“What is it?” said Paston, expecting him to name some cabinet or piece of plate.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Sheridan, “it is only this old book, worth all others in the world, and to me of special value, because it belonged to my father, and was the favourite of my first wife.”
Paston looked into it, and it was a dogs’-eared edition of Shakespeare.
Another great man in the literary and histrionic professions, the novelist, Fielding, although of an aristocratic stock, and liberally educated, began life almost without pecuniary resources. He came before the public first in 1725, and in succession was a showman at Bartholomew and other fairs, the owner of a booth for theatrical performances, at one time set up in George Yard, from which he found his way to the regular boards. In spite of being the son of a general, and the great grandson of an earl, his impecuniosity was often great, although he met his difficulties with the light-hearted gaiety of a Sheridan, and the careless imprudence of a Goldsmith.
Once, when in Ireland, he got into disgrace through giving a dancing-party at his rooms; sold his books the next day, ran away from college, loafed about Dublin till only a shilling was left, and then went to Cork. There he lived three days on the shilling, and said afterwards the most delicious meal he ever tasted was a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl at a wake, after twenty-four hours’ fasting.
Poor Oliver Goldsmith must, of course, have his place in this chapter, for from the time when he wrote street ballads to save himself from starving, and was delighted to hear them sung, to when he started on “the grand tour,” alone and friendless, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a guinea in his pocket, to the last scene of hopeless insolvency in which he died, his life was one long, hard struggle against pecuniary difficulties. When his relatives raised £50 to send him to London to study, he spent and gambled all away, and got no farther than Dublin. The result of his wildly rash act of going abroad so ill provided he has himself described. In a foreign land, when without money, he turned to his flute as a last resource, and whenever he approached a peasant’s cottage towards nightfall, he played one of his merriest tunes, and so generally contrived to win a shelter for the night, and some food for his next day’s journey. In this way he passed through Flanders, parts of France, Germany and Switzerland, reaching Padua at last; remaining there six months to secure his medical degree. Returning in 1756, and failing to find employment, he was at last taken in by a chemist by way of charity, and to preserve him from starvation. His friend, Dr. Sleigh, next befriended him, and then he became usher to Dr. Milner’s school in Peckham. Soon after he found literary employment, and took a lodging at No. 12, Green Arbour Court, in the Old Bailey—a miserable, dirty room, with but one chair. He did not emerge from this squalid, dismal abode until 1760, when improved circumstances enabled him to lodge in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, where he received his friends with a freedom and hospitality which soon reduced his means to the level of impecuniosity. Here he first met Dr. Johnson, who became his dearest friend and best adviser.
Johnson has described how he received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith, to the effect that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to go to the Doctor, begging that the Doctor would come to him as soon as possible.
“I sent him a guinea,” says Johnson, “and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for 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 merits, and told the landlady I should soon return, and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for £60. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady for having used him so ill.”
The novel thus sold was the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ and its purchaser, Francis Newberry, the bookseller, who kept it unprinted for two years, when its author’s ‘Traveller,’ having appeared and proved successful, the novel was published (in March 1766) and in a month reached a second edition.
In Forster’s ‘Life of Goldsmith,’ the following account of his earliest state of penury has no little romantic interest:—