1766.

day passed that was not Black then find that creatures, whose Monday at Newgate. An execu- souls are held as dross, want tion came round as regularly as only the hand of a refiner; and any other weekly show; and that "very little blood will when it was that “shocking “serve to cement our se"sight of fifteen men executed," "curity." Æt. 38. whereof Boswell makes more Resemblances have been found, than one mention,* the interest and may be admitted to exist, was of course the greater. Men, between the Reverend Charles not otherwise hardened, found Primrose and the Reverend Abrahere a debasing delight. George ham Adams. They arose from Selwyn passed as much time at kindred genius; and from the Tyburn as at White's; and Mr. manly habit which Fielding and Boswell had a special suit of Goldsmith shared, of discerning execution-black, to make a de- what was good and beautiful in cent appearance near the scaf- the homeliest aspects of hufold. Not uncalled for, there- manity. In the parson's saddlefore, though solitary and as yet bag of sermons would hardly unheeded, was the warning of have been found this prison the good Doctor Primrose. Nay, sermon of the vicar; and there not uncalled for is it now, though was in Mr. Adams not only a a century has passed. Do not, capacity for beef and pudding, he said, draw the cords of but for beating and being beaten, society so hard, that a convulsion which would ill have consisted must come to burst them; do not with the simple dignity of Doccut away wretches as useless, be-tor Primrose. But unquestionfore you have tried their utility; able learning, unsuspecting simmake law the protector, not the plicity, amusing traits of cretyrant of the people. You will

Robbers, &c; where, after urging the

necessity of a mitigation of the criminal

dulity and pedantry, and a most of heart, are common to both Christian purity and benevolence code, while at the same time he shows these master-pieces of English that sufficiently severe measures had not fiction; and are in each with such been taken against the worst class of criminals, he gives many reasons of exquisite touch discriminated, as weight in support of his opinion that exe- to leave no possible doubt of the cutions should be private. "The design originality of either. Anything "of those who first appointed executions like the charge of imitation is "to be public, was to add the punishment "of shame to that of death; in order to "make the example an object of greater "terror. But experience has shown us "that the event is directly contrary to "this intention." See the whole of the argument in Works (Ed. 1821), x. 461-7. The wise alteration has at last been

made. 1870.

* Life, III, 94; vIII. 331, &c.

Greatly as our penal jurisprudence has been improved since Goldsmith's day, there yet remains too much still to do to enable us to dispense with the warning contained in the noble passage of the Vicar of Wakefield (chap. xxvi) to which I refer in the text, and which never can be read too often,

preposterous. Fielding's friend, difference. Does it not wellYoung, sat for the parson, as in nigh seem incredible, indeed, Goldsmith's father, Charles, we comparing the tone of language have seen the original of and incident in the two stories, 1766. the vicar;* and as long as that a space of twenty years Et. 38. nature pleases to imitate should have comprised Joseph herself, will such simple-hearted Andrews and the Vicar of Wakespirits reveal kindred with each field?

other. At the same time, and Little, it must be confessed, with peculiar mastery, art vin- had past experience in fiction, dicates also in such cases her from the days of De Foe to these power and skill; and the general of Smollett, prepared the age truth of resemblance is, after all, for a simple novel of English perceived to be much less strik- domestic life.* Least of all for ing than the local accidents of that picture, so purely and de* A confused and quite unfounded licately shaded, of the vicar, in statement of Mr. Cradock's will hereafter his character of pastor, parent, be referred to (Book IV. Chap. XIX.) to and husband; of his helpmate, the effect that the Vicar was written en with her motherly cunning and journey of needful business to Wake-housewifely prudence, loving and field, and hence the name. On the other respecting him, "but at the hand, an American loyalist who took re-dictates of maternal vanity fuge in England, and had occasion to visit Wakefield, three years after Gold"counter - plotting his wisest smith's death, seems to have had curious "schemes;" of both, with their proof of the anxiety of the good people of children around them, their quiet that prosperous town to claim a property in the vicar himself, as well as in the labour and domestic happiness, name of the vicarage. "Departed in a-which Walter Scott declares to stage-coach from Sheffield, and arrived be without a parallel, in all his 66 at Black Barnsley through a delightful

"tirely in a fortnight" in order to pay a

"though uneven road; distance fourteen novel-reading, as a fireside pic"miles. Here we took post-chaises, and ture of perfect beauty. It may "in two hours alighted at Wakefield, a clothing town, wherein appeared evi"dent tokens of taste in building, and of "wealth. The Westgate-street has the "noblest appearance of any I ever saw, "out of London. It has a very large "episcopal church, with a remarkably "lofty tower and spire. The principal "character in the novel called The Vicar "of Wakefield was taken from the late "vicar of this church, named Johnson, whose peculiarly odd and singular hu"mour has exposed his memory to the "ridicule of that satire." It is hardly necessary to remark that the worthy Boston trader whose diary I quote (Curwen's Journal and Letters, 131) could not himself have read the book which he thus characterises,

* I must always regard it as extraordinary, in such men, how much both Fielding and Smollett resorted in their novels to that sort of stimulus which the covert satire of individuals could alone supply to the generally false and depraved taste of the day, and which Goldsmith so steadily turned aside from. The truth is, as already I have hinted, that not many years before this date half the papers that issued from Grub-street were mere scandalous chronicles; and literature still suffered even less from the contempt into which the inferior talents of their writers had brought it, than from the dregs of the example they had left, and of the diseased taste to which they had so largely administered.

Æt. 38.

to show us how long the little story had for supposing it, as Hawkins and others been in hand, and that there is no ground have called it, a mere occasional piece of writing to meet "a moment of pressure." An allusion to "the last Auditor," mark

is

It

be freely admitted that there are least idea of high life or highmany grave faults, many im- lived company, or such fashionprobabilities, some even palpable able topics as pictures, taste, absurdities, in the construction Shakespeare, and the musi- 1766. of the story.* Goldsmith knew cal-glasses, *-how should this. "There are an hundred it be possible for them to “faults in this Thing," he said, Let me remark of this now famous in his brief advertisement to it; allusion, that it may help in some degree "and an hundred things might "be said to prove them beauties. "But it is needless." (His meaning is, that to make beauties out of faults, be the proof ever so ing 1762 as about the time when the successful, does not mend the publication of Murphy's unsuccessful matter.) "A book may be amus-paper so called was in progress and "ing with numerous errors, or it would have suggested that reference, borne out by "the musical-glasses." "may be very dull without a was at the close of 1761 and in 1762 that "single absurdity." He rested, musical-glasses were the temporary rage. with well-grounded faith, on the Everybody's letters allude to them. Here vital reality of his characters. It is wonderful with what nice variety the family likeness of each Primrose is preserved, and how little the defects of the story interfere with any of them. "other night, and shall stay here this Cannot one see that there is a "month or two; and a vast deal of propriety, an eternal fitness, in "good company, and a whale in pickle even the historical family pic-just come from Ipswich; and the ture? Those rosy Flamborough "gone to Chatsworth; and there is nogirls, who do nothing but flaunt in red top-knots, hunt the slipper, burn nuts, play tricks, dance country dances, and scream with laughter; who have not the

is a charming one from Gray to Mason, which, being in one quaint sentence, I need not scruple to quote entire. "Pemb. Hall, Dec. 8, 1761. Dear Mason, Of all "loves come to Cambridge out of hand, "for here is Mr. Delaval and a charm"ing set of glasses that sing like night"ingales; and we have concerts every

"man will not die, and Mr. Wood is

"body but you and Tom and the curled "dog; and do not talk of the charge, for

we will make a subscription; besides, "we know you always come when you "have a mind. T. G." Correspondence of Gray and Mason, 283-4. They had been introduced some years before, with less *Macaulay, who as usual states his effect, by a German composer, thus reobjection to the fable very strongly, yet ferred to in a letter of Walpole's to Mann entertains no doubt that it is a tale (Coll. Lett. II. 111). "The operas flourish "likely to last as long as our language.. more than in any latter years; the "It wants not merely that probability composer is Gluck, a German: he is to which ought to be found in a tale of "have a benefit, at which he is to play on "common English life, but that con- "a set of drinking-glasses, which he "sistency which ought to be found even "modulates with water. I think I have "in the wildest fiction about witches, "heard you speak of having seen some "giants, and fairies. But the earlier "such thing." I close this note with an "chapters have all the sweetness of advertisement from the St. James's "pastoral poetry, together with all the Chronicle of Dec. 3rd, 1761: "At Mr. "vivacity of comedy." Biog. Ess. 62. "Sheridan's lecture on elocution, Miss

66

66

1766.

have any other notion or desire little startling: but it admits of than just to be painted in their an excellent introduction of red top-knots, each holding an honest old Dick and chubby little orange? But Olivia Prim- Bill, by way of Cupids; and to rose! who, to her mother's what conceivable creature SO Et. 38. knowledge, has a great much in need as Venus of condeal to say upon every sub- version to monogamy could the ject, and is very well skilled Vicar "in his gown and band" in controversy; who has read have presented his books on the Thwackum and Square's dis-Whistonian controversy? There putes in Tom Jones, as well as the remains only Moses to complete argument of man Friday and his the masterpiece; and is not his master in Robinson Crusoe, and is hat and white feather typical of not without hopes of converting both his arguments and his barher rake of a lover by means of gains, his sale of Dobbin the colt the dialogues in Religious Court- and his purchase of the gross of ship; is it not somehow quite green spectacles? The simple, as much in character with the credulous, generous, inoffensive flighty vivacity of this ambitious family habits are common to all; little Livy, that she should wish but in each a separate identity is to be drawn as an Amazon sitting yet as broadly marked as in the upon a bank of flowers, dressed Amazon, the Venus, or the in a green joseph richly laced Shepherdess of the immortal with gold, a whip in her hand, and family picture.

the young squire as Alexander Still, from all that touches and the Great lying captive at her diverts us in these harmless feet; as it certainly suits the vanities of the delightful group, more sober simplicity and pru- we return to the primal source of dent good sense of her sister what has given this glorious little Sophy, to figure in the same com- story its unequalled popularity. position as a shepherdess, with It is not that we enjoy a secret as many sheep as the painter charm of assumed superiority can put in for nothing? Mrs. over the credulity and simplicity Deborah Primrose triumphing in of almost every actor in it, being her lamb's-wool and gooseberry- very certain that the sharper and wine, and claiming to be repre- his cosmogony would never have sented as the Mother of Love imposed on us, but that the betwith plenty of diamonds in her ter secret is laid open to us of hair and stomacher, is at first a the real superiority of such "Lloyd succeeds Miss Ford in perform-credulous ways over much of ing on the musical-glasses for the what the world mistakes for its 66 amusement of genteel company." It shrewdest wisdom.* It is not was eminently, we perceive, an amusement for "the genteel," the Skeggses and Blarneys of high life.

"One way or another," says the sharp Mr. Jenkinson, "I generally

simply that a happy fireside is stories of the past, laying schemes depicted there, but that it is one for the future, and listening to over which calamity and sorrow Moses's thoughtful opinion of can only cast the most temporary matters and things in 1766. shade. In his deepest distress, general, to the effect that Æt. 38. the Vicar has but to remember all things, in his judgment, how much kinder Heaven is to us go on very well, and that he has than we are to ourselves, and just been thinking, when sister how few are the misfortunes of Livy is married to Farmer Wilnature's making, to recover his liams, they'll get the loan of his cheerful patience. There never cider-press and brewing-tubs for was a book in which indulgence nothing. The best gooseberryand charity made virtue look so wine has been this night much lustrous. Nobody is strait-laced: in request. "Let us have one if we except Miss Carolina "bottle more, Deborah, my life,” Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs, whose says the Vicar; "and Moses, pretensions are summed up in "give us a good song... But Burchell's noble monosyllable. “where is my darling Olivia?” “Virtue, my dear Lady Blarney, Little Dick comes running in. "virtue is worth any price; but "O pappa, pappa, she is gone "where is that to be found?" "from us, she is gone from us, "Fudge." When worldly reverses "my sister Livy is gone from us visit the good Doctor Primrose," for ever!" "Gone, child!" they are of less account than the "Yes, she is gone off with two equanimity they cannot deprive "gentlemen in a post-chaise, and him of; than the belief in good "one of them kissed her, and to which they only give wider "said he would die for her; and scope; than the happiness which "she cried very much, and was even in its worldliest sense they "for coming back; but he perultimately strengthen, by en-"suaded her again, and she went larged activity, and increased "into the chaise, and said, O necessity for labour. It is only "what will my poor pappa do when when struck through the sides "he knows I am undone!" "Now of his children that for an instant "then, my children, go and be his faith gives way. Most lovely "miserable; for we shall never is the pathos of that scene; so "enjoy one hour more;" and the briefly and beautifully told. The old man, struck to the heart, little family at night are gathered cannot help cursing the seducer. round a charming fire, telling But Moses is mindful of happier “cheated simple neighbour Flamborough teaching, and with a loving simonce a year. Yet still the honest man plicity rebukes his father. "went forward without suspicion, and "You should be my mother's grew rich, while I still continued comforter, sir, and you increase "tricksy and cunning, and was poor." Chap. XXVI. "her pain. You should not