He settled in London in 1756, where he briefly held various jobs, including an apothecary's assistant and an usher of a school. Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling, Goldsmith produced a massive output as a hack writer on Grub Street[4][5][6][7] for the publishers of London, but his few painstaking works earned him the company of Samuel Johnson, with whom he was a founding member of "The Club". There, through fellow Club member Edmund Burke, he made the acquaintance of Sir George Savile, who would later arrange a job for him at Thornhill Grammar School. The combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle led Horace Walpole to give him the epithet "inspired idiot". During this period he used the pseudonym "James Willington" (the name of a fellow student at Trinity) to publish his 1758 translation of the autobiography of the Huguenot Jean Marteilhe.
In his 'Life', Washington Irving states that Goldsmith was between 5'4" and 5'6" in height, not heavily built but quite muscular and with rather plain features. In character he had a lively sense of fun, was totally guileless, and never happier than when in the light-hearted company of children. The money that he sporadically earned was often frittered away or happily given away to the next good cause that presented itself so that any financial security tended to be fleeting and short-lived. Goldsmith's talents were unreservedly recognised by Samuel Johnson, whose patronage – somewhat resented by Boswell – aided his eventual recognition in the literary world and the world of drama.
Goldsmith was described by contemporaries as prone to envy, a congenial but impetuous and disorganised personality who once planned to emigrate to America but failed because he missed his ship. At some point around this time he worked at Thornhill Grammar School, later basing Squire Thornhill (in The Vicar of Wakefield) on his benefactor Sir George Savile and certainly spending time with eminent scientist Rev. John Mitchell, whom he probably knew from London. Mitchell sorely missed good company, which Goldsmith naturally provided in spades. Thomas De Quincey wrote of him "All the motion of Goldsmith's nature moved in the direction of the true, the natural, the sweet, the gentle".[8]
His premature death in 1774 may have been partly due to his own misdiagnosis of his kidney infection. Goldsmith was buried in Temple Church in London. The inscription reads; "HERE LIES/OLIVER GOLDSMITH". A monument was originally raised to him at the site of his burial, but this was destroyed in an air raid in 1941. A monument to him survives in the centre of Ballymahon, also in Westminster Abbey with an epitaph written by Samuel Johnson.[9]
Among his papers was found the prospectus of an encyclopedia, to be called the Universal dictionary of the arts and sciences. He wished this to be the British equivalent of the Encyclopédie and it was to include comprehensive articles by Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Jones, Fox and Dr. Burney. The project, however, was not realised due to Goldsmith's death.[10]