was
published. It brought him a little money and tuppence worth of fame, so
he took better lodgings, in Green Arbor Court, proposing to do great
things.

Half a century after the death of Goldsmith, Irving visited Green Arbor
Court:

"At length we came upon Fleet Market, and traversing it, turned up a
narrow street to the bottom of a long, steep flight of stone steps called
Breakneck Stairs. These led to Green Arbor Court, and down them Goldsmith
many a time risked his neck. When we entered the Court, I could not but
smile to think in what out of the way corners Genius produces her
bantlings. The Court I found to be a small square surrounded by tall,
miserable houses, with old garments and frippery fluttering from every
window. It appeared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were
stretched about the square on which clothes were dangling to dry. Poor
Goldsmith! What a time he must have had of it, with his quiet disposition
and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity."

One can imagine Goldsmith running the whole gamut of possible jokes on
Breakneck Stairs, and Green Arbor Court, which, by the way, was never
green and where there was no arbor.

"I've been admitted to Court, gentlemen!" said Goldsmith proudly, one day
at The Mitre Tavern.

"Ah, yes, Doctor, we know--Green Arbor Court! and any man who has climbed
Breakneck Stairs has surely achieved," said Tom Davies.

In Seventeen Hundred Sixty, Goldsmith moved to Number Six Wine-Office
Court, where he wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield." Boswell reports Doctor
Johnson's account of visiting him there:

"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 to him as soon as I
was dressed, 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 half a bottle of Madeira and a glass before
him. I put the cork in 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
he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced for me. I looked
into it and saw its merits; told the landlady I would soon return, and
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought
Gol