from the city.

While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided between squalid
distress and squalid dissipation, his father died, leaving a mere
pittance. The youth obtained his bachelor's degree, and left the
university. During some time the humble dwelling to which his
widowed mother had retired was his home. He was now in his
twenty-first year; it was necessary that he should do something;
and his education seemed to have fitted him to do nothing but to
dress himself in gaudy colours, of which he was as fond as a
magpie, to take a hand at cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the
flute, to angle in summer, and to tell ghost stories by the fire
in winter. He tried five or six professions in turn without
success. He applied for ordination; but, as he applied in
scarlet clothes, he was speedily turned out of the episcopal
palace. He then became tutor in an opulent family, but soon
quitted his situation in consequence of a dispute about play.
Then he determined to emigrate to America. His relations, with
much satisfaction, saw him set out for Cork on a good horse with
thirty pounds in his pocket. But in six weeks he came back on a
miserable hack, without a penny, and informed his mother that the
ship in which he had taken his passage, having got a fair wind
while he was at a party of pleasure, had sailed without him.
Then he resolved to study the law. A generous kinsman advanced
fifty pounds. With this sum Goldsmith went to Dublin, was
enticed into a gaming house, and lost every shilling. He then
thought of medicine. A small purse was made up; and in his
twenty-fourth year he was sent to Edinburgh. At Edinburgh he
passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and
picked up some superficial information about chemistry and