The turning-point of Goldsmith’s life was reached when Griffiths became security for a new suit of clothes in which that unfortunate hospital-mate examination might be attended.  On Griffiths finding that the new suit had been pawned to free the poet’s landlady from the bailiffs, he abused him as a sharper and a villain, and threatened to proceed against him by law as a criminal.  This attack forced from Goldsmith the rejoinder, “Sir, I know of no misery but a jail to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point.  I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! regard it as a favour, as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal.  I tell you again and again I am now neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the tailor shall make; thus far at least I do not act the sharper, since, unable to pay my debts one way, I would willingly give some security another.  No, sir; had I been a sharper, had I been possessed of less good nature and native generosity, I might surely now have been in better circumstances.  My reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain.”

The result of this correspondence was that Goldsmith contracted to write for Griffiths a “Life of Voltaire”; the payment being twenty pounds, with the price of the clothes to be deducted from the sum.

In the autumn of 1759 Goldsmith commenced, for bookseller Wilkie, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, the weekly writing of “The Bee,” a threepenny magazine of essays.  It ended with its eighth number, for the public would not buy it.  At the same time he was writing for Mr. Pottinger’s “Busybody,” and Mr. Wilkie’s “Lady’s Magazine.”  “The Bee,” though unsuccessful, brought Goldsmith useful friends—­Smollett and Garrick, and Mr. Newbery, the publisher—­and with the New Year (1760) he was working with Smollett on “The British Magazine,” and, immediately afterwards, on Newbery’s “Public Ledger,” a daily newspaper, for which he wrote two articles a week at a guinea for each article.  Among the articles were the series that still divert and instruct us—­“The Citizen of the World.”  This was the title given when the “Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London to his Friend in the East” were republished by Newbery, at the end of the year.  Goldsmith now began to know his own value as a writer.

IV.—­Social and Literary Success

His widening reputation brought him into association and friendship with Johnson, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Percy, the collector of the “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.”  Goldsmith gave a supper in honour of his visitor, and when Percy called on Johnson to accompany him to their host’s lodgings, to his great astonishment he found Johnson in a new suit of clothes, with a new wig, nicely powdered, perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance.  On being asked the cause of this transformation Johnson replied, “Why, sir, 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.”