"
Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now commenced the
practice of medicine, but in a small way, in Bankside, Southwark, and
chiefly among the poor; for he wanted the figure, address, polish, and
management, to succeed among the rich. His old schoolmate and college
companion, Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse at the university,
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of a
second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neckcloth of a
fortnight's wear.
Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in the eyes of his
early associate. "He was practicing physic," he said, "and _doing very
well!_" At this moment poverty was pinching him to the bone in spite of
his practice and his dirty finery. His fees were necessarily small, and ill
paid, and he was fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. Here
his quondam fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of service, introducing
him to some of the booksellers, who gave him occasional, though starveling
employment. According to tradition, however, his most efficient patron just
now was a journeyman printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside, who had
formed a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his poverty and his
literary shifts.
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