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.
Evelyn records an amusing experience at Leyden in August, 1641: "I was brought acquainted with a Burgundian Jew, who had married an apostate Kentish woman.

I asked him divers questions; he told me, amongst other things, that the World should never end, that our souls transmigrated, and that even those of the most holy persons did penance in the bodies of brutes after death, and so he interpreted the banishment and savage life of Nebuchadnezzar; that all the Jews should rise again, and be led to Jerusalem; that the Romans only were the occasion of our Saviour's death, whom he affirmed (as the Turks do) to be a great prophet, but not the Messiah.