Second-hand Finery—A Tragedy in Embryo—Project
of the Written Mountains

VII. Life as a Pedagogue—Kindness to Schoolboys—Pertness In Return—Expensive Charities—The Griffiths and the "Monthly Review"—Toils of a Literary Hack—Rupture with the Griffiths

VIII. Newbery, of Picture-book Memory—How to keep up Appearances—Miseries of Authorship—A Poor Relation—Letter to Hodson

IX. Hackney Authorship—Thoughts of Literary Suicide—Return to Peckham—
Oriental Projects—Literary Enterprise to raise Funds—Letter to Edward
Wells—To Robert Bryanton—Death of Uncle Contarine—Letter to Cousin Jane

X. Oriental Appointment, and Disappointment—Examination at the College of
Surgeons—How to procure a Suit of Clothes—Fresh Disappointment—A Tale of
Distress—The Suit of Clothes in Pawn—Punishment for doing an act of
Charity—Gayeties of Green-Arbor Court—Letter to his Brother—Life of
Voltaire—Scroggins, an attempt at Hock Heroic Poetry

XI. Publication of "The Inquiry"—Attacked by Griffith's "Review"—Kenrick, the Literary Ishmaelite—Periodical Literature—Goldsmith's Essays—Garrick as a Manager—Smollett and his Schemes—Change of Lodgings—The Robin Hood Club

XII. New Lodgings—Visits of Ceremony—Hangers-on—Pilkington and the White
Mouse—Introduction to Dr. Johnson—Davies and his Bookshop—Pretty Mrs.
Davies—Foote and his Projects—Criticism of the Cudgel

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