Travellers' Tales of Scotland

The following is from Travellers' Tales of Scotland by R. H. Coats:

X - Oliver Goldsmith

(1753)

IN the autumn of the year 1752 an odd, ungainly-looking youth of twenty-four arrived in the city of Edinburgh, intent on pursuing his studies at the University. With slow and stammering speech, and in a markedly Hibernian accent, he asked one of the street caddies to direct him to some humble lodging and then, when he had secured for himself a room and deposited his trunk, he gaily sallied forth to view the town. Being a "good-natur'd man" and a "citizen of the world," he found plenty to interest him in the scenes around him. There were fine clothes to be coveted in the shop windows. There were beggars to be pitied and assisted in the street gutters. There was human nature in all its infinite variety to be observed and loved. At last the evening waxed late, and the traveller bethought himself of returning home, when, to his consternation, he discovered that he had completely forgotten to take note either of his landlady's name or of her address. What was he to do, a stranger in a strange land,

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow?"

By a fortunate chance he happened, in the moment of his distress, to stumble against the very porter who had helped him on his arrival in the morning, and through his kind offices was enabled to reach his abode. It was "Goldy," the good-hearted, happy-go-lucky Irishman, who was later to become the friend of Burke, of Johnson, and of Reynolds, and to enchant the world with the story of The Vicar of Wakefield, but who at this stage of his career had done no more than attempt in vain to becomfe a parson, a tutor, or a lawyer, and was now arrived in Scotland resolved to be a doctor.

From the few scraps of information which have come down to us, and from what we know of Goldsmith's character and habits, it is not difficult to picture his life in Edinburgh during those early days. Sometimes he would be lounging on the benches of Professor Munro's classroom; sometimes enlivening his fellow-students, of an evening, with a droll story, a performance on the flute, or an Irish song; sometimes forgetting care, poverty, and exile in the joys of a dancing academy. From Goldsmith's account of the matter it would seem that the balls which he attended could hardly be described as hilarious assemblies. "When a stranger enters the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves. On the other end stand their pensive partners, that are to be; but no more intercourse between the sexes than there is between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen may sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady-directress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a gentleman and lady to walk the minuet, which they perform with a formality that approaches to despondence. After five or six couples have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances, each gentleman provided with a partner from the aforesaid lady-directress. So they dance much and say nothing, and thus concludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such profound silence resembled the ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honour of Ceres; and the Scotch gentleman told me (and, 'faith, I believe he was right) that I was a very great pedant for my pains."

A curious relic of those Edinburgh days has survived in the shape of a tailor's bill which was presented to "Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, student," by a certain Mr. Honner in 1753. From this interesting document we learn that our friend's slender purse of borrowed gold could spare nearly £6 for some "rich Sky-Blew sattin, white Allapeen, Blew Durant, Black Shalloon, silver Hatt-Lace," and other articles, including "3½ yds. best sfine Clarett-colour'd Cloth at 19s... £3-6-6." To what purpose was this finery, we may well ask. Doubtless, to gratify the vanity of "Master Noll," as well as to make an impression on the Scottish ladies, for whom he expressed the profoundest admiration. "To show that I love Scotland," he wrote, "and everything that belongs to so charming a country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to break my head that denies it, that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times handsomer and finer than the Irish. To be sure, now, I see your sisters, Betty and Peggy, vastly surprised at my partiality; but tell them flatly I don't value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or, a potato; for I say it, and will maintain it; and as a convincing proof (I'm in a very great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. But, to be less serious, where will you find a language so pretty become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And the women here speak it in its highest purity. For instance, teach one of their young ladies to pronounce 'Whoar wull I gong?' with a becoming wideness of mouth, and I'll lay my life they will wound every hearer."

While Goldsmith was in Scotland he took the opportunity to spend a month in wandering through the Highlands. Evidently the whole aspect of the country was uncongenial to him, and he "dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." But he has left us a humorously exaggerated account of his experiences which reveal much shrewd observation beneath its playful banter. "I set out the first day on foot, but an ill-natured corn I have got on my toe has for the future prevented that cheap method of travelling. So the second day I hired a horse of about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot he could not) as pensive as his master... Shall I tire you with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No groves nor brooks lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet with all these advantages, enough to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. The poor have pride ever ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen to despise them, they are masters of their own admiration, and that they can plentifully bestow upon themselves."

Goldsmith left Scotland somewhat hurriedly after a residence of eighteen months. Bailiffs dogged his heels for the payment of a debt, and he had to spend some days in prison before he could escape the country and find a safe harbourage at last in Leyden. But none of these things served to depress his spirits or diminish his ever-bubbling fountain of easy gaiety. When he found himself in Holland, and could look back with some composure on the scenes he had left behind him, the spirit of mirth moved him to sum up his impressions in one or two witty sentences. "Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast. There hills and rocks intercept every prospect, here 'tis all a continued plain. There you might see a well-dressed duchess issuing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip planted in dung; but I never see a Dutchman in his own house but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox!"

XL - Bishop Pococke (1760)