He boasted to me at this time of the power of his pen in commanding money, which I believe was true in a certain degree, though in the instance he gave he was by no means correct.  He told me that he had sold a novel for four hundred pounds.  This was his Vicar of Wakefield.  But Johnson informed me, that he had made the bargain for Goldsmith, and the price was sixty pounds.  ’And, Sir, (said he,) a sufficient price too, when it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was, by his Traveller; and the bookseller had such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it till after The Traveller had appeared.  Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money.

Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins have strangely misstated the history of Goldsmith’s situation and Johnson’s friendly interference, when this novel was sold.  I shall give it authentically from Johnson’s own exact narration:—­’I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible.  I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly.  I accordingly went as soon as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion.  I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him.  I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated.  He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me.  I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds.  I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill.’

My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped together at the Mitre.  I was before this time pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school.  Goldsmith’s respectful attachment to Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his great Master.  He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson’s heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained under his roof, ‘He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;’ and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, ’He is now become miserable; and that insures the protection of Johnson.’