DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70031#0119
GOLDSMITH.
This celebrated writer during the whole period of
his life was an inexplicable enigma. He was at once
poor and prodigal, a gamester and a moralist; simple
in bis manners, yet at times excessively proud: alter-
nately benevolent and tender, morose and forbidding,
his character presented a perpetual contrast, in some
measure consonant with the vicissitudes of his life.
Oliver Goldsmith was born, according to some
writers, in 1731, at Pahas, in the county of Longford,
in Ireland, and in the opinion of others, at Elphin,
in 1729. His father was a clergyman, who gave him
a good education, and sent him to Trinity College,
Dublin, from whence he. removed to Edinburgh, to
study physic. While in that city he had the impru-
dence to become security for a fellow student, on
which account he was obliged to escape to England,
but was arrested at Sunderland, and released by two
college friends, whom he met with there. He then
went to Holland, and travelled through Flanders and
part of Germany on foot, from whence he accom-
panied an English gentleman to Genoa, and the south
of France.
On his return to England in 1758, friendless and
unprotected, he became usher in a school at Peck-
ham : in that situation he did not remain long, but
settled in London, where, being reduced to a low
state, he subsisted by writing for periodical publica-
tions. One of his first performances was “ An En-
quiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe
This celebrated writer during the whole period of
his life was an inexplicable enigma. He was at once
poor and prodigal, a gamester and a moralist; simple
in bis manners, yet at times excessively proud: alter-
nately benevolent and tender, morose and forbidding,
his character presented a perpetual contrast, in some
measure consonant with the vicissitudes of his life.
Oliver Goldsmith was born, according to some
writers, in 1731, at Pahas, in the county of Longford,
in Ireland, and in the opinion of others, at Elphin,
in 1729. His father was a clergyman, who gave him
a good education, and sent him to Trinity College,
Dublin, from whence he. removed to Edinburgh, to
study physic. While in that city he had the impru-
dence to become security for a fellow student, on
which account he was obliged to escape to England,
but was arrested at Sunderland, and released by two
college friends, whom he met with there. He then
went to Holland, and travelled through Flanders and
part of Germany on foot, from whence he accom-
panied an English gentleman to Genoa, and the south
of France.
On his return to England in 1758, friendless and
unprotected, he became usher in a school at Peck-
ham : in that situation he did not remain long, but
settled in London, where, being reduced to a low
state, he subsisted by writing for periodical publica-
tions. One of his first performances was “ An En-
quiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe