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Oliver Goldsmith.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
A MEMOIR
BY
AUSTIN DOBSON
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1899,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
NO VINU
CYTILOKMIY
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The Goldsmith family; Rev. Charles Goldsmith, of Pallas;
Oliver Goldsmith born there, November 10, 1728; re-
moval to Lissoy, 1730; Oliver's first teachers, Elizabeth
Delap and Thomas Byrne; childish characteristics; has
the small-pox; anecdotes connected therewith; further
schooling at Elphin, Athlone, and Edgeworthstown;
adventure at Ardagh; sizar at Trinity College, Dublin,
June 11, 1744; his tutor Theaker Wilder; dislike to
mathematics and logic; involved in a college riot, May,
1747; gets a small exhibition; disastrous results; runs
away from college; returns; writes songs for ballad-
singers; anecdote of his benevolence; takes his B.A.
degree, February 27, 1749; relics of college life.
PAGE
CHAPTER II
Waiting for orders; rejected by the Bishop of Elphin,
1751; tutor to Mr. Flinn; sets out for America, and
returns; letter to his mother; starts again fruitlessly as
a law student; goes to Edinburgh to study medicine;
becomes a member of the Medical Society there, Jan-
uary 13, 1753; life in Scotland; starts for Paris; ad-
ventures by the way; arrives at Leyden; life there;
leaves Leyden, February, 1755; travels on foot through
304600
Flanders and France; travelling tutor (?); anecdote
of Voltaire; further travels; arrives in England, Feb-
ruary 1, 1756
20
CHAPTER III
Prospect and retrospect; first struggles on reaching Eng-
land; comedian, apothecary's journeyman, poor physi-
cian, press-corrector to Richardson; writes a tragedy;
projects of Eastern exploration; assistant at Peckham
Academy; miseries of an usher; Peckham memories;
bound to Griffiths the bookseller, April, 1757; literature
of all work; criticism of Gray; quarrels with Griffiths;
"Memoirs of a Protestant" published, February, 1758;
returns to Peckham; new hopes; meditating "Enquiry
into Polite Learning;" letters to Mills, Bryanton, Mrs.
Lawder (Jane Contarine); obtains and loses appoint-
ment as medical officer at Coromandel; rejected at Sur-
geons' Hall as a hospital mate, December 21, 1758
CHAPTER IV
Pen-portrait of Goldsmith in 1759; No. 12, Green Arbour
Court, Old Bailey; difficulties with Griffiths; writing
"Memoirs of Voltaire;" letter to Henry Goldsmith,
February, 1759; visit from Dr. Percy, March; "En-
quiry into Polite Learning" published, April 2; account
of that book; its reception; contributions to The Busy
Body, and The Lady's Magazine; The Bee, October
to November; its reference to Johnson; minor verse
CHAPTER V
Amenities of authorship; Newbery and Smollett; work for
The British Magazine; "History of Miss Stanton;"
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