Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which the
meanest intellects were competent.
A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies may probably be
found in his natural indolence and his love of convivial pleasures. "I was
a lover of mirth, good humor, and even sometimes of fun," said he, "from my
childhood." He sang a good song, was a boon companion, and could not resist
any temptation to social enjoyment. He endeavored to persuade himself that
learning and dullness went hand in hand, and that genius was not to be put
in harness. Even in riper years, when the consciousness of his own
deficiencies ought to have convinced him of the importance of early study,
he speaks slightingly of college honors.
"A lad," says he, "whose passions are not strong enough in youth to mislead
him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his inclination,
have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance will probably obtain
every advantage and honor his college can bestow. I would compare the man
whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate
prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and, consequently, continue always
muddy."
The death of his worthy father, which took place early in 1747, rendered
Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irksome.
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