About this time Goldsmith became personally acquainted with Dr. Johnson. Their first meetAnother prominent employer of Goldsmith was ing took place on the 31st of May, 1761, at a Mr. John Newbery, who engaged him to con- | literary supper given by Goldsmith to a numertribute occasional essays to a newspaper entitled ous party at his new lodgings in Wine-office the Public Ledger, which made its first appear- Court. His merit as an author had already been ance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most felt and acknowledged by Johnson, and he had valuable and characteristic contributions to this secured the good-will of the great lexicographer paper were his Chinese Letters, subsequently by making honourable mention of him in the modified into the Citizen of the World. These Bee and in his Chinese Letters. Dr. Percy called lucubrations attracted general attention; they upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmith's lodgwere reprinted in the various periodical publica-ings; he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care tions of the day, and met with great applause. The name of the author, however, was as yet but little known.

tinctured with miscellaneous knowledge, and his manners humanized by an intercourse with men. He should be in some measure an enthusiast to the design; fond of travelling, from a rapid imagination and an innate love of change; furnished with a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart not easily terrified at danger."

In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime minister on the accession of George the Third, Goldsmith drew up a memorial on the subject, suggesting the advantages to be derived from a mission to those countries solely for useful and scientific purposes; and, the better to insure success, he preceded his application to government by an ingenious essay to the same effect in the Public Ledger.

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his project most probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it continued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of making an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when his means were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar to the East, and to bring home such as might be valuable. Johnson, who knew how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by scientific lore for this favourite scheme of his fancy, scoffed at the project when it was mentioned to him. "Of all men," said he, "Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry, for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and consequently, could not know what would be accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement."

in the ecstacy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace that left his face well bedaubed with red ochre.

Towards the close of 1762 he removed to "merry Islington," then a country village, though now swallowed up in omnivorous London. He went there for the benefit of country air, his health being injured by literary application and confinement, and to be near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who resided in the Canonbury House. In this neighbourhood he used to take his solitary rambles, sometimes extending his walks to the gardens of the "White Conduit House," so famous among the essayists of the last century. While strolling one day in these gardens, he met three females of the family of a respectable tradesman to whom he was under some obligation. With his prompt disposition to oblige, he conducted them about the garden, treated them to tea, and ran up a bill in the most open-handed manner imaginable; it was only when he came to pay that he found himself in one of his old dilemmas he had not the wherewithal in his pocket. A scene of perplexity now took place between him and the waiter, in the midst of which came up some of his acquaintances, in whose eyes he wished to stand particularly well. This completed his mortification. There was no concealing the awkwardness of his position. The sneers of the waiter revealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves for some time at his expense, professing their inability to relieve him. When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, the waiter was paid, and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies with flying colours.

His connexion with Newbery the bookseller About the beginning of 1763 Goldsmith benow led him into a variety of temporary jobs, came acquainted with Boswell, whose literary such as a pamphlet on the Cock-lane Ghost, a gossippings were destined to have a deleterious Life of Beau Nash, the Famous Master of Cere-effect upon his reputation. Boswell was at that monies at Bath, &c.: one of the best things for time a young man, light, buoyant, pushing, and his fame, however, was the remodelling and presumptuous. He had a morbid passion for republication of his Chinese Letters under the mingling in the society of men noted for wit and title of The Citizen of the World:' a work learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, which has long since taken its merited stand bent upon making his way into the literary among the classics of the English language. circles of the metropolis. Their first meeting "Few works,” it has been observed by one of his was at the table of Mr. Thomas Davies, bookbiographers, "exhibit a nicer perception or more seller, in Russell-street, Covent Garden. Mr. delicate delineation of life and manners. Wit, Robert Dodsley, compiler of the well-known colhumour, and sentiment pervade every page; the lection of modern poetry, was present. In the vices and follies of the day are touched with the course of conversation, the merits of the current most playful and diverting satire; and English poetry of the day were discussed. Goldsmith characteristics, in endless variety, are hit off with declared there was none of superior merit. Dodsthe pencil of a master." ley cited his own collection in proof of the contrary. "It is true," said he, "we can boast of no palaces nowadays, like Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, but we have villages composed of very pretty houses." Goldsmith, however, maintained that there was nothing above mediocrity, an opinion in which Johnson, to whom it was repeated, concurred, and with reason, for the era was one of the dead levels of British poetry.

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he often mingled in strange scenes and got involved in whimsical situations. In the summer of 1762 he was one of the thousands who went to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in one of his writings. The Indians made their appearance in grand costume, hideously painted and besmeared. In the course of the visit Goldsmith made one of the chiefs a present, who,

Boswell, as yet, had not met with Dr. Johnson,

the great literary luminary of the day: an inti- | soon understood and appreciated the merits of macy with whom he had made the crowning Goldsmith, and a sincere and lasting friendship object of his aspiring and somewhat ludicrous ensued between them. Indeed, there are no ambition. In the meantime, he was probably friendships among men of talents more likely to glad to make the acquaintance of Goldsmith, though as yet a star of lesser magnitude. Subsequently, however, when he had effected his purpose, and become the constant satellite of Johnson, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, whose merits, in fact, were of a kind little calculated to strike his coarse perceptions.

son.

The lurking hostility to Goldsmith discernible throughout Boswell's writings, has been attributed by some to a silly spirit of jealousy of the superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. JohnWe have a gleam of this in his account of the first evening he spent in company with those two eminent authors, at their famous resort, the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet-street. This took place on the 1st of July, 1763. The trio supped together, and passed some time in literary conversation. On quitting the tavern, Johnson, who had now been sociably acquainted with Goldsmith for two years, and knew his merits, took him with him to drink tea with his blind pensioner, Miss Williams; a high privilege among his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a recent acquaintance, whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet made its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave no invitation. Boswell felt it with all the jealousy of a little mind. "Dr. Goldsmith," says he, in his memoirs, "being a privileged man, went with him, strutting away, and calling to me with an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric disciple of a sage of antiquity, 'I go to Miss Williams.' I confess I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed to be so proud; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of distinction." Obtained! but how? not like Goldsmith, by the force of unpretending but congenial merit, but by a course of the most pushing, contriving, and spaniel-like subserviency. Really, the ambition of the man to illustrate his mental insignificance, by continually placing himself in perpetual juxtaposition with the great lexicographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. Never, since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there been presented to the world a more whimsically contrasted pair of associates than Johnson and Boswell.

be sincere than those between painters and poets. Possessed of the same qualities of mind, governed by the same principles of taste and natural laws of grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet mutually illustrative arts, they are constantly in sympathy, and never in collision with each other.

Among the various productions thrown off by Goldsmith for the booksellers during this growing period of his reputation, was a small work in two volumes, entitled 'The History of England, in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.' It was digested from Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet. These authors he would read in the morning; make a few notes; ramble with a friend into the country about the skirts of "merry Islington;" return to a temperate dinner and cheerful evening; and before going to bed, write off what had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free and fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among authorities. The work, like many others written by Goldsmith in the earlier part of his literary career, was anonymous. Some attributed it to Lord Chesterfield, others to Lord Orrery, and others to Lord Lyttleton. The latter seemed pleased to be the putative father, and never disowned the bantling thus laid at his door; and well might he have been proud to be considered capable of producing what has been well-pronounced "the most finished and elegant summary of English history in the same compass that has been or is likely to be written."

The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be perceived, grew slowly; he was known and estimated by a few; but he had not those brilliant though fallacious qualities which flash upon the public, and excite loud but transient applause. His works were more read than cited; and the charm of style, for which he was especially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked about. He used often to repine, in a half-humorous, half-querulous manner, at his tardiness in gaining the laurels which he felt to be his due. The public," he would exclaim, "will never do me justice; whenA more congenial intimate gained by Gold-ever I write anything, they make a point to know smith about this time was Mr., afterward Sir, Joshua Reynolds. They were men of kindred Johnson had now become one of his best friends genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of and advisers. He knew all the weak points of their art, for style in writing is what colour is Goldsmith's character, but he knew also his merin painting; both are innate endowments and its; and, while he would rebuke him like a child, equally magical in their effects. Certain graces and would rail at his errors and follies, he would and harmonies of both may be acquired by dili- suffer no one to undervalue him. Goldsmith gent study and imitation, but only in a limited knew the soundness of his judgment and his degree; whereas by their natural possessors they practical benevolence, and often sought his counare exercised spontaneously, almost unconscious-sel and aid amid the difficulties into which his ly, and with ever-varying fascination. Reynolds indiscretion was continually plunging him.

nothing about it."

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "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 guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 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 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."

The novel in question was the 'Vicar of Wakefield: the bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivalled popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by the bookseller, that he kept it by him for two years unpublished!

contracted through diffidence, in the process of finishing the parts. It had lain by him for several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesitation and after much revision that he at length submitted it to Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter encouraged him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson himself contributed a few lines towards the conclusion.

We hear much about "poetic inspiration," and the "poet's eye in a fine phrensy rolling ;" but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem calculated to cure our notions about the ardour of composition. Calling upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, and discovered him in the double occupation of turning a couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last lines on the page before him were still wet; they form a part of the description of Italy:

By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child." Goldsmith, with his usual good-humour, joined in the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza.

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of The poem was published on the 19th of Demoment in poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is cember, 1764, in a quarto form, by Newbery, and true, was an Oratorio entitled "The Captivity,' was the first of his works to which Goldsmith founded on the bondage of the Israelites in Bab-prefixed his name. As a testimony of cherished ylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his the Muse, tortured into existence amid the dis- brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation tortions of music. One or two songs from it of indifference as to its fate expressed in the have been introduced among his other writings; dedication. "What reception a poem may find," the rest of the Oratorio has passed into oblivion. says he, "which has neither abuse, party, nor Goldsmith distrusted his powers to succeed in blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I || poetry, and doubted the disposition of the public solicitous to know." The truth is, no one was mind in regard to it. "I fear," said he, “I have more emulous and anxious for poetic fame; and come too late into the world; Pope and other never was he more anxious than in the present poets have taken up the places in the temple of instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. JohnFame; and as few at any period can possess son aided the launching of the poem by a favourpoetical reputation, a man of genius can now able notice in the Critical Review; other periodhardly acquire it." Again, on another occasion, ical works came out in its favour. Some of the he observes: "Of all kinds of ambition, as things author's friends complained that it did not comare now circumstanced, perhaps that which pur- mand instant and wide popularity; that it was sues poetical fame is the wildest. What from a poem to win, not to strike: it went on rapidly the increased refinement of the times, from the increasing in favour; in three months a second diversity of judgment produced by opposing sys-edition was issued; shortly afterward a third; tems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle."

At this very time he had by him his poem of 'The Traveller.' The plan of it, as has already been observed, was conceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider scope; but it was probably

then a fourth; and, before the year was out, the author was pronounced the best poet of his time.

The effect of 'The Traveller' was instantaneous in elevating Goldsmith in the estimation of society. The circle of wits and literati accustomed to assemble at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, some of whom had hitherto treated him slightingly, now received him as a worthy compeer. Sir John Hawkins, afterward one of Johnson's biographers, acknowledged that he had been accustomed to consider Goldsmith a

mere bookseller's drudge, and was surprised, on | erary Club. It was formed fortuitously, and grew

the publication of his poem, to find him gifted with such genius, and capable of such noble sentiments.

A poor attempt was made to take from his merit by asserting that Dr. Johnson was the author of many of the finest passages. This was ultimately defeated by Johnson himself, who marked with a pencil all that he had contributed, nine in number, inserted towards the conclusion, and by no means the best in the poem.

Goldsmith now felt called upon to improve his style of living. He accordingly took chambers in the Temple, that classic region, famous in the time of the British essayists as the abode of wits and men of letters, and which, with its retired courts and imbowered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure in the midst of a desert.

out of occasional meetings of men of talent at the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds. These took a regular form about the year 1764, when the plan of a club was suggested by Sir Joshua Reynolds to Johnson and Burke, and met with their immediate concurrence. The number of members was limited to twelve: they were to meet and sup together once a-week at the Turk's Head in Gerrard-street, Soho. Two members were to be sufficient to constitute a meeting. The original members were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Dr. Nugent (Burke's father-in-law), Dr. Goldsmith, Topham Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Mr. Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. For three or four years the club did not reach to the stipulated number of twelve, though afterward it was increased to thirty. It has continued down to the present day, and has enrolled among its members many of the most distinguished men of His first chambers were not quite to his taste, Great Britain. Its era of greatest brilliancy, which was growing a little fastidious. Johnson, however, was during the time of Johnson, Burke, in paying him a visit, went prying about the Beauclerk, Reynolds, and Goldsmith; when the room in his near-sighted manner, examining conversational powers of its members rendered things closely and minutely. Goldsmith, fidgeted its sessions the highest of intellectual treats, and by the scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition protracted them until a late hour of the night. to find fault, observed that he should soon be in The proposition to increase the number of membetter chambers. "Nay, sir," said Johnson, bers originated with Goldsmith. It would give, "never mind that-nil te quæsiveris extra"- he thought, an agreeable variety to their meetimplying that his reputation rendered him inde-ings; "for there can be nothing new among us," pendent of outward show. Goldsmith, however, said he; we have travelled over each other's was not convinced by this flattering compliment, but removed soon afterward to a more spacious and airy apartment, consisting of three rooms, on the second floor of No. 2, Brick Court. With his usual want of forethought, he obtained advances from booksellers and loans from private friends to enable him to furnish them expensively, and thus burdened himself with debts which continued to harass him for the remainder of his days. One of the friends who assisted him with his purse on this occasion was Mr. Edmund Bott, a barrister and man of letters, with whom he lived on the most intimate and cordial terms, and who had rooms immediately opposite, on the same floor.

The pleasant situation of Goldsmith's chambers may be gathered from his remarks in his 'Animated Nature' on the habitudes of rooks. "I have often amused myself with observing their plans of policy from my window in the Temple, that looks upon a grove where they have made a colony in the midst of a city. At the commencement of spring, the rookery, which, during the continuance of winter, seemed to have been deserted, or only guarded by about five or six, like old soldiers in a garrison, now begins to be once more frequented; and, in a short time, all the bustle and hurry of business will be fairly commenced."

Goldsmith was now in full communion with that association of wits, scholars, authors, artists, and statesmen, subsequently known as the Lit

minds." Johnson was piqued at the idea that his mind could possibly be travelled over and exhausted; but Sir Joshua Reynolds felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggestion, and his proposition was adopted.

It is to be regretted that we have such scanty records of the "table-talk" of this famous club during this period of its glory. Boswell, who was admitted into it some few years after its institution, affords us a few tantalizing gleams; but his scraps of conversation are given merely to set forth his hero, Dr. Johnson, and contain but few of the choice sayings of his fellow-members. Above all, he had almost uniformly a disposition to underrate Goldsmith, and to place him in an absurd point of view. The latter, in truth, does not appear to have shone in this club to as much advantage as others of a less learned and more convivial nature. He was not prepared to cope with the colloquial giants among whom he now mingled; yet he felt himself entered in the lists, and engaged in honour to fight his way; so he often went on at a venture, occasionally delighting the company by his ingenuity and humour, at other times amusing them by his blunders.

Several remarks of Johnson are on record, which hit off in brief terms the conversational qualities of the poet. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation," says he, "is this: he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small.