CHAPTER VII.

HOGARTH AM) REYNOLDS.
1762—1763.

NEWBERY's account-books and memoranda carry us, at the 1762.
close of 1762, to a country lodging in Islington, kept hy M.M
a stout and elderly lady named Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, and
inhabited by Oliver Goldsmith. He is said to have moved
here to be near Newbery, who had chambers at the time
in Canonbury-house or tower; and that the publisher had
looked out the lodgings for him, may be inferred from the fact
that Mrs. Fleming was a friend of Mr. Newbery's, and, when
he afterwards held the lease of Canonbury-house, seems
to have rented or occupied part of it. But Goldsmith had
doubtless also a stronger inducement in thus escaping, for
weeks together, from the crowded noise of Wine Office Court
(where he retained a lodging for town uses), to comparative
quiet and healthy air. There were still green fields and
lanes in Islington. Glimpses were discernible yet, even of
the old time when the tower was Elizabeth's hunting seat,
and the country all about was woodland. There were walks
where houses were not; neither terraces, nor taverns; and
where stolen hours might be given to precious thought,
in the intervals of toilsome la,bour.

That he had come here with designs of labour, morequented by