His next removal was to the Temple, where he remained for the rest of his life, not without indulging a project, equally magnificent and visionary, of making a journey into the East, in order to bring back with him such useful inventions as had not found their way into Britain. He was ridiculed by Johnson, for fancying himself competent to so arduous a task, when he was utterly unacquainted with our own mechanical arts. He would have brought back a grinding barrow, said Johnson, and thought that he had furnished a wonderful improvement. The more feasible plan of returning with honour and advantage to his native country, was held out to him through the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland. That nobleman, who was then the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, sent for him, and made him an offer of his protection. Goldsmith, with his characteristic simplicity, replied, that he had a brother there, a clergyman, who stood in need of help; that, for himself, he looked to the booksellers for support. This reliance happily did not deceive him. By the rewards of his literary labours, he was placed in a comparative state of opulence, in which his propensity for play alone occasioned a diminution. In 1765, appeared The Hermit, The Traveller, and the Essays. About this time a club was formed, at the proposal of Reynolds, which consisted, besides that eminent painter and our poet, of Johnson, Burke, Burke's father-in-law, Doctor Nugent, Sir John Hawkins, Langton, Beauclerk, and Chamier, who met and supped together every Friday night, at the Turk's Head, in Gerard-street, Soho. The bookseller's shop belonging to Dr. Griffiths, called the Dunciad, in the neighbourhood of Catherine-street, was another of his favourite haunts. His comedy of the Good Natured Man, though it had received the sanction of Burke's approval, did not please Garrick sufficiently to induce him to venture it on his theatre. It was, therefore, brought forward by Colman, at Covent Garden, on the 29th of January, 1769; but having been represented for nine nights, did not longer maintain its place on the stage, though it is one of those comedies which afford most amusement in the closet. For his conception of the character of Croaker, the author acknowledged that he was indebted to Johnson's Suspirius, in the Rambler. That of Honeywood, in its undistinguishing benevolence, hears some resemblance to his own. In the next year he published his Deserted Village; and entered into an agreement with Davies, to compile a History of England, in four octavo volumes, for the sum of five hundred pounds in the space of two years; before the expiration of which period, he made a compact with the same bookseller for an abridgment of the Roman History, which he had before published. The History of Greece, which has appeared since his death, cannot with certainty be ascribed to his pen. In 1771, he wrote the Life of Bolingbroke, prefixed to the Dissertation on Parties.