blockhead, little better than a fool, whom everyone made
fun of." Indeed, from his earliest youth he was made to feel an intense,
uneasy consciousness of supposed defects. Later he went to school at
Athlone and at Edgeworthstown, and was in every school trick, either as
an actor or a victim. On leaving the school at Edgeworthstown, Oliver
entered Dublin University as a sizar, "at once studying freedom and
practising servitude." Little went well with him in his student course.
He had a menial position, a savage brute for a tutor, and few
inclinations to the study exacted. But he was not without his
consolations; he could sing a song well, and, at a new insult, could
blow off excitement through his flute. The popular picture of him in
these days is of a slow, hesitating, somewhat hollow voice, a low-sized,
thick, robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on the
wait for misery and ill-luck.

In Oliver's second year at college his father died suddenly, and the
scanty sum required for his support stopped. Squalid poverty relieved by
occasional gifts was Goldsmith's lot thenceforward. He would write
street-ballads to save himself from actual starving, sell them for five
shillings a-piece, and steal out of the college at night to hear them
sung. It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five shillings
reached home with him. It was more likely, when he was at his utmost
need, to stop with some beggar on the road who had seemed to him even
more destitute than himself.

He took his degree as bachelor of arts on February 27, 1749 and
returning to his mother's house, at Ballymahon, waited till he could
qualify himself for orders. This is the sunny time between two dismal
periods of his life--the day occupied in the village school, the winter
nights in presiding at Conway's inn, the summer evenings strolling up
the banks of the Inny to play the flute, learning French from the Irish
priests, or winning a prize for throwing a sledge-hammer at the fair.

When the time came for Goldsmith to take orders, one report says he did
not deem himself good enough for it, and another says that he presented
himself before the Bishop of Elphin in scarlet breeches; but in truth
his rejection is the only certainty.

A year's engagement as a tutor followed, and from it he returned home
with thirty pounds in his pocket, and was the undisputed owner of a good
horse. Thus furnished and mounted he set off for Cork with a vis