“After all, I know not whether they should be allowed any national character for polite learning.  All their taste is derived to them from neighbouring nations, and that in a language not their own.  They somewhat resemble their brokers, who trade for immense sums without having any capital.”

Goldsmith did not finish there.  His observations on the Continent served him, with a frugality that he did not otherwise practise, at least thrice.  He used them in the “Inquiry into Polite Learning,” he used them in the story of the Philosophic Vagabond in the Vicar of Wakefield, and still again in “The Traveller”.  This is the summary of Holland in that poem:—­

      To men of other minds my fancy flies,
    Embosom’d in the deep where Holland lies. 
    Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
    Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
    And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
    Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride. 
    Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
    The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
    Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
    Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
    While the pent ocean, rising o’er the pile,
    Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
    The slow canal, the yellow-blossom’d vale,
    The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
    The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
    A new creation rescued from his reign.

      Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
    Impels the native to repeated toil,
    Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
    And industry begets a love of gain. 
    Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
    With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
    Are here display’d.  Their much-lov’d wealth imparts
    Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts: 
    But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
    Even liberty itself is barter’d here. 
    At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies,
    The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
    A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
    Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
    And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
    Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

It was with his good Uncle Contarine’s money that Goldsmith travelled to Leyden.  The time came to leave, and Oliver was again without resources.  He borrowed a sufficient sum from Dr. Ellis, a fellow-countryman living there, and prepared for his departure.  But on his way from the doctor’s he had to pass a florist’s, in whose window there chanced to be exhibited the very variety of flower which Uncle Contarine had so often praised and expressed a desire to possess.  Given the man and the moment, what can you expect?  Goldsmith, chief among those blessed natures who never interrupt a generous impulse, plunged into the florist’s house and despatched a costly bundle of bulbs to Ireland.  The next day he left Leyden with a guinea in his pocket, no clothes but those he stood in, and a flute in his hand.  For the rest you must see the story of the Philosophic Vagabond.