author the reputation of a learned and elegant writer, It was also the means of procuring him the acquaintance of some eminent literary characters; and among others, the author of Roderick Random. Dr Smollett's attention was first attracted to Goldsmith's merit by the ability displayed in a criticism of his, which appeared in the Critical Review, of a despicable translation of Ovid's Fasti, by one William Massey.* His friendship was of considerable use to our young author, for he introduced him to several of his literary acquaintance, and, what was of more importance, warmly recommended him to his future patrons, the booksellers.† Smollett himself was, at that time, editor of the British Magazine; and to this work Goldsmith contributed some of the Tales and Essays which he afterwards published in a collected form, in 1765. His increasing reputation as a writer, and his consequent credit with the booksellers, soon after enabled him to remove from his mean apartment in the Old Bailey, into decent lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Fleet Street. He had now abundance of literary employment he was engaged by a bookseller, of the name of Wilkie, to conduct a Lady's Magazine; he also published the Bee, a weekly essay, or rather magazine in miniature, which was soon after discontinued from want of encouragement, though its merit deserved a very different reception; and he contributed to the Public Ledger, a newspaper of which his countryman Kelly, the dramatist, was editor, his Chinese Letters, which were afterwards published, under the title of the Citizen of the World. But although he was now liberally paid for his literary labours, and seldom wanted employment,

The criticism will be found, Vol. II. p. 299.

Life prefixed to his Poems.

It was here that he wrote his Vicar of Wakefiel1.

His habits of expense

he remained as indigent as ever. more than kept pace with his prosperity; and this profusion, which proceeded partly from generosity, and partly from vanity, left him incurably necessitous, even while he was in the receipt of emoluments which ought to have been more than sufficient for his comfortable subsistence. Goldsmith could bear poverty, but he had an unconquerable aversion to the practice of economy: when he had money, he gave himself up to idleness and dissipation till it was spent, and then returned to hard study and thin potations. It was under these latter circumstances that he now (1761) finished his novel, the Vicar of Wakefield. This exquisite story of domestic life he was compelled to part with in a less perfect form than it would perhaps have assumed under his hands, had he found leisure to revise it carefully,* in order to satisfy the demands of an importunate creditor. It seems his landlady, to whom he was in arrear for lodging, at last became weary of delay, and threatened him with an arrest, which he could only avoid by paying the money, or complying with the somewhat disagreeable alternative hinted to him, of marrying his clamorous creditor. In this dilemma he applied to Dr Johnson, with whom he had recently become acquainted, and whose benevolence towards distressed authors was well known. Johnson himself used to give, with some humorous variations, the following account of the situation in which he found his friend:-" I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a

* Sir Walter Scott has pointed out some improbabilities in the story; among others the masquerading of Sir William Thornhill among his own See his Memoir of Goldsmith

tenants.

guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill."* Mr Newbery, the bookseller here alluded to, had such faint expectations from his purchase, that he did not venture to publish Goldsmith's MS. till the reputation which he gained by the Traveller, made the speculation a safe one; and Johnson himself, though satisfied of its great merit, confessed that he had doubts whether the novel would take. With Mr Newbery our author continued to cultivate a literary connection highly advantageous to both parties. The former was an extensive publisher, and Goldsmith was occasionally employed in compiling for him, and more frequently in revising his other publications.† About this time, he engaged lodgings at Canonbury House, Islington, whither he used to retire for study; and here he wrote his History of England, in a Series of Letters from a

* This is the account given by Boswell, (Life of Johnson.) See also Sir J. Hawkins, (Life, p. 420) and Mrs Piozzi, (Anecdotes, p. 116) where the story is told with some slight alteration. It is also related by Cumberland in his Memoirs, but somewhat differently.

Two of these were, the Art of Poetry, 2 vols. ; and the Life of Beau Nash, 1 vol.

Nobleman to his Son, which was greatly admired at the time, and generally attributed to Lord Lyttelton. It was published by Newbery in the same year, in two volumes duodecimo. For the same publisher he wrote a Survey of Experimental Philosophy, in two volumes octavo, which, however, was not printed till some years afterwards. Goldsmith's scientific attainments do not appear to have been extensive, yet in this work he has exhibited no deficiency of information upon the subject of which he affects to treat; and, though of no value to the philosopher, his book might still with advantage be put into the hands of those who are satisfied with a superficial acquaintance with a subject of which, in the present day, few men are content to remain totally ignorant. Goldsmith was often compelled, by his necessities, to consult rather the taste of his bookseller than his own genius, in the choice of his literary undertakings; yet it will seldom be found that he disappointed the expectations of his employer by crude or worthless compilations. If neither his ambition of fame, nor his love of independence, furnished sufficient motive to exertion, he at least knew the value, in a pecuniary point of view, of a name with the booksellers too well to commit himself by hasty negligence; and such was the happy versatility of his genius, that, according to an eminent critic,* he seemed always to do that best on which for the time he happened to be engaged.

In 1764 he again changed his lodging, and fixed his abode in the Temple, first in the Library Staircase, afterwards in the King's Bench Walks, and latterly, as his circumstances improved, in Brick Court, where he had handsome apartments on the first floor, for which he paid four hundred pounds: he was at the additional

* Dr Johnson.

expense of furnishing them in a very elegant style; and at length enjoyed the happiness, after which he had long aspired, of making a genteel figure among his acquaintance. He had always attached more importance to appearances than became a professed philosopher and citizen of the world; but Goldsmith was a philosopher only in his closet. Some time before he removed to his new house, he was apologizing to Dr Johnson, who happened to call upon him, for the meanness of his present lodging, and told him he should soon be in better apartments than these, when his friend interrupted him with the handsome compliment, nil te quæsiveris extra, implying, that a person so eminent by his intellectual endowments was independent of the distinction which attends on mere external advantages.* It would be

hard, however, to deny to Goldsmith the indulgence of an honest pride in seeing himself surrounded, through his own exertions, with the elegancies of life, since it is a feeling to which few men are superior, especially if they have long experienced, like him, the real evils of poverty. He could now, without any feeling of uneasiness on the score of appearances, receive at home the visits of the many distinguished individuals who sought his acquaintance, and were desirous of cultivating his friendship. About the same time, he began to pay more attention to his dress; † he assumed the physician's scarlet cloak, wig, sword, and cane, and along with them no small share of the importance which is said to have belonged to the medical practitioners of the last century. He now also proposed to employ an amanuensis, both because this was a more dignified way of committing his thoughts to paper, and, being more easy, might lighten the labour of his numerous literary engagements; but, *Boswell's Life of Johnson.

† Sir Walter Scott's Memoir of Goldsmith