lieutenant of Ireland from April 1763 till April 1765. Hawkins (Johnson, p. 419) states that Northumberland offered to help Goldsmith in Ireland, and that this ‘idiot in the affairs of the world’ only recommended his brother Henry, and preferred for himself to depend upon the booksellers. His lamentable indifference, says this stern censor, confined him to one patron (Lord Clare), whom he occasionally visited. Northumberland (to whom Goldsmith's friend Percy was chaplain) did not return to Ireland, and therefore, perhaps, did nothing for Goldsmith. Percy (p. 66) says that Goldsmith was confused on this or some other occasion by mistaking the groom of the chambers for the nobleman. In any case, Goldsmith continued to be on friendly terms with him, and sent his ballad ‘Edwin and Angelina’ to the Countess of Northumberland, for whose amusement it was privately printed. A spiteful charge made against him in 1767 by Kenrick of stealing from Percy's ‘Friar of Orders Grey’ was disposed of by Goldsmith's statement, confirmed by Percy, that ‘Edwin and Angelina’ was the first written. In 1797 Goldsmith's ballad was asserted to have been taken from a French poem, really a translation from Goldsmith (PRIOR, ii. 89). The ballad was first published in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’
A collection of Goldsmith's essays in 1765 proved the growth of his fame, and he tried to take advantage of it by setting up as a physician. The cost of ‘purple silk small clothes’ and a ‘scarlet roquelaure’ probably exceeded all that he made by fees. One of his patients preferring the advice of an apothecary to that of her physician, Goldsmith declared that he would prescribe no more (ib. ii. 105).
The ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ was published on 27 March 1766 (first editions described in Notes and Queries, 6th ser. ix. 68, xi. 268, 371). It had been kept back until the success of the ‘Traveller’ had raised the author's reputation. Boswell (Johnson (Birkbeck Hill), i. 415) tells the story that Johnson was one morning called in by Goldsmith, whose landlady had arrested him for his rent. Johnson found that Goldsmith had a novel ready for press, took it to a publisher, sold it for 60l. (or guineas, ib. iii. 321), and brought back the sum, which enabled Goldsmith to pay his rent and rate his landlady. The story is told with variations and obvious inaccuracies in Mrs. Piozzi's ‘Anecdotes,’ p. 119, in Hawkins's ‘Life of Johnson,’ p. 420, and in Cumberland's ‘Memoirs,’ i. 372. Cooke, in the ‘European Magazine,’ gives a rather different version. Boswell's account, carefully taken from Johnson's statement, is no doubt substantially accurate. Some difficulty has arisen from the discovery of Mr. Welsh that Goldsmith sold a third share in the book to Collins, a Salisbury printer, for twenty guineas on 28 Oct. 1762. It seems, however, that the statements may be sufficiently harmonised if we suppose the incident described by Johnson to have taken place in Wine Office Court before the sale to Collins, and that Johnson obtained, not the full price, but an advance on account of an unfinished story. Several minute circumstances show that the book was partly written in 1762, but not completed until a later period (see Austin Dobson, pp. 110–17). The success of this masterpiece was marked and immediate, though its popularity is now greater than it was at first. (An ingenious attempt to identify the scenery with the district in Yorkshire visited by Goldsmith (see above) has been made by Mr. Ford's article in the ‘National Review,’ May 1883.)
Goldsmith's reputation was now established, and his circumstances improved correspondingly. Upon leaving Islington, he had taken chambers in the Temple; first at Garden Court, afterwards in the King's Bench Walk, and finally on the second floor at 2 Brick Court, where he remained till his death. At different times he took lodgings in the country to work without interruption. In the summer of 1767 he again lodged at Islington, this time in the turret of Canonbury House, and attended convivial meetings at the Crown tavern. At a later period he took lodgings at a farm near Hyde, on the Edgware road, where in 1771–4 he wrote ‘She stoops to conquer,’ and worked at the ‘Animated Nature.’ In London his love of society, of masquerades, and probably of gaming, distracted him from regular work. Goldsmith laboured industriously at tasks which brought in regular pay, though not conducive to permanent fame. He appears to have fulfilled his engagements with booksellers with a punctuality hardly to be anticipated from his general habits. In December 1766 appeared a selection of ‘Poems for Young Ladies,’ for which he received ten guineas; and in April 1767 he had probably 50l. (Prior, ii. 130) for two volumes of ‘The Beauties of English Poesy,’ which gave offence by the inclusion of two indelicate poems of Prior. In 1767 he engaged to write a Roman history, for which Davies offered him 250 guineas. It appeared in May 1769, and its pleasant style gave it a popularity not earned by any severe research. His lives of Parnell and Bolingbroke were published in 1770. In February 1769 he agreed to write a book for
