The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume X. The Age of Johnson.
§ 15. The History of England in Letters
Meanwhile, alternating incessant labour with fitful escapes to “Bath or Tunbridge to careen,” and occasional residence at Islington, Goldsmith continued in bondage to “book-building.” In 1764, he became one of the original members of the famous (and still existing) “Club,” afterwards known as “The Literary Club,” a proof of the eminence to which he had attained with the literati. This brought him at once into relations with Burke, Reynolds, Beauclerk, Langton and others of the Johnson circle. His next important work, The History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, published in June, was, as had no doubt been intended, long attributed to Chesterfield and other patrician pens. Later, too, in the same year, Christopher Smart’s Hannah moved him to the composition of The Captivity, an oratorio never set to music. Then, after the slow growth of months, was issued, on 19 December, 1764, another of the efforts for his own hand with which he had diversified his hackwork—the poem entitled The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society.