186 - GOLDSMITH. entertain persons of a higher rank, they always thought my performance odious, and never made me any return for my endeavours to please them.” His learning also procured him a hospitable reception at most of the reli gious houses he visited; and in this precarious way of existence he arrived in Switzerland, where he first culti vated his poetical talent with any great effect, having dis patched from hence the original sketch of his delightful epistle, the Traveller, to his brother Henry. And the circumstauces described in the pathetic exordium of this beautiful poem— “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow;” were doubtless frequently and severely felt by him during his excursion, though the vigour of his constitution ena bled him to resist the fatigues of h i s pedestrian travel and the inclemency o f the weather; and his mind received much gratification from the various scenes o f nature, and the diversities o f the human mind, which continually pre sented themselves. The account which has generally been received o f his having engaged a s travelling tutor t o a young miser, i s now suspected t o have been too hastily adopted from the source above mentioned. At Padua he remained about six months, where h e probably obtained the degree o f M. B . though some are o f opinion, that h e took that degree a t Louvain. After visiting the northern part o f Italy, h e returned o n foot through France, and landed a t Dover i n 1756. His pecuniary resources were s o exhausted a t his arrival i n London, that his whole stock o f cash amounted only t o a few halfpence. He with some difficulty obtained a situation a s a n usher, i n which h e remained for a short time, quitting i t i n disgust; a n highly painted account o f the mortifications h e endured, i s t o be met with i n the Philosophic Vagabond; and several observations i n his Essay o n Schools, appear t o have been the result o f personal experience, and dictated b y personal resentment. He next applied t o several apothecaries, i n hopes o f
