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 TOADYISM--A POET'S
PURSE FOR A CONTINENTAL TOUR
A new consultation was held among Goldsmith's friends as to his future
course, and it was determined he should try the law. His uncle Contarine
agreed to advance the necessary funds, and actually furnished him with
fifty pounds, with which he set off for London, to enter on his studies at
the Temple. Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a Roscommon
acquaintance, one whose wits had been sharpened about town, who beguiled
him into a gambling-house, and soon left him as penniless as when he
bestrode the redoubtable Fiddle-back.
He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of gross heedlessness and
imprudence that he remained some time in Dublin without communicating to
his friends his destitute condition. They heard of it, however, and he was
invited back to the country, and indulgently forgiven by his generous
uncle, but less readily by his mother, who was mortified and disheartened
at seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly blighted. His brother
Henry, too, began to lose patience at these successive failures, resulting
from thoughtless indiscretion; and a quarrel took place, which for some
time interrupted their usually affectionate intercourse.
The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still received a welcome was the
parsonage of his affectionate, forgiving uncle. Here he used to talk of
literature with the good, simple-hearted man, and delight him and his
daughter with his verses. Jane, his early playmate, was now the woman
grown; their intercourse was of a more intellectual kind than formerly;
they discoursed of poetry and music; she played on the harpsichord, and he
accompanied her with his flute. The music may not have been very artistic,
as he never performed but by ear; it had probably as much merit as the
poetry, which, if we may judge by the following specimen, was as yet but
juvenile: