OLIYER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK i,
1756. friends, but his letters were again unanswered. He went
•^ 28< among the London apothecaries, and asked them to let him
spread plaisters for them, pound in their mortars, run with
their medicines: hut they, too, asked him for a character,
and he had none to give.* At last a chemist of the name of
Jacob took compassion upon him, and the late Conversation
Sharp used to point out a shop at the corner of Monument
Yard on Fish Street Hill, shown to him in his youth as this
benevolent Mr. Jacob's. Some dozen years later, Goldsmith
startled a brilliant circle atBennet Langton's or Sir Joshua's
with an anecdote of " When I lived among the beggars in
" Axe Lane," t just as Napoleon, fifty years later, appalled
the party of crowned heads at Dresden with his story of
" When I was lieutenant in the regiment of La Fere." The
experience with the beggars will of course date before that
social elevation of mixing and selling drugs on Fish Street
Hill. For doubtless the latter brought him into the comfort
and good society on which He afterwards dwelt with such
unction, in describing the elegant little' lodging at three shil-
lings a week, with its lukewarm dinner served up between
1757. two pewter plates from a cook's-shop.
Thus employed among the drugs, he heard one day that
" dilemma, and suffered to drag on a miserable life for a few probationary months."
Campbell goes on to state that the promised letter of thanks to Radcliff "contained a
" comical narrative of his adventures from leaving Ireland to that time. His musical
"talents had procured him a -welcome reception wherever he went. My authority
"says, that her husband admired this letter more than any part of his works."
* " His threadbare coat, his uncouth figure, and Hibernian dialect, caused him
" to meet with repeated refusals." Percy Memoir, 38.
•{- " Q-eorge Langton told me that he was present one day" [it could not have
been George, but no doubt was Bennet] "when Goldsmith (Dr. Oliver), in a
" circle of good company, began with, 'When I lived among the beggars in Axe
" 'Lane,'-----• Every one present was well acquainted with the varied habits of
" Goldsmith's life, and with the na/ivete of his character; but this sudden trait
" of-simplicity could not but cause a momentary surprise." Best's Personal and
Literary Memorials, 76. .