putting himself on such terms of familiarity.

In June, 1745, he was sent a sizer to Trinity College, Dublin, and
placed under the tuition of Mr. Wilder, one of the fellows, who is
represented to have been of a temper so morose as to excite the
strongest disgust in the mind of his pupil. He did not pass through his
academical course without distinction. Dr. Kearney (who was afterwards
provost), in a note on Boswell's Life of Johnson, informs us, that
Goldsmith gained a premium at the Christmas examination, which,
according to Mr. Malone, is more honourable than those obtained at the
other examinations, inasmuch as it is the only one that determines the
successful candidate to be the first in literary merit. This is enough
to disprove what Johnson is reported to have said of him, that he was a
plant that flowered late; that there appeared nothing remarkable about
him when he was young; though when he had got into fame, one of his
friends began to recollect something of his being distinguished at
college. Whether he took a degree is not known.[1] On one occasion he
narrowly escaped expulsion for having been concerned in the rescue of a
student, who, in violation of the supposed privileges of the University
had been arrested for debt within its precincts: but his superiors
contented themselves with passing a public censure on him.

Having been deprived, in 1747, by death, of his father, who had with
difficulty supported him at college, he became a dependant on the bounty
of his uncle,[2] the Rev. Thomas Contarine; and after fluctuating in his
choice of an employment in life, was at length established as a medical
student at Edinburgh, in his twenty-fifth year.

Dr. Strean mentions, that he was at one time intended for the church,
but that appearing before the Bishop, when he went to be examined for
orders, in a pair of scarlet breeches, he was rejected.

From Edinburgh, when he had completed his attendance on the usual course
of lectures, he removed to Leyden, with the intention of continuing his
studies at that University.

Johnson used to speak with coarse contempt of Goldsmith's want of
veracity. "Noll," said he to a lady of much distinction in literature,
who repeated to me his words, "Noll, madam, would lie through an inch
board." In this instance, Johnson's known partiality to Goldsmith fixes
the stigma so deeply, that we can place no reliance on the account he
gave of what befel him, when he imagined himself to