The debts
which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a transient gleam of
prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of his life; so that the success of
The Good-Natured Man may be said to have been ruinous to him. He was soon
obliged to resume his old craft of book-building, and set about his History
of Rome, undertaken for Davies.
It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer time, when pressed
by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some
particular task, to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally
on the Harrow or Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and
months together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at
other times he would stroll out along the lanes and hedge-rows, and taking
out paper and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and connected at
home. His summer retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage
with a garden, pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the
Edgeware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund Botts, a
barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Temple, having rooms
Immediately opposite him on the same floor. They had become cordial
intimates, and Botts was one of those with whom Goldsmith now and then took
the friendly but pernicious liberty of borrowing.
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