scenes, and licentious intrigues, which under the plausible plea of exhibiting human nature, give us not only the worst parts of it, but almost necessarily corrupt the minds of youth by familiarising what it is never prudent wantonly to display. He was equally regardless of the example of Richardson, of his prolixity and sentimental refinements, however he may have honoured his morality. He had determined that his novel should not be too long to be perused with ease, and what was read should leave no taint of impurity behind.

But its great charm, as of all the productions of Goldsmith, is close adherence to nature; nature in its commendable, not vicious, points of view; we find little in incident or character overstrained, excepting perhaps the moral turpitude of Thornhill, and this scarcely exceeds what was common among fashionable rakes in the novels of the time. The Primrose family is a great creation of genius; such a picture of warm-hearted simplicity, mingled with the little foibles and weaknesses common to the best specimens of humanity, that we find nothing like it in the whole range of fiction. Each of the individuals is nicely discriminated without apparent art or effort; we can anticipate what either will do, and almost will say, on any given occasion. The unwearied benevolence and submission to the will of Providence under all his distresses of the good pastor; the self-satisfied cleverness and little female devices to accomplish favourite purposes, of his wife; the liveliness and indiscretion of Olivia ;

the more considerate and sedate turn of Sophia; the pedantry yet simplicity of Moses; and goodness of heart of all, present a piece of moral painting of great beauty and of rare skill.

The other characters as they interest us less, please us less, from the disguised Burchell down to Jenkins the instrument of young Thornhill's vices. The conduct of the story has the merit of never once leading us from the main design of exhibiting the family in all their trials from the commencement to the conclusion, excepting the episode of the adventures of the son. The style is peculiarly easy, perspicuous, and simple, free from all attempt at fine writing or ambitious ornament, and without even one of those epigrammatic smartnesses which the apprehension of being considered dull led him occasionally to introduce into his Essays. This, among its other merits, has contributed to render the Vicar of Wakefield perhaps the most popular of all English books on the continent of Europe.

Few tests of the merit of a work of fiction are probably better than the admiration of foreigners, for it forms pretty good evidence that in the characters or circumstances of the story, our general nature, not the mere manners of a country, is happily pourtrayed. Fictions may be written and acquire a large share of success among ourselves, yet signally fail in securing favour among other nations; but popularity abroad as well as at home leaves less doubt of the existence of true genius in the writer.

It is thus with the romances of Cervantes and Le Sage; and if we seek for higher examples they are to be found in the writings of Homer and other great masters in poetry. So likewise with the tale of Goldsmith. In France they enumerate seven different translations which have passed through innumerable editions; in Germany it is little less popular; in Italy also familiarly known; and in these countries, as well as in the north of Europe, it is the first English book put into the hands of such as learn our language.

Critical wisdom however is seldom satisfied without discovering defects; and as we fancy ourselves privileged to speak freely of all we love, this may be done in the present instance without diminishing our regard. Of the existence of such he himself had obvious misgivings. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," he tells us in the advertisement, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be dull without a single absurdity."

The character of Mrs. Primrose though rendered amusing by her foibles, is drawn in education and manners beneath what is usual in an intelligent clergyman's wife, but this objection seems anticipated by the words put into her husband's mouth, that he chose her, "as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well." Olivia's conduct in submitting to be married by a popish priest, which she is

injudiciously made to admit she knew not to be binding, is not satisfactory. Sophia comes less frequently forward to exhibit her good sense and prudence in conversation than we wish. About Sir William Thornhill there is a coldness that wins little of our regard; possessed of power, wealth, and reputed benevolence, he takes no steps to assist a worthy and benevolent man struggling with poverty, whose hospitality he enjoys and to whose daughter he exhibits attachment, but leaves the family to the machinations of his nephew, in consequence of an error on their part, arising as he must have understood, from justifiable indignation towards him whom they conceived guilty of treachery and ingratitude. His disguise near his own estates, cannot be reconciled with probability. Neither can we believe that one so avowedly virtuous, would entrust a large portion of his fortune to a nephew capable of appropriating it to the worst purposes, and of whose character he could not, from previous admissions and the report of the country, be ignorant. A few inadvertencies and legal errors, though of no moment, required little trouble to amend. Thus George Primrose is told on departing to join his regiment, to emulate his grandfather who fell in the same field with Lord Falkland; this if taken literally would make the Vicar more than a century old. In a threat of Burchell it is assumed, that simply breaking the lock of a pocket book found near their habitation, subjec ted the parties upon complaint

to a justice of peace, to be "all hanged up at their own door." We find also that sending a challenge though it be not accepted, is a capital offence; that a justice of peace on his sole authority can free a culprit from a criminal charge by representing it in a different light to the committing magistrate; and that a gaoler would permit a coiner imprisoned for trial, to quit his custody on verbal authority from the same magistrate; mistakes which as they may mislead foreigners, would have been better avoided. But when criticism enumerates these, it has done its worst; the feelings of the reader rise up in judgment against the critic, he throws aside the lucubration, and turns to re-peruse what has given him so much pleasure.

*

The origin of the tale, or rather the reason for fixing the scene near Wakefield, is said to have arisen from an excursion made into Yorkshire about the period at which it was written; with what view we are unacquainted; but there is reason to believe he spent some months in that county at some previous period. Its foundation seems shadowed out in the story alluded to among the papers printed in the British Magazine. The name of the vicarage however is probably fanciful, but by a curious coincidence it has been ascertained from contemporary statements, that the daughter of the actual Vicar of Wakefield, the Rev. Dr. W., married about this period a Cap* By Mr. Cradock, in his Memoirs; but the assertion is vaguely made.