CHAPTER V.

FELLOWSHIP WITH JOHNSON.
1761-1762.

A CIRCUMSTANCE occurred in the new abode of which Gold-

1761.

^TTo smith had now taken possession in Wine Office Court, which

-flit. OO.

must have endeared it always to his remembrance; but more
deeply associated with the wretched habitation he had left
behind him in Green Arbour Court, were days of a most
forlorn misery as well as of a manly resolution, and, round
that beggarly dwelling (" the shades," as he used to call it
in the more prosperous aftertirne), and all connected with
it, there crowded to the last the kindest memories of his
gentle and true nature. Thus, when bookseller Davies tells
us, after his death, how tender and compassionate he was ;
how no unhappy person ever sued to him for relief without
obtaining it, if he had anything to give; and how he would
borrow, rather than not relieve the distressed,—he adds that
" the poor woman with whom he had lodged during his
" obscurity, several years in Green Arbour Court, by his
" death lost an excellent friend; for the Doctor often sup-
" plied her with food from his own table, and visited her
" frequently, with the sole purpose to be kind to her." * As

* Life of Garrick, ii. ]69.
moral of them is in a remark of Johnson's, when Boswell, admiring greatly his