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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, gentlehearted, 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

on the point of being so; but already with much of his greatest work done, and firm in his literary dictatorship. Goldsmith was nineteen years younger, and with the best of his work before him.

The convenient bondage of Goldsmith to the bookseller Newbery continued till the end of 1764, or even beyond that. In May 1762 Newbery published the Citizen of the World in its completed form, giving Goldsmith five guineas for the new copyright. Somewhat later in the same year Goldsmith, whose health had suffered from his recent laboriousness, went to Tunbridge and Bath for recreation; and from Bath he brought back to London materials for a memoir of Beau Nash, the famous master of the ceremonies or King of the Fashion at Bath, then just dead. This curious and rather amusing little book, for which Newbery gave him fourteen guineas, was published in October 1762, under the title of The Life of Richard Nash, Esq. It was immediately popular; Johnson, who was by no means a bookbuyer, is found purchasing a copy; and there was a second edition in December. By this time Goldsmith had made a new arrangement in the matter of domicile, or Newbery had made a new arrangement for him. The lodging in Wine Office Court was either given up or retained for occasional use only, and apartments were taken in the suburban neighbourhood of Canonbury, Islington, in the house of a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, close to Canonbury House, where Newbery himself resided. The terms with Mrs. Fleming were to be 50l. a year for Goldsmith's board and lodging-equivalent to about 100l. a year now; and Newbery undertook to make the regular quarterly payments, deducting them from whatever might be Goldsmith's earnings. Thus saved all trouble on the main point, and with only his incidental expenses to care for-which, however, were considerable enough, for a guinea could never remain a day whole in his pocket, and he had begun to have a gaudy taste in dress, and to have extensive dealings with Mr. Filby, the tailor, at the Harrow in Water Lane-Goldsmith went on compiling for Newbery, touching up books for him, writing prefaces where they were wanted, and furnishing papers for his magazines. For each bit of work so done Goldsmith was credited for so much in Newbery's books—one guinea, two guineas, three guineas, or higher sums, according to the extent of the work; and Goldsmith drew, or overdrew, for what he wanted as he went along, leaving the bookseller to look at the state of affairs every quarter when he came to pay Mrs. Fleming her 127. 10s., together with any little extras for wine, sassafras, cakes, &c., incurred with her by Goldsmith. That lady, to do her justice, kept most punctual accounts, and does not seem to have been at all exacting in the extras; for, when Goldsmith brought a friend home to dinner and tea, especially if it was the Irish physician Dr. Redmond, her practice was to charge nothing on that account, but only to make such an entry as this in the bill-" Dr. Reman's dinner and tea, ol. os. od." There is some reason to believe that among the friends who sometimes visited Goldsmith in his Islington lodgings, but are not recorded to have had gratis dinners from Mrs. Fleming, was the painter Hogarth, then in the last years of his life. Altogether, in these lodgings Goldsmith seems to have been tolerably comfortable and tolerably industrious through 1763 and 1764.

Among the fruits of his industry, in addition to a great deal of miscellaneous work which need not be inquired after particularly (though, if Goody Two Shoes were really his, one would like to know it), was a History of England in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son. This work, which must not be confounded with a subsequent History of England from his pen, was published by Newbery in two pocket volumes in June 1764. The title was a ruse to attract attention to the book, and it succeeded. It was attributed to Lord Chesterfield or Lord Orrery, and then very generally to Lord Lyttelton, and became very popular. Goldsmith, having received 217., which remained as the balance due to him for the work, did not wish to undeceive the public. He had, indeed, by him, finished or nearly finished, certain things of his own, not written to Newbery's order, but for private pleasure, and for which he cared more than for any compilation. But of these presently.

Islington, though more out of the bustle of central London then than it is now, was not so far off but that a walk every other day would bring Goldsmith into Fleet Street and its purlieus. And more and more now there were attractions for Goldsmith tn that cosy heart of London. His acquaintance with Johnson had led to his introduction to Mr. (not yet Sir Joshua) Reynolds, then forty years of age, living in his mansion in Leicester Square, and hospitable, with his kind serenity of disposition and his 6,000l. a year of income, to the largest circle of attached friends that any man ever drew around him. At those noctes cœnæque Deûm at Reynolds's in Leicester Square, long afterwards remembered with such relish by Boswell, Goldsmith was certainly welcome even thus early. Here he would meet Burke, who barely remembered him at Trinity College, Dublin; and sometimes he and Johnson, leaving Reynolds's, and parting with Burke at the door, would go down the Strand to Johnson's chambers in Inner Temple Lane, or perhaps (for Johnson hated early hours) drop in, for more talk, at the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street. Just at this time, too, Boswell's visage does begin to be seen on the skirts of the group of which he was to be so singularly intimate a member, and whose history he was to write for the whole world. He had been up to London for the first time in 1760, a mere lad of twenty years, but already a devoted worshipper of Johnson, and possessed with a passion for being introduced to him. He had failed in that object then; but in the end of 1762 he was again in London on his way to Utrecht to study law. Two chapters in his "Life of Johnson"-two as interesting chapters of anecdote as ever man wrote-preserve the particulars of that visit, which extended over more than six months, or to August 1763. Early in the visit, it appears, he met Goldsmith at dinner at the house of Thomas Davies, the ex-actor and bookseller, in Russell Street, Covent Garden-whose shop was perhaps then the most noted afternoon rendezvous in London for poets, wits, dramatists, and literary gossips. Improving this meeting, he had even, he tells us, become "pretty well acquainted" with Goldsmith before he made that greater acquaintanceship for which his soul panted. What mattered it to know Goldsmith, with Wilkes, Churchill, Lloyd, Robert Dodsley, and others—to all of whom the eager young fellow had somehow pushed his way--so long as Johnson was unknown? At last the