Poor as may have been the fare, and mean as must have been the livelihood under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, Oliver Goldsmith, escaping from these conditions of life, entered others that were for a time, at all events, far worse. One cannot tell what he did, or where he went, or how he lived. Near Salisbury Square some squalid garret sheltered him. He tried to shun the common gaze and hide his very whereabouts. He turned to translating, chance criticisms, and any drudgery that came his way, and all to little purpose. He lived in wretchedness and obscurity, bearing the weight of an increasing poverty, until at last the very hope of bare subsistence perished. On one dark and misty day, as Goldsmith, in his tattered and threadbare clothes, sat pensive and dejected in his dingy, miserable garret, rich in fancies and very poor in food, a merry rap upon the door aroused the poet from his meditations. A young countryman, all hope and health, had briskly announced his advent. This comer was not one to wait without and need a bidding for his entrance. Oliver could not hide himself completely. He was tracked down at last, and by none other than his younger brother Charles. To the youth the emaciated apparition of poor Oliver was indeed astounding. Charles had pictured him already a prosperous and influential man of letters, who had but to raise and wave his hand to confer work, wealth, and position, and the possibilities of fame upon anyone whom he might lovingly patronise and befriend. Imagine the disappointment. "All in good time, my dear boy," said Oliver. "I shall be richer by-and-by. Besides, you see, I am not in positive want. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of 'The Campaign' in a garret in the Haymarket, three storeys high, and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only reached the second storey." Some days later, just as suddenly as he had come, the younger brother vanished. He had brought Oliver a breath of the old home. Charles made his way to Jamaica, in all likelihood as a common sailor, and proved a rover to the last. Darker shadows were to fall upon poor Noll through still deeper experience of deprivation, misadventure and despair. The days of doubt were passed at last, and in the end successes were achieved in every sphere, unrivalled alike in their sublime heights and vast variety. CHAPTER V "THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD" Goldsmith's first victory was the _Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning_. The _Inquiry_ was written at a time when its author had suffered from the tyranny and the mercilessness of booksellers. This explains his onslaught upon this then ungenerous craft. Injury had been heaped on insult. Disappointment and despair were tearing and gnawing at the poor man's heart. The demon imp of petty poverty first starved him and then laughed at his insufficing fare, reduced him to rags and ridiculed his wretchedness.