PRINTED FOR T. AND J. ALLMAN, 55, GREAT QUEEN-STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS; J. ANDERSON, JUN., EDINBURGH; AND J. CUMMING, DUBLIN. BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, the author of the following volume, was born in the year 1729, in Ireland, according to some writers at Elphin, to others at Roscommon, and to a third class at Pallas, in the county of Longford, in 1731. His father was a clergyman, and he intended our author (the third of four sons) for the church. With this view he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, in 1744-where, in 1749, he obtained his degree of B. A. About this time he changed his intentions from divinity to medicine, and removed to Edinburgh in 1751: here, however, his generous and unsuspecting disposition soon involved him in difficulties which he had not the power to withstand, and he was compelled to quit Scotland very precipitately in consequence of having rendered himself liable for the debts of a fellowstudent, who absconded, and left his unsuspecting friend to settle with his creditors. He had scarcely reached Sunderland before he was overtaken and arrested-but the kindness of two College friends relieved him from his difficulty, and he immediately took shipping for Rotterdam. He proceeded to Brussels, and after visiting the greater part of Flanders, and spending some time at Strasburgh and Louvain, where he obtained his degree of M. B., he proceeded to Geneva. Having left England with a very scanty supply of money, he made the principal part of his journeys on the continent on foot: being acquainted with the French language and a tolerable proficient in music, as well as a performer on the German flute, his company was every where agreeable, and the door of every peasant was open to him, with a hearty welcome: by these means he was enabled to travel at little or no expence to himself, and to these circumstances, we are perhaps indebted for some of his most beautiful descriptive poems. At Geneva he was engaged as tutor to a young man who had become suddenly possessed of a great fortune, but of most parsimonious habits and he entered into arrangements to prosecute the tour of Europe with him; but tempers so opposite could not long unite, and they parted in mutual disgust, having only visited the south of France. After parting with his pupil, he again resumed his pedestrian mode of travelling, and went through the greater part of France, although under very great difficulty and |