he said later, in a passage which had more of bitter recollection than absolute accuracy-"seems a science, to which the meanest intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says "All men might understand mathematics, if they would." The "dreary subtleties" of "Dutch Burgersdyck "and Polish Smeglesius, the luminaries who then presided over the study of logic, equally repelled him, as they had repelled his predecessor, Swift. Everything was thus against his advancement to honours, and the measure of his disqualification was filled up by a certain idle. habit of "perpetually lounging about the college-gate,” (of which, by the way, Johnson was also accused at Oxford,) and by a boyish love of pleasure and amusement. He sang with considerable taste: he played passably upon the German flute. Both of these accomplishments made him popular with many of his fellows, but they were not those from whose ranks the distinguished members of an university are usually recruited. With these characteristics, that he should be associated with the scandals rather than with the successes of an academic career is perhaps to be anticipated. Accordingly, in May, 1747, we find him involved in a college riot. A report had been circulated that a scholar had been arrested in Fleet Street (Dublin). This was an indignity to which no gownsman could possibly submit. Led by a wild fellow called "Gallows" Walsh, who, among the students, exercised the enviable and selfconferred office of "Controller-General of tumults in ordinary," they carried the bailiff's den by storm, stripped the unfortunate wretch who was the chief offender, and ducked him soundly in the college cistern. Intoxicated by this triumph and reinforced by the town mob, they then proceeded to attack the tumble-down old prison known as the "Black Dog," with a view to a general gaol delivery. But the constable of that fortress, being a resolute man, well provided with firearms, made a gallant defence, the result being that two of the townsmen were killed and others wounded. Four of the ringleaders in this disastrous affair were expelled. Oliver Goldsmith was not among these; but having "aided and abetted," he was, with three others, publicly admonished, "quod seditioni favisset et tumultuantibus opem tulisset." From the stigma of this censure, he recovered shortly afterwards by a small success. He tried for a scholarship and failed; but he gained an exhibition amounting to some thirty shillings. Unhappily this only led to a fresh mishap. His elation prompted him to celebrate his good fortune by an entertainment at his rooms, which, to add to its enormity, included persons of both sexes. No sooner was the unwonted sound of a fiddle heard in the heights of No. 35, than the exasperated Wilder burst upon the assembly, dispersing the terrified guests, and, after a torrent of abuse, knocked down the hapless host. The disgrace was overwhelming. Hastily gathering his books together, the poor lad sold them for what they would fetch, and fairly ran away, vaguely bound for America. He loitered, however, in Dublin until his means were reduced to a shilling, and then set out for Cork. After reaching perilously close to starvation-for he afterwards told Reynolds that a handful of grey peas, given to him at this time by a good-natured girl at a wake, was the most comfortable repast he had ever made-he recovered his senses, and turned his steps homewards. His brother Henry (his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, having died some three months earlier) came halfway to meet and receive him. Ultimately a kind of reconciliation was patched up with his tutor, and he was restored to the arms of his Alma Mater. Henceforth his university life was less eventful. Wilder still, after his fashion, pursued his pupil with taunts and irony. But, beyond frequent "turnings - down," the college records contain no further evidence of unusual irregularity. His pecuniary supplies, always doubtful, had become more uncertain since his father's death, and now consisted chiefly of intermittent contributions from kind-hearted Uncle Contarine, and other friends. Often he must have been wholly dependent upon petty loans from his schoolmate Beatty, from his cousin Robert Bryanton, from his relative Edward Mills of Roscommon, all of whom were his contemporaries at Trinity. Sometimes he was reduced to pawn his books -"mutare quadrata rotundis, like the silly fellow in Horace," as Wilder classically put it. Another method of making money, to which he occasionally resorted, was ballad-writing of a humble kind. There was a shop at the sign of the Rein-deer in Mountrath Court, where, at five shillings a head, he found a ready market for hist productions, and it is related that he would steal out at nightfall to taste that supreme delight of the not-tooexperienced poet, the hearing them sung by the wandering minstrels of the Dublin streets. Not seldom, it is to be feared, his warmth of heart prevented even these trivial gains from benefiting him, and like the "machine of pity" which his father had brought him up to be, he had parted with them to some importunate petitioner before he reached his home. Of his inconsiderate charity in this way a ludicrous anecdote is told. Once Edward Mills, coming to summon him to breakfast, was answered from within, that he must burst open the door, as his intended guest was unable to rise. He was, in fact, struggling to extricate himself from the ticking of his bed, into which, in the extreme cold, he had crawled, having surrendered his blankets to a poor woman who, on the preceding night, had vanquished him with a pitiful story. On the 27th February, 1749, he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and his college days came to an end. One of the relics of this epoch, a folio Scapula, scrawled liberally with signatures and "promises to pay," was, in 1837, in the possession of his first biographer, Prior. He also left his autograph on one of the panes of No. 35. When, fifty years ago, the old garrets disappeared, this treasure was transferred to the manuscript room of Trinity College, where it remains. But perhaps the most significant memorial of his Dublin life is to be found in a passage from one of his later letters to his brother Henry. "The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a scholar are judicious and convincing. . . . If he be assiduous, and divested of strong passions, (for passions in youth always lead to pleasure,) he may do very well in your college; for it must be owned, that the industrious poor have good encourage |