GOLDSMITH'S FAILURES.

Oliver now made a start for himself by circulating proposals for publishing, by subscription, his Enquiry into the State of Polite Literature in Europe: he finished part of it, and carried the MS. to Robert Dodsley, in Pall Mall, who agreed to publish the work, and advanced him various small sums on account of it: the profits he destined to equip himself for India, having obtained from the Company the nomination to one of their factories on the coast of Coromandel. But when the day of the preliminary examination approached, he had not dress fit to appear in at Surgeons' Hall. Griffiths became security for the loan of a suit of clothes, to be returned the day after. Thus provided, poor Goldsmith underwent the ordeal; but he was not otherwise prepared, for in the books of the College is this entry:

At a Court of Examiners held at the Theatre, 21st Dec. 1758-James Barnard, mate to an hospital. Oliver Goldsmith, found not qualified for ditto.

This rejection brought with it other miseries. The borrowed clothes were not returned, but pawned, and Griffiths was not to be pacified by four articles for his Review, which Goldsmith sent him: he printed the papers, but demanded instant repayment of the debt, and the return of some books he had lent to the poor author, which, it was suspected, were at the pawnbroker's. The matter was partly made up with Griffiths by Goldsmith writing for him a short life of Voltaire, 1759; but the Monthly Review insinuated bitter things against Oliver's moral character, and he deeply lamented "the meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it." Dr. Campbell has this admirable page upon this phase of Oliver's career:

Whatever change of public estimation he experienced, the man was not to be altered, and he continued to exhibit a personal character which was neither much reformed by experience, nor dignified by reputation. It is but too well known, that with all his original and refined faculties, he was often the butt of witlings and the dupe of impostors. He threw away his money at the gaming-table, and might also be said to be a losing gambler in conversation, for he aimed in all societies at being brilliant and argumentative; but generally chose to dispute on the subjects which he least understood, and contrived to forfeit as much credit for common sense as could be got rid of in colloquial intercourse. After losing his appointment to India, he applied to Lord Bute for a salary, to be enabled to travel into the interior of Asia. The petition

was neglected because he was then unknown. The same boon, however, or some adequate provision, might have been obtained for him afterwards, when he was recommended to the Earl of Northumberland, at that time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. But when he waited on the earl, he threw away his prepared compliments on his lordship's steward, and then retrieved the mistake by telling the nobleman, for whom he had meditated a courtly speech, that he had no confidence in the patronage of the great, but would rather rely upon the booksellers. There must have been something, however, with all his peculiarities, still endearing in his personal character. Burke was known to recal his memory with tears of affection in his eyes. It cannot be believed, that the better genius of his writings was always absent from his conversation. One may conceive graces of his spirit to have been drawn forth by Burke and Reynolds, which neither Johnson nor Garrick had the sensibility to appreciate.

GOLDSMITH WRITES FOR THE STAGE.

Oliver now tried his fortune as a dramatist: he wrote the Good-natured Man, produced at Covent-garden, Jan. 29, 1758, with the moderate success of nine nights' run. Garrick had refused it at Drury-lane. The principal character was the weak side of the author's own. Sentimental comedy was then the taste; and the best scene in the Good-natured Man, a lover followed by bailiffs in court dresses, was mercilessly hissed. However, Goldsmith cleared by the play 5007., five times as much as he subsequently made by the Traveller and the Vicar of Wakefield together.

Goldsmith acutely felt his play being hissed. Johnson relates that when dining at the Chaplain's table at St. James's, Oliver gave a very comical and unnecessarily exact recital of his own feelings; telling the company how he went to the Literary Club at night and chatted gaily among his friends as if nothing had happened amiss; that to impress them still more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even sung his favourite song about " an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon;" but "all this while I was suffering horrid tortures," added he; “and I verily believe that if I had put a bit into my mouth it would have choked me on the spot, I was so excessively ill; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; and so they never perceived my not eating, nor I believe at all imaged to themselves the anguish of my heart; but when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again." "All which, Doctor," said Johnson, amazed at his odd frankness, "I thought had

been a secret between you and me; and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world."

THE LODGING IN GREEN ARBOUR-COURT.

Goldsmith had now to sit down to toil like a galley-slave, and this "in a garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flagstones called Breakneck Steps."-(Macaulay.) The court was scarcely so miserable as here stated: the houses were two-storied, besides attics; it was called Green Arbour-court, and the house in which Goldsmith lodged (from 1758 to 1760,) was not on the steps, but was No. 12, the first house at the head of the court, on the left hand, going from the Old Bailey into Seacoal-lane. Here Dr. Thomas Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, found Goldsmith, on his first visit to him.

The Doctor was employed in writing his Enquiry into Polite Learning, in a wretchedly dirty room, in which there was but one chair; and when from civility, this was offered to his visitant, he was obliged to sit in the window. While they were conversing, some one gently rapped at the door, and on being desired to come in, a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour entered, who, dropping a curtsey, said, "My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamberpotful of coals.

Mr. Prior, in his elaborate Life of Goldsmith, has given the following additional particulars of Green Arbour-court, which he received from an old woman at a little shop in the Clapham-road, in the window of which he saw the first edition of Goldsmith's Essays, 1763:

By her account, she was a near relative of the woman who kept the house in Green Arbour-court, and at the age of seven or eight years went frequently thither, one of the inducements to which was the cakes and sweetmeats given to her and other children of the family by the gentleman who lodged there. Another of his amusements consisted in assembling these children in his room, and inducing them to dance to the music of his flute. He was usually, as she heard when older and induced to inquire about him, shut up during the day, went out in the evenings, and preserved regular hours. His habits otherwise were sociable, and he had several visitors. One of the companions, whose society gave him particular pleasure, was a respectable watchmaker residing in the same court, celebrated for the possession of much wit and humour; qualities which, as they distinguish his own writings, he professes to have sought and cultivated wherever they were to be found. His benevolence, as usual, flowed freely, according to this inormant, whenever he had anything to bestow, and even when he had

not, the stream could not always be checked in its current; an instance of which tells highly to his honour. The landlord of the house having fallen into difficulties, was at length arrested; and Goldsmith, who owed a small sum for rent, being applied to by his wife to assist in the release of her husband, found that, although without money, he did not want resources: a new suit of clothes was consigned to the pawnbroker, and the amount raised, proving much more than sufficient to discharge his own debt, was handed over for the release of the prisoner. It would be a singular, though not improbable coincidence, if this story, repeated to the writer by the descendant of a person who afterwards became his tailor, and who knew not that it had previously been told, should apply to that identical suit of apparel for which he incurred so much odium and abuse from Griffiths; and that an effort of active benevolence to relieve a debtor from gaol, should have given rise to a charge against him resembling dishonesty.

Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawning his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with the sole purpose to be kind to her."

Washington Irving thus describes his visit to this strange nook of the metropolis not many years before he wrote his Life of Goldsmith:

It then existed in its pristine state, and was a small square of tall and miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery that fluttered from every window. It appeared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry. Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between two viragoes about a disputed right to a washtub, and immediately the whole community was in a hubbub. Heads in mobcaps popped out of every window, and such a clamour of tongues ensued, that I was fain to stop my ears. Every Amazon took part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished her arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her window as from the embrasure of a fortress; while the screams of children, nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to swell the general concert.-Tales of a Traveller.

There is a wood-engraving of Green Arbour-court in No. 58 of the Mirror, where it is stated to have been occupied about twenty years previously (1805) by a chimney-sweep; it was then (1825) let in lodgings; it was taken down in 1834, and now stables occupy the site. Breakneck Steps are still in existence. The Enquiry, which Goldsmith completed in these humble lodgings, did not excite much curiosity; but he also wrote here his Essays in sundry vehicles, particularly the weekly sheets entitled the Bee (of which very few numbers appeared), the Literary Magazine, and the British Magazine.

BETTER SOCIETY.

Next year appeared a series of Essays, from Goldsmith's pen, which excited general attention; and before the close of 1760, the Chinese Philosopher-the Citizen of the World— had greatly enlarged the estimate of his friends. He now found himself courted by men of letters of high reputation; and Johnson, above the rest, was anxious to show his admiration of his talents and to cultivate his friendship. Through him the access to Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick, and the rest of that memorable society was easy; and though Goldsmith's pecuniary difficulties never ceased, he was thenceforth cheered by the confidence of minds stronger than his own. although he had to earn the bread of the passing day by compilations, he contrived to produce at intervals the various original works in prose and verse to which, after and above the Chinese Letters, he owes his station among our classics.

GOLDSMITH GIVES A SUPPER.

And

About the middle of the year 1760, Goldsmith left Green Arbour-court for respectable lodgings in Wine Office-court, Fleet-street, where, for about two years, he remained with an acquaintance or relation of Newbery, the bookseller.

It seems that the first visit Dr. Johnson paid Goldsmith was at a supper which he gave on taking possession of these lodgings. Percy, as their chief mutual acquaintance, conducted Johnson, and was struck with the then unusual trimness of his attire:

"He had on" (said the Bishop) "a new suit of clothes, a new wig, nicely powdered, and everything so dissimilar from his usual habits, that I could not resist the impulse of inquiring the cause of such rigid regard in him to exterior appearance. Why, sir,' said he, the actual 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.'

NEWBERY THE PUBLISHER.

In the course of 1760, Goldsmith first became connected with the kind-hearted bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard, John Newbery, now chiefly remembered for the multiplicity of his little books for children, with their grotesque woodcuts, and gilt and coloured covers. He kept shop at No. 65, the