usher in a
"classical school," and hack writer. At last, almost discouraged, he
decided to obtain if possible the position of factory surgeon on the
Coromandel coast, in India. He failed to get the place, and was also
unsuccessful in his efforts to pass the examination at Surgeon's Hall
for the humble post of hospital mate.

At this point there was a turn in the tide of his fortunes. While
seeking employment as a physician, he had been engaged upon a work
called _Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_,
and with its publication in 1759 his career as an author began. His
essays, which appeared in numerous magazines, brought him into further
notice, especially a series collected later under the title, _The
Citizen of the World_. In 1764 he became a member of Dr. Johnson's
famous "Literary Club" that met at the "Turk's Head." It was to
Johnson that he once said, alluding to his heavy style,--"If you were
to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." But there
was no malice in this remark, for the doctor was one of his stanch
friends. Among the other nine original members of the club were Sir
Joshua Reynolds, the artist, and Edmund Burke, the noted statesman.
Before long _The Traveller_ and _The Deserted Village_ gave Goldsmith a
foremost place among the poets of the time, and _The Vicar of
Wakefield_, published in 1776, brought him fame as a novelist. This
book remains to-day, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half,
one of the most widely read of English novels. Two comedies, _The
Good-natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, complete the list of his
well-known works, while he wrote many others that were enjoyed by his
contemporaries. He died of a fever at the age of forty-six, and was
buried in the burial ground of the Temple Church. Two years later a
monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

This short sketch of Goldsmith's life makes it clear that he lacked
strength of character and was wanting also in practical wisdom. Even
after he became a successful author his extravagance kept him poor, and
he died largely in debt. Many stories are told illustrating his
innocent vanity and the love of gay clothing which made him conspicuous
even in an age of ruffled shirts and silver knee-buckles. One of his
biographers describes him as arriving at a friend's house where he was
to dine, "with his new wig, with his coat of Tyrian bloom and blue silk
breeches,