recian or
Temple Exchange coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street. There
was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry kept at Highbury
Barn about this time at tenpence per head, including a penny to the
waiter; and the company generally consisted of literary characters, a
few Templars, and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole
expenses of the day's fete never exceeded a crown, and oftener were
from three-and-sixpence to four shillings; for which the party
obtained good air and exercise, good living, the example of simple
manners, and good conversation."

It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he been possessed of
sufficient strength of character to remain satisfied with these simple
pleasures, and to have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of
letters on such income as he could derive from the best work he could
produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who gives decisive testimony as
to Goldsmith's increasing desire to "shine" by imitating the
expenditure of the great; the natural consequence of which was that he
only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances, contracts for
hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered him at times so melancholy
and dejected, that I am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man."
Perhaps it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation, and
grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he, in conjunction
with another Temple neighbour, Mr. Bott, rented a cottage some eight
miles down the Edgware Road; and here he set to work on the _History
of Rome_, which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this hack-work,
now rendered necessary by his debt, it is probable that one strong
inducement leading him to this occasional seclusion was the progress
he might be able to make with the _Deserted Village_. Amid all his
town gaieties and country excursions, amid his dinners and suppers and
dances, his borrowings, and contracts, and the hurried literary
produce of the moment, he never forgot what was due to his reputation
as an English poet. The journalistic bullies of the day might vent
their spleen and envy on him; his best friends might smile at his
conversational failures; the wits of the tavern might put up the
horse-collar as before; but at least he had the consolation of his
art. No one better knew than himself the value of those finished and
musical lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem, the
grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic