He now removed to a miserable garret in a lonely corner of a lonely street in the loneliest part of London. The forlorn solitude of his dreary room was, however, somewhat cheered by the thought, that in such dizzy eeries, amid the eccentric gables and rheumatic chimney pots of great capitals, works were often composed which were destined eventually to confer lasting honors on their obscure authors. Goldsmith had written his "Vicar of Wakefield" in the memorable, dingy eminence at the head of Breakneck Steps. Pope, walking with Harte in the Haymarket, entered an old house, where mounting three pair of creaking stairs he pointed to an open door and said: "In this garret Addison wrote his 'Campaign.'" Gerald Griffin, however, had yet to experience all the hardships which were endured by Goldsmith before his landlady threatened eviction, and by Addison before he received the fortuitous visit of Henry Boyle, Lord Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wrote prose and poetry for which he was often glad to get sufficient money wherewith to purchase a cup of coffee and a crust of bread. He studied Spanish, and when he had so mastered the language as to be able to translate fluently, his publisher said that on second consideration he would prefer to receive original contributions. And now commenced a period in Griffin's life, which, for exceptional want and misery, might claim a certain pre-eminence in the long list of hapless victims, who made up the literary hecatomb of the Johnsonian era. Without the grosser elements, which enter into their methods of living and disfigure their character, the abject squalor of vulgar surroundings, the love for pot-houses and low companionships, the utter disregard for personal respect, he otherwise underwent all the pain, the want and uncertainty of their impoverished condition. But the roughness of the road was unthought of in the anticipation of a rich reward at the end of his journey. He would redouble his efforts to ensure its nearer approach. He abandoned old companionships; invitations to dinners and literary soirees, which came from his friends Banim and McGinn, were politely declined. He locked himself in his lonely room and wrote through the hours of an unbroken day. Only at night when the lamps were lit, and the crowds had left the street, would he venture out of doors, and then merely to take a ten minutes' walk to ease his aching head, and to rest his wearied eyes. Once he remained three whole days without tasting food, till a friend accidently came to see him and found him pale and faint but still writing. Yet in all the sunless gloom of this dreadful time his letters home were most cheerful. The want of actual nourishment he felt, the evil influences by which he was surrounded, the chances of certain success which awaited him if he would but do violence to a certain portion of his scrupulous orthodoxy, counted for nothing with one whose good sense could see no grave