and it is probable that this was a still greater disappointment to
Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of at the Club.
However, the public took to the story. A second edition was published
in May; a third in August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no
pecuniary gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson had
sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery; but his name was growing
in importance with the booksellers.

There was need that it should, for his increasing expenses--his fine
clothes, his suppers, his whist at the Devil Tavern--were involving
him in deeper and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate
himself?--or rather the question that would naturally occur to
Goldsmith was how was he to continue that hand-to-mouth existence that
had its compensations along with its troubles? Novels like the _Vicar
of Wakefield_ are not written at a moment's notice, even though any
Newbery, judging by results, is willing to double that L60 which
Johnson considered to be a fair price for the story at the time. There
was the usual resource of hack-writing; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder Newbery, in
whose debt he was, in a good humour. But the author of the _Vicar of
Wakefield_ may be excused if he looked round to see if there was not
some more profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at this
time that he began to think of writing a comedy.

CHAPTER XII.

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compilation order, the
play of the _Good-natured Man_ began to assume concrete form; insomuch
that Johnson, always the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised
to write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this Prologue that
Boswell tells a foolish and untrustworthy story about Goldsmith. Dr.
Johnson had recently been honoured by an interview with his Sovereign;
and the members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him by
begging for a repetition of his account of that famous event. On one
occasion, during this recital, Boswell relates, Goldsmith "remained
unmoved upon a sofa at some distance, affecting not to join in the
least in the eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a reason
for his gloom and seeming inattention that he apprehended Johnson had
relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a Prologue to his
play, with the hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was
strongly sus