GOLDSMITH. 187 obtaining a situation as an assistant; but his accent, and the uncouthness of his appearance, rendered him rather an object of ridicule than of pity to most of the faculty. A chemist, however, near Fish-street-hill, struck with his forlorn condition, and the simplicity of his manner, took him into his laboratory, where he continued until he dis covered that his old friend Dr. Sleigh, was in town. That gentleman received him with the warmest affection, and liberally invited him to share his purse, encouraging him to commence practitioner, which he did at Bankside, and afterwards, in or near the Temple. His success as a physician appears to have been but small, for he used to say, that he had abundance of patients, but very few fees. Some addition, however, to his income, he now began to derive from his pen; and he appears to have been for a while, corrector of the press to the celebrated Samuel Richardson. About this time he renewed his acquaintance with Dr. Milner, whom he had known at Edinburgh, and that gen tleman proposed to him to superintend his father's, the Rev. Dr. John Milner's school, at Peckham, who was confined by illness. To this he consented; and on the Doctor's recovery, he testified his gratitude to Goldsmith for his assistance, by procuring for him an appointment as physician to one of the East India Company's factories. To furnish himself with the necessary supplies for the voyage, he now circulated proposals to print by subscrip tion, “The present State of Polite Literature in Europe;” but whatever was the success of this, he appears to have given up his appointment, and to have still continued with Dr. Milner. About the same time he published, what he terms a catchpenny “Life of Voltaire;” and he also sold to Mr. Edward Dilly, for twenty guineas, “The Me moirs of a Protestant condemned to the Gallies of France for his Religion. Written by himself. Translated from the Original, just published at the Hague, by James Wil lington.” Towards the latter end of 1758, Goldsmith happened
