Goldsmith was anxious to obtain the post, and waited on the great actor to solicit
his vote and interest. Garrick, it is said, reminded him of a passage in his
Polite Learning, and asked how he could expect his support after that. It was a
passage in which, while discussing the prospects of the drama, Goldsmith had
expressed rather sharply the common complaint then made against theatre-managers,
that they neglected contemporary talent and lived on old stock-plays which cost
them nothing. "Indeed," said Goldy bluntly, “I spoke my mind, and believe I
said what was very right." And so they parted civilly, and it was long before
Garrick and Goldsmith came really together. Quite otherwise it was between
Goldsmith and Smollett. It is pleasant to think of these two, perhaps the most
strongly contrasted humorists and men of genius of their day-the simple, gentle-
hearted, sweet-styled Irishman, and the bold, splenetically-independent, irascible,
¦ richly-inventive, rough-writing, but sombre and melancholic Scotchman—to think of
these two as knit together by some mutual regard, when Smollett was already in
the full bustle of his fame and industry, and Goldy was struggling and needed
employment. During the whole of 1759, as we have seen, they had been, to some
extent, fellow-workmen. And in the end of that year there was a visit of Smollett,
along with the bookseller Newbery of St. Paul's Churchyard, to Goldsmith's
lodgings in Green Arbour Court, which led to important results.

Though London already swarmed with periodicals, the indefatigable Smollett, then recently released from his three months' imprisonment for libel, had projected a new sixpenny monthly, to be called The British Magazine; and Newbery, besides having an interest in this magazine, had resolved on the larger attempt of a daily newspaper, price 24d., to be called The Public Ledger. It was to secure Goldsmith's services in both these undertakings that they had called upon him. Accordingly, from the first appearance of the British Magazine, on the 1st of January, 1760, with a fervid dedication to Pitt, and the unusual distinction of a royal licence to Dr. Smollett as its editor, Goldsmith was a regular contributor to its pages-his essays and criticisms forming perhaps the chief attraction of the magazine after Smollett's novel of “Sir Lancelot Greaves," which appeared there in successive instalments till its conclusion in December 1761. Goldsmith's contributions to this magazine extended even into 1762, and included at least twenty separate essays, of which some were in his most charming style. But it was in the Public Ledger that he made his great hit. He had been engaged by Newbery to furnish for this newspaper an article of some amusing kind twice a week, to be paid for at the rate of a guinea per article. He had already written one or two articles to suit, when the idea struck him of bringing on the scene an imaginary philosophic Chinaman, resident in London after long wanderings from home, and of making the adventures of this Chinaman, and his observations of men and things in the Western world, as recorded in letters supposed to be written by him to friends in China, together with the replies of these friends, the material for a series of papers which should consist of character-sketches, social satire, and whimsical reflection on all sorts of subjects, connected by a slight thread of story.

He had always had a fancy for China and the Chinese, and an anticipation

of this idea will be found in one of his letters from which we have already quoted. The first of Goldsmith's "Chinese Letters," as they came soon to be called, appeared in the Ledger on the 24th of Jan. 1760, with no intimation that there was to be a series of them; the second appeared on the 29th; the third on the 31st; and from that date so eagerly were they expected, and so much did they contribute to the sale of the Ledger, that Newbery gave them the most conspicuous place in the paper. Ninety-eight letters in all appeared in the course of 1760; and these, completed by subsequent stragglers in the Ledger, and by the incorporation of other papers in the same vein published elsewhere, formed eventually that delightful, if somewhat too lengthy, Citizen of the World, whose place among our English classics is now sure after more than a hundred years. It was while all London was reading the "Chinese Letters" and becoming fond of the philosophic Chinaman, and his friends, the Gentleman in Black, Beau Tibbs, and the rest, that George II. died, and his grandson, George III., began his reign. The glorious ministry of Pitt was brought to an abrupt end soon after, and the favourite Bute came into power, drawing Scotchmen in his train, and rousing the unanimous execration of all England against everything that was or could be called Scottish.

A change probably as important to Goldsmith personally as the change of king and of ministry was his removal, towards the end of 1760, from Green Arbour Court to superior lodgings in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street. Here, through the rest of 1760 and through 1761 and 1762, his work for the Public Ledger and the British Magazine continued to be a considerable part of his occupation. Not the whole, however. He had not quitted his hold of the Lady's Magazine; of which periodical, indeed, he appears to have become virtual editor some time in 1760. Among his contributions to it in 1761 were successively-published portions of that Life of Voltaire which he had written for Griffiths two years before, but which had, for some reason or other, remained in manuscript. But, naturally, it was for Newbery that Goldsmith's literary services were now chiefly reserved. This worthy publisher, whose red face, bustling benevolence, and zeal in getting up nice children's books, Goldsmith has celebrated in a well-known passage, did not confine himself merely to children's books and periodicals, but had a flourishing general business besides. He had been for many a year paymaster and advancer of loans to needy men of the literary tribe, including his own son-in-law Christopher Smart, and also Johnson. He was not the man to let Goldsmith, who had done such a stroke of work for him in the Ledger, rust for want of employment. He seems, indeed, to have taken Goldy under a kind of charge, partly for Goldy's benefit, and partly with a view to his own profit. The very lodging in Wine Office Court to which Goldy had removed was in a house the tenant of which was a relative of Newbery's. Here Newbery could have him at command, not only for the Ledger, but for all kinds of miscellaneous work-compilations, pamphlets on this and that, revisions of other people's books, prefaces to such, abridgments of such books as Plutarch's Lives, conclusions of historical manuals left unfinished, translations from the French, and even occasional moral articles for the Christian's Magazine, then edited for Newbery,

for circulation among the religious, by poor, unhanged Dr. Dodd. The amount of such work done for Newbery by Goldsmith between 1760 and 1763, and traceable still in cash-accounts between them, is very large; and much remains untraceable. On the whole, though it was dreadful task-work, Goldy found it worth while, in respect of the money it brought him. His receipts at this time, and chiefly from Newbery, may be calculated at what would be equivalent now to about 250/. or 300/. a year; and, though he was generally on the debtor side in Newbery's books, for work paid for in part beforehand, there is yet evidence that the Goldsmith of Wine Office Court was, socially, in a different plight from the Goldsmith of Green Arbour Square. Not only does he frequent the theatres and taverns, attend meetings of the Society of Arts, and drop in on Monday evenings at the famous Robin Hood Debating Society in Butcher Row, where, under the presidency of "the eloquent baker" Caleb Jeacocke, young lawyers and fledgling wits discussed religion and politics; he even "receives" in his own lodging, is sponged upon there for guineas and half-guineas by rascals that know his good nature, and sometimes gives literary suppers. One such supper, given by him in Wine Office Court, is memorable. It was on the 31st of May, 1761. Whether Johnson had met Goldsmith before is uncertain; most probably he had, for the author of the Inquiry into Polite Learning and the Chinese Letters can hardly have remained a stranger to him; but this, at all events, was their first meeting not merely casual. Johnson had accepted Goldsmith's invitation to meet a largish party of friends, and Percy was to accompany him. As the two were walking to Wine Office Court, Percy observed, to his surprise, that Johnson had on 'a new suit of clothes," with "a new wig nicely powdered," and everything in style to match. Struck with such a variation from Johnson's usual habits, he ventured a remark on the subject. "Why, sir," said Johnson in reply, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example." And so the two went to Goldy's rooms, and the door was shut behind them and the others; and there was, no doubt, much noise and splendid talk far into the night; but it has not been reported, for there was no Boswell there. But from that day began the immortal intimacy of the gentle Goldsmith with the great Johnson, and all that peculiar radiance over the London of the eighteenth century which we still trace to the conjunction of their figures in its antique streets. Of only three of his contemporaries in the English world of letters had Goldsmith written with admiration approaching to enthusiasm-Smollett, the poet Gray, and Johnson. A recluse at Cambridge, Gray was inaccessible. With Smollett an acquaintance had already been established; but the resident London life of the overworked and melancholic novelist was nearly over, and he was about to be a wanderer thenceforth in search of health. But at last Goldsmith had happened on that most massive and central of the three, towards whom in any case all intellectual London consciously or unconsciously gravitated. Johnson was then in his fifty-second year, living in chambers in Inner Temple Lane-not yet "Dr.," and not yet pensioned, though

houses on London Bridge. To assist them to proper opinions on these and all other subjects, there were the London newspapers of that date-daily, weekly, and bi-weekly, Whig, Tory, and what not; and, in addition to the newspapers, quite an abundance of critical journals, reviews, and magazines. For it was beginning to be a very busy time in British literature. That organization of literature into a commerce which the Tonsons may be said to have commenced had now been pretty well improved and regularized. It was no longer on the Court, or on Whig and Tory Ministers, or on the casual patronage of noblemen of taste, that men of letters depended, but on the demand of the general public of readers and book. purchasers, as it could be ascertained and catered for by booksellers making publishing their business. The centre of this book-trade was naturally London; and here, accordingly, hanging on the booksellers, and writing for the newspapers and magazines, but with side-glances also to the theatres and their managers, were now congregated such a host of authors and critics by profession as had never been known in London before. To borrow from Mr. Forster a convenient list of those whom we have now dismissed into oblivion as the smaller fry of this Grub Street world of London in the latter days of George II., there were the "Purdons, Hills, Willingtons, Kenricks, Kellys, Shiels, Smarts, Bakers, Guthries, Wotys, Ryders, Collyers, Joneses, Francklins, Pilkingtons, Huddleston Wynnes, and Hiffernans." They did not consider themselves small fry, but were busy and boisterous enough-the Irish among them fighting with the Scotch, and both with the English; and perhaps the last-named Irishman, Hiffernan, ought to have a place in literary history still, as the inventor of the grand word "impecuniosity." But in the midst of these less-known or forgotten one would seek out now the figures of those who were undoubtedly the Thames-kindlers in chief. And first among these comes Johnson, now forty-seven years of age, and a Londoner already for nearly twenty years not yet "Dr.," and not in possession of his literary dictatorship, though advancing towards it. The poet Young was alive in old age, and at least occasionally in London; and Londoners confirmed were Richardson, approaching his seventieth year, and with all his novels published, and Smollett, not past his¦ ¦ thirty-seventh year, but with some of his best novels published, and now working hard at histories, reviews, and all sorts of things. Fielding had been dead two years, and Sterne, though some years over forty, had not yet been heard of. The poet Collins was dying, in madness, at Chichester. Slump together the veteran and not much-liked Mallet, and Armstrong, Glover, Akenside, Garrick, Foote, Murphy, and the Wartons, without being too particular in inquiring whether they were all in London habitually at the exact time under consideration; remember also that Chesterfield, Warburton, Dyer, Shenstone, Gray, Horace Walpole, and Mason were alive here or there in England, and could be in London if they liked, and that away in Scotland, only dreaming of London in the distance, were a few northern lights, with Allan Ramsay still surviving among them; finally imagine Burke, who was Goldsmith's junior, already an adventurer in London, and such other men of about Goldsmith's own age as Percy of the Ballads, the satirist

Churchill, and the elder George Colman, either come to London or tending thither; and you will have an idea of the state of the world of British letters at the end of the Second George's reign, and also some rough notion of the extent to which that world and its interests interpenetrated London when Goldsmith first gazed about in the crowded streets. And who was the nominal chief or

laureate? Who but Colley Cibber, of whom Johnson had written—

Great George's acts let tuneful Cibber sing,
For Nature formed the poet for the king.

Put Cibber, who was now eighty-four years of age, did not live beyond 1757. He was succeeded by a William Whitehead, whose laureateship extended from 1757 to 1788. The whole of Goldsmith's literary career, as it happened, and large portions also of the lives of Johnson, Smollett, Burke, Garrick, Reynolds, and others whom we now associate with Goldsmith, fell within the laureateship of this memorable Whitehead.

We have been attaching Goldsmith to the London world of letters somewhat in anticipation of his own efforts at any such connexion. Not to set the Thames on fire, but to get anything whatever to do by which he could earn sheer bread for his own teeth and mouth, with a daily gulp of beer, was the poor fellow's one object during a whole year after his arrival in London. It was desperate work, and the details were locked up, for the most part, in his own memory, and never told connectedly to anybody. "When I lived among the beggars in Axe Lane," he would sometimes afterwards say with a laugh; and there are traces of him in various capacities just above Axe Lane and its beggars. He was, for some time, an usher somewhere under a false name; he was then employed in the shop of a druggist in Fish-street Hill; next he is heard of as having set up for himself as a physician among the poor of Bankside, and as wearing a miserable second-hand suit of green and gold; and again he is found as reader for the press to Richardson, the novelist and printer, in his printing-office in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. Of this last connexion, in which one might have fancied some likelihood, nothing more came than some acquaintance with Richardson himself and a sight of the poet Young; and Goldsmith had some glorious project of getting appointed to go out to the East, on a salary of 300%. a year, to decipher the inscriptions on "the Written Mountains" (the necessary Arabic to be learnt in the process), when an ushership in a boardingschool of the better sort turned up at Peckham. Here he lived for some time with Dr. Milner, a Dissenting minister, the proprietor of the school, and was apparently not worse off than other ushers. One day, however, Griffiths, the bookseller of Paternoster Row, dined with the Milners, and, from something he saw or had heard of the Irish usher, fancied he might be useful for hackwork on the Monthly Review -a periodical which had been started by Griffiths in 1749 on Whig principles, but against which a Tory rival had recently been set up in the Critical Review, edited by Smollett. After getting some specimens of what Goldsmith could do in the kind of work wanted, Griffiths was discerning enough to engage him. Accordingly, in April 1757, he took up his quarters in the house of Griffiths, over the shop in