In May, 1747, the year in which his father died,—an event that further contracted his already slender means,—he became involved in a college riot, and was publicly admonished. From this disgrace he recovered to some extent in the following month by obtaining a trifling money exhibition, a triumph which he unluckily celebrated by a party at his rooms. Into these festivities, the heinousness of which was aggravated by the fact that they included guests of both sexes, the exasperated Wilder made irruption, and summarily terminated the proceedings by knocking down the host. The disgrace was too much for the poor lad. He forthwith sold his books and belongings, and ran away, vaguely bound for America. But after considerable privations, including the achievement of a destitution so complete that a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl at a wake, seemed a banquet, he turned his steps homeward, and, a reconciliation having been patched up with his tutor, he was received once more at college. In February, 1749, he took his degree, a low one, as B.A., and quitted the university, leaving behind him, for relics of that time, a scratched signature upon a window-pane, a _folio_ Scapula scored liberally with ‘promises to pay,’ and a reputation for much loitering at the college gates in the study of passing humanity. Another habit which his associates recalled was his writing of ballads when in want of funds. These he would sell at five shillings apiece; and would afterwards steal out in the twilight to hear them sung to the indiscriminate but applauding audience of the Dublin streets.