Edmund Burke was a fellow-student with Goldsmith at the college. Neither
the statesman nor the poet gave promise of their future celebrity, though
Burke certainly surpassed his contemporary in industry and application, and
evinced more disposition for self-improvement, associating himself with a
number of his fellow-students in a debating club, in which they discussed
literary topics, and exercised themselves in composition.
Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this association, but his
propensity was rather to mingle with the gay and thoughtless. On one
occasion we find him implicated in an affair that came nigh producing his
expulsion. A report was brought to college that a scholar was in the hands
of the bailiffs. This was an insult in which every gownsman felt himself
involved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and sallied forth to
battle, headed by a hare-brained fellow nicknamed Gallows Walsh, noted for
his aptness at mischief and fondness for riot. The stronghold of the
bailiff was carried by storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the
delinquent catchpole borne off captive to the college, where, having no
pump to put him under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by
ducking him in an old cistern.
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