lady drew up her mouth, as if going to pronounce the letter P.

But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women with whom I have scarcely any correspondence! There are, 'tis certain, handsome women here; and 'tis as certain, they have handsome men to keep them company. An ugly and a poor man is society only for himself; and such society the world lets me enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, and Nature a person to look charming in the eyes of the fair. Nor do I envy, my dear Bob, such blessings, while I may sit down and laugh at the world, and at myself-the most ridiculous object in it. But you see I am grown downright splenetic, and perhaps the fit may continue till I receive an answer to this. I know you cannot send much news from Ballymahon, but such as it is send it all; every thing you send will be agreeable and entertaining to me.

1

Has George Conway put up a sign yet; or John Binely left off drinking drams; or Tom Allen got a new wig? But I leave you to your own choice what to write. While I live, know you have a true friend in yours, &c. &c. &c. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

P.S. Give my sincere respects2 (not compliments, do you mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my mother if you see her; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me,, Student in physic, in Edinburgh.3

1 So Prior reads the name. Others have read it Binecly, Fineely, and Finecly.-Ed.

2 The European Magazine version has the warmer, and therefore more likely, word "regards." See the next note.-ED.

3 The above letter is from Prior's Life,' v. i., p. 139. The original was lent to that editor by the Rev. Dr. Handcock, of Dublin (the son-inlaw of Bryanton). It had been printed before 1837, however, as in the 'Anthologia Hibernica,' 1793, p. 92, the European Magazine, May, 1794, and the 'Athenæum,' March, 1832. These latter versions differ in many phrases; but they are all superior to Percy's version, which, in addition to numerous verbal differences, omits the last paragraphs as well as the postscript.-ED.

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. THOMAS CONTARINE.

[Close of 1753.1]

MY DEAR UNCLE,

After having spent two winters in Edinburgh I now prepare to go to France the 10th of next February. I have seen all that this country can exhibit in the medical way, and therefore intend to visit Paris, where the great Mr. Farhein, Petit,2 and Du Hammel de Monceau instruct their pupils in all the branches of medicine. They speak French, and consequently I shall have much the advantage of most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted with that language, and few who leave Ireland are so.

Since I am upon so pleasing a topic as self-applause, give me leave to say that the circle of science which I have run through, before I undertook the study of physic, is not only useful, but absolutely necessary to the making a skilful physician. Such sciences enlarge our understanding and sharpen our sagacity; and what is a practitioner without but an empirie, for never yet was a disorder found entirely the same in two patients. A quack, unable to distinguish the peculiarities in each disease, prescribes at a venture; if he finds that such a disorder may be called by the general name of fever for instance, he has a set of remedies which he applies to cure it, nor does he desist till his medicines are run out, or his patient has lost his life. But the skilful physician distinguishes the symptoms, manures the sterility of nature, or prunes her luxuriance; nor does he depend so much on the efficacy of medicines as on their proper application. I shall spend this spring and summer in Paris, and the beginning of next winter go to Leyden. The great Albinus is still alive there, and t'will be proper to go, though only to have it said that we have studied in so famous an university.

1 Or January, 1754. This letter was first printed in Prior's' Life.'ED.

2 Probably Anthony Petit, 1722-1794.-ED.

As I shall not have another opportunity of receiving money from your bounty till my return to Ireland, so I have drawn for the last sum that I hope I shall ever trouble you for; 'tis 207. And now, dear Sir, let me here acknowledge the humiliation of the station in which you found me; let me tell how I was despised by most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless poverty, was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make me her own. When you but I stop here, to inquire how your health goes on? How does my cousin Jenny,' and has she recovered her late complaint? How does my poor Jack Goldsmith? 2 I fear his disorder is of such a nature as he won't easily recover. I wish, my dear Sir, you would make me happy by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall hardly hear from you. I shall carry just 337. to France, with good store of clothes, shirts, &c. &c., and that with economy will serve.

I have spent more than a fortnight every second day at the Duke of Hamilton's, but it seems they like me more as a jester than as a companion; so I disdained so servile an employment; 'twas unworthy my calling as a physician.3

I have nothing new to add from this country; and I beg, dear Sir, that you will excuse this letter, so filled with egotism. I wish you may be revenged on me, by sending an answer filled with nothing but an account of yourself.

I am, dear Uncle,

Your most devoted

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Give my-how shall I express it? Give my earnest love to Mr. and Mrs. Lawder.

1 Now Mrs. Jane Lawder. Letter IX. was addressed to her four years later: see p. 438.-ED.

2 John, Oliver's youngest brother; born in 1740.-ED.

3 How Goldsmith was introduced to the duke, and how engaged with him, is not known. Mr. Forster hazards the guess that he was engaged as tutor. Prior suggests that he may have been introduced through the Irish connections of the duchess. See the previous reference to the duke and duchess in Letter III. See also Letter XXXVI., and its note

at p. 473.-ED.

LETTER V.

TO THE REV. THOMAS CONTARINE.

DEAR SIR,

LEYDEN [no date.1]

I suppose by this time I am accused of either neglect or ingratitude, and my silence imputed to my usual slowness of writing. But believe me, Sir, when I say, that till now I had not an opportunity of sitting down with that ease of mind which writing required. You may see by the top of the letter that I am at Leyden; but of my journey hither you must be informed. Some time after the receipt of your last, I embarked for Bourdeaux, on board a Scotch ship called the St. Andrews, Captain John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and, as another inducement, I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to be my company. Well, we were but two days at sea when a storm drove us into a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one day on shore; and on the following evening, as we were all very merry, the room door bursts open: enters a sergeant and twelve grenadiers with their bayonets screwed, and puts us all under the king's arrest. It seems, my company were Scotchmen in the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the French army. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence: however, I remained in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then. Dear Sir, keep this all a secret, or at least say it was for debt; for if it were once known at the university, I should hardly get a degree. But hear how Providence interposed in my favour: the ship was

This letter must have been written in the summer of 1754.—B. Others date it April or May, 1754. It was first published in the Percy memoir.-ED.

2 This proposal seems absurd, but it may account for the report mentioned by some of his biographers, of his having been, on his putting to shore, arrested for a debt contracted at Edinburgh, &c.—PERCY.

gone on to Bourdeaux before I got from prison, and was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and every one of the crew were drowned. It happened the last great storm. There was a ship at that time ready for Holland: I embarked, and in nine days, thank my God! I arrived safe at Rotterdam; whence I travelled by land to Leyden; and whence I now write.

You may expect some account of this country, and though I am not well qualified for such an undertaking, yet shall I endeavour to satisfy some part of your expectations. Nothing surprised me more than the books every day published descriptive of the manners of this country. Any young man who takes it into his head to publish his travels, visits the countries he intends to describe; passes through them with as much inattention as his valet de chambre; and, consequently not having a fund himself to fill a volume, he applies to those who wrote before him, and gives us the manners of a country, not as he must have seen them, but such as they might have been fifty years before. The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature from him of former times: he in every thing imitates a Frenchman, but in his easy disengaged air, which is the result of keeping polite company. The Dutchman is vastly ceremonious, and is perhaps exactly what a Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But the downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature: upon a head of lank hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat, laced with black ribbon; no coat, but seven waistcoats, and nine pairs of breeches; so that his hips reach almost up to his arm-pits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company, or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of his appetite! Why, she wears a large fur cap with a deal of Flanders lace; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats.

A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, Sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. I take it that this continual smoking is what gives the man the ruddy,