His widening reputation brought him into association and friendship with Johnson, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Percy, the collector of the "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry." Goldsmith gave a supper in honour of his visitor, and when Percy called on Johnson to accompany him to their host's lodgings, to his great astonishment he found Johnson in a new suit of clothes, with a new wig, nicely powdered, perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance. On being asked the cause of this transformation Johnson replied, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better example."
Johnson was perhaps the first literary man of the times who estimated Goldsmith according to his true merits as a writer and thinker, and he was repaid by an affectionate devotion that was never worn out during the later years when the Dictator was too ready to make a butt of the unready Irishman. Goldsmith now joined the group of literary friends who gathered frequently at the shop of Tom Davies, the bookseller, where Johnson and Boswell first met, and he was one of the famous Literary Club which grew out of these meetings.
"Sir," said Johnson to Boswell, at one of their first meetings, "Goldsmith is one of the first men we have as an author."
This was said at a time when all Goldsmith's best works had yet to be written. He was still working for the booksellers, and in 1763, issued anonymously a "History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son." To various noblemen credit for this popular work was given, including Lord Chesterfield. Growing success was only an excuse for growing extravagance, and in 1764 Goldsmith was placed temporarily under arrest for debt, probably by his landlady, Mrs. Fleming, with whom he had been living at Islington under an arrangement made by Newbery. His withdrawal from the town had given him opportunities for congenial labour on "The Traveller" and "The Vicar of Wakefield," and when Johnson appeared, in answer to his urgent summons, it was the manuscript of "The Vicar" that he carried off, and sold for sixty pounds, to relieve immediate anxieties.