London. It was a place with which, apparently, he was already familiar, since he locates the Club of Authors in "The Citizen of the World" at the sign of The Broom, in that neighbourhood, and, in all likelihood, he had visited Newbery in his apartments at Canonbury House, of which nothing now remains but the dilapidated tower. He may even have lived in the tower itself previous to this date, for Francis Newbery, Newbery's son, affirmed that he lodged for some time in the upper story, "the situation so commonly devoted to poets." But that he came to Islington at the close of 1762 is clear from the Newbery papers, to which, when they wrote their respective lives of Goldsmith, Mr. John Murray permitted both Mr. Forster and Mr. Prior to have access. He had a room in a house kept by a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, who, like his Fleet Street landlady, was a friend or relative of Newbery. The bookseller, indeed, was paymaster in the business, deducting, with business-like regularity, the amount for Goldsmith's keep and incidental expenses, from the account current between the poet and himself. The "board and lodging" were at the rate of £50 per annum, and Goldsmith stayed at Mrs. Fleming's from Christmas, 1762, until June, 1764, or later, the only break being from December, 1763, to March in the following year, when he appears to have rented, but not occupied, his Islington hermitage.

It is curious in these days to study the chronicle of Goldsmith's frugal disbursements and hospitalities. Not many luxuries come within the range of Mrs. Fleming's recording pen. Once there is a modest "pint of Mountain" at a shilling, and twice "a bottle of port" at two shillings. A

continually recurrent entry is the humble diet drink called "sassafras," more familiar perhaps as the "saloop," which, even at the beginning of this century, was still sold at street corners, prompting a characteristic page of Charles Lamb's "Praise of Chimney Sweepers," and surviving later in "Sketches by Boz." Pens and paper are naturally frequent items, and the "Newes man's" account, to wit, for Public Ledgers, London Chronicles, Advertisers, and the like, reaches the unprecedented sum of 16s. 101⁄2d. On the other hand, " Mr. Baggott " and " Doctr. Reman ” (Dr. Wm. Redmond, says Prior), who seem to have been occasionally entertained with dinner or tea, have "O. O. O.," against their names. Obviously, Goldsmith must either have shared his own meal with his guests, or Mrs. Fleming must have been a person whose generosities, however stealthy, did not blush to find themselves proclaimed in her bills. The only remaining items worth noting are the price of "a Post Letter," which, as now, was a penny, and that of "The Stage Coach to London," which was sixpence.

During most of the time over which these documents extend, Goldsmith must have been working for Newbery. The total amount paid by the bookseller from October, 1761, when Goldsmith purchased from him a set of Johnson's Idler, down to October 10, 1763, was LIII Is. 6d. At this date £63 had been earned by Goldsmith for "Copy of different kinds," leaving a balance against him of £48 1s. 6d., for which he gave a promissory note. The record of ascertained work for 1763 is very bare, so that the "copy" must chiefly have been prefaces, as for example, that to Brookes's "System of

Natural History," or revisions of Newbery's numberless enterprises. Only one work, the two duodecimo volumes known as the "History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," can be identified as belonging to this time. "His friend Cooke tells us," says Mr. Forster, "not only that he had really written it in his lodgings at Islington, but how and in what way he did so." Mr. Forster is here both right and wrong. As the "Letters of a Nobleman" were published in June, 1764, it is most likely that they were written at Islington; but what Cooke actually says is, that they were written in a country house on the Edgeware Road to which Goldsmith does not seem to have gone until much later. Cooke's account of his composition of the letters may, however, be accepted as accurate. "His manner of compiling this history was as follows:-he first read in a morning, from Hume, Rapin, and sometimes Kennet, as much as he designed for one letter, marking down the passages referred to on a sheet of paper, with remarks. He then rode or walked out with a friend or two, who he constantly had with him, returned to dinner, spent the day generally convivially, without much drinking (which he was never in the habit of), and when he went up to bed took up his books and paper with him, where he generally wrote the chapter, or the best part of it, before he went to rest. This latter exercise cost him very little trouble, he said; for having all his materials ready for him, he wrote it with as much facility as a common letter." The book was a great success, in which the bookseller's artifice of attributing it to a patrician pen no doubt played its part. For many years its easy, elegant pages were fathered

upon Chesterfield, Lyttelton, or Orrery, much to the amusement of the real author. But his friends knew well enough who the real author was, and both Percy and Johnson possessed presentation copies. Moreover when afterwards Goldsmith came to write his longer "History of England," for Davies of Russell Street, he transferred many passages bodily from the former compilation to the

latter.

Among the friends who visited Goldsmith at Islington there is reason for believing that Hogarth is to be numbered. When he had made Goldsmith's acquaintance is not known; but Goldsmith had referred to him in "The Enquiry," and may have been introduced to him by Johnson. The love of humour and character was strong in both; but at this date they must have had an additional bond in their common dislike of Churchill. It is pleasant to think that the great pictorial satirist of his age may have sometimes been the strolling companion of his gentler brother with the pen. Years ago Mr. Graves, of Pall Mall, had in his possession a portrait, said to be by Hogarth, which passed under the name of "Goldsmith's Hostess," and "it involves," says Mr. Forster, "no great stretch of fancy to suppose it painted in the Islington lodgings, at some crisis of domestic pressure." As will be shown hereafter, there is no very trustworthy evidence that Mrs. Fleming was connected with any "domestic pressure ;" and the portrait, in all probability, had no graver origin than an act of kindness. In another picture, dating from this time, also attributed to Hogarth, which, when Mr. Forster wrote, belonged to a gentleman of Liverpool, Goldsmith is shown at work at a round table,

!

perhaps engaged upon one of the identical epistles ascribed to Chesterfield. He is writing rapidly, or appears to be writing rapidly, in a night cap and ruffles loose at the wrist; but, despite Mr. Forster's description, he seems to be sitting for his likeness rather than to have been sketched at work.

The first entry in Mrs. Fleming's account for 1764 is an item of £1 17s. 6d. for the "Rent of the Room" for the March quarter in that year, an entry which proves conclusively that only by a figure of speech of the Dick Swiveller type could Goldsmith's retreat be described as "apartments." From the absence of other expenses, it is clear that he was not in residence, and he does not seem to have returned to Islington until the beginning of April. In the interim he lived in London. One of his occupations during this period must have been his weekly attendances at the new club just formed upon a suggestion of Reynolds, whom somebody, for that reason, christened its Romulus. Johnson, who had previously belonged to a kindred gathering in Ivy Lane, now lapsed or interrupted by the dispersal of its members, fell easily into a proposition which accorded so thoroughly with his gregarious habits, and other congenial spirits were speedily collected. Edmund Burke and his father-in-law, Dr. Nugent, Topham Beauclerk and Bennet Langton, both of whom were scholars and fine gentlemen, Chamier, afterwards an Under Secretary of State, John Hawkins, a former member of the Ivy Lane Club, and Goldsmith himself,-soon made up (with Reynolds and Johnson) the nine members to which the association was at first restricted. But a certain Samuel Dyer, another member