1766, when his reputation had been
in some degree established by The Traveller. Meanwhile he published, in
a periodical work called the Ledger, his Letters from a Citizen of the
World to his Friend in the East, in which, under the character of a
Chinese philosopher, he describes the customs and manners of Europeans.
But this assumed personage is an awkward concealment for the good-humoured
Irishman, with his never-failing succession of droll stories.
Of these there are too many; and the want of any thing like a continued
interest is sensibly felt. I do not know of any book, on the same plan,
that is to be compared with the Persian Letters of Montesquieu.

In the spring of 1763 he had lodgings in Islington, and continuing there
till the following year, he revised several petty publications for
Newbery, and wrote the Letters on English History, which, from their
being published as the letters of a nobleman to his son, have been
attributed by turns to the Earl of Orrery and Lord Lyttelton.

His next removal was to the Temple, where he remained for the rest of
his life, not without indulging a project, equally magnificent and
visionary, of making a journey into the East, in order to bring back
with him such useful inventions as had not found their way into Britain.
He was ridiculed by Johnson, for fancying himself competent to so
arduous a task, when he was utterly unacquainted with our own mechanical
arts. He would have brought back a grinding barrow, said Johnson, and
thought that he had furnished a wonderful improvement. The more feasible
plan of returning with honour and advantage to his native country, was
held out to him through the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland.
That nobleman, who was then the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, sent for
him, and made him an offer of his protection. Goldsmith, with his
characteristic simplicity, replied, that he had a brother there, a
clergyman, who stood in need of help; that, for himself, he looked to
the booksellers for support. This reliance happily did not deceive him.
By the rewards of his literary labours, he was placed in a comparative
state of opulence, in which his propensity for play alone occasioned a
diminution.

In 1765, appeared The Hermit, The Traveller, and the Essays.

About this time a club was formed, at the proposal of Reynolds, which
consisted, besides that eminent painter and our poet, of Johnson, Burke,
Burke's father-in-law, Doctor Nugent, Sir John Hawki