1766. 66 666 * VII. gave this over; for I found that Substantially, however, the sentiment is "generally what was new was false.'" left, though the particular expression is removed. It is where George Primrose "have curst him, villain as he is." | earnestness, this Hume and Wal"I did not curse him, child, did pole age: but no one can be in "I?" "Indeed, sir, you did; earnest himself without in some "you curst him twice." degree affecting others. "I re"Then may Heaven for- "member a passage in the Vicar Et. 38. "give me and him if I"of Wakefield," said Johnson, a "did." Charity resumes its place few years after its author's death, in his heart; with forgiveness, "which Goldsmith was afterhappiness half visits him again; "wards fool enough to expunge. by kindly patience, even De-"I do not love a man who is zealous borah's reproaches are subdued "for nothing."* The words were and stayed; he takes back with most affecting tenderness his marked that that was a fine passage. 247. Hereupon Boswell repenitent child; and the voices of "Yes, sir: there was another fine pasall his children are heard once sage too, which he struck out: 'When more in their simple concert on distinguish myself, I was perpetually "I was a young man, being anxious to the honey-suckle bank. We feel "starting new propositions. But I soon that it is better than cursing; and are even content that the rascally young squire should have time and hope for a sort of shabby repentance, and be al- "ing that the best things remained to be lowed the intermediate comfort (it seems after all, one hardly knows why or wherefore, the most appropriate thing he can do) of "thing was left for me to import but "blowing the French horn." Mr. "some splendid things that at a disAbraham Adams has infinite is also a passage in Mrs. Piozzi's Letters "tance looked every bit as well." There claims on respect and love, nor (1. 247) which shows how Johnson must ever to be forgotten are his have talked of this among the set. groans over Wilson's worldly June, 1775, "Croesus promised a reward, "Well!" she writes to Johnson, 24th narrative, his sermon on vanity, "you remember, for him who should his manuscript Eschylus, his "produce a new delight; but the prize noble independence to Lady "was new proved delightful; and Dr. Booby, and his grand rebuke to "Goldsmith, 3000 years afterwards, found Peter Pounce: but he is put to "out, that whoever did a new thing did no such trial as this which has "thing, said a false thing." I may add a bad thing, and whoever said a new been illustrated here, and which (as another instance of what I have sets before us, with such blended frequent occasion to remark as to the grandeur, simplicity, and pathos, which stories about Johnson and Goldmany various and doubtful forms in the Christian heroism of the lov-smith are apt to appear, when once we ing father, and forgiving ambas- lose sight of the trustworthy Boswell) the sador of God to man. describes his Grub-street career: "Find "said on the wrong side, I resolved to 66 66 was never obtained, for nothing that following item from Dr. Burney's recollections: "Johnson told Dr. Burney, It was not an age of particular "that Goldsmith said, when he first Æt. 38. little, since the feeling was re- as the incidents of the little story tained; for the very basis of the came forth in his serious simple little tale was a sincerity and voice, in one unmoved unalterzeal for many things. This in- ing tone ("just as if no- 1766. deed it was, which, while all the "thing of it was present world were admiring it for its "before him, but all was mirth and sweetness, its bright "only historical; as if the and happy pictures, its simul-"shadows of this poetical creataneous movement of the springs "tion did not affect him in a lifeof laughter and tears, gave it a "like manner, but only glided rarer value to a more select "gently by"), a new ideal of letaudience, and connected it with ters and of life arose in the mind not the least memorable anec- of the listener.* Years passed dote of modern literary history. on; and while that younger It had been published little more student raised up and re-estabthan four years, when two Ger- lished the literature of his counmans whose names became after-try, and came at last, in his wards world-famous, one a prime and in his age, to be acstudent at that time in his twen- knowledged for the wisest of tieth, the other a graduate in his modern men, he never ceased twenty-fifth year, met in the throughout to confess what he city of Strasburg. The younger, owed to those old evenings at Johann Wolfgang Goethe, a law- Strasburg. The strength which scholar of the University with a can conquer circumstance; the passion for literature, sought wisdom that lifts itself above knowledge from the elder, Jo-every object, fortune and misforhann Gottfried Herder, for the tune, good and evil, death and course on which he was moved life, and attains to the possesto enter. Herder, a severe and sion of a poetical world; first masterly though somewhat cyni- visited Goethe in the tone with cal critic, laughed at the likings which Goldsmith's tale is told. of the young aspirant, and roused The fiction became to him life's him to other aspiration. Pro- first reality; in country clergyducing a German translation of men of Drusenheim, there started the Vicar of Wakefield, he read it up vicars of Wakefield; for Olivias out aloud to Goethe in a manner and Sophias of Alsace, first love which was peculiar to him; and, fluttered at his heart;-and at every stage of his illustrious "began to write, he determined to com- after-career its impression still "mit to paper nothing but what was new; vividly recurred to him. He re "but he afterwards found that what was new was generally false, and from that membered it when, at the height time was no longer solicitous about of his worldly honour and suc"novelty." This is obviously a mere confused recollection of what is correctly told by Boswell. Oliver Goldsmith's Life and Times. I. Truth and Poetry from my Own Life, translated by John Oxenford, 1. 368. 21 cess, he made his written Life better sort of newspapers as well (Wahrheit und Dichtung) record as the more dignified reviews conwhat a blessing it had been to temptuously left it to the patronhim; he had not forgotten age of Lloyd's Evening Post, the Lon1766. it when, some twenty years don Chronicle, and journals of that Æt. 38. ago,* standing at the age class; which simply informed of eighty-one on the very brink their readers that a new novel, of the grave, he told a friend called the Vicar of Wakefield, had that in the decisive moment of been published, that "the Editor mental development the Vicar of "is Doctor Goldsmith, who has Wakefield had formed his educa-“affixed his name to an introtion, and that he had recently, "ductory advertisement," and with unabated delight, "read the that such and such were the in"charming book again from be- cidents of the story. Several "ginning to end, not a little af- columns of the Evening Post and "fected by the lively recollec- the Chronicle, between the dates "tion" of how much he had been of March and April, were filled indebted to the author seventy in this way with bald recital of years before. the plot; and with such extracts Goldsmith was unconscious of as the prison-scene, the account this exalted tribute. He died as of the Primroses, and the brief ignorant of Herder's friendly episode of Matilda: but, in the criticism, as of the gratitude of way of praise or of criticism, not Goethe. The little book silently a word was said. Johnson, as I forced its way. I find upon ex- have remarked, took little inamination of the periodicals of terest in the story at any time the day that no noise was made but as the means of getting so about it, no trumpets blown for much money for its author; and it. The St. James's Chronicle did believing that "Harry Fielden" not condescend to notice its ap-(as he called him) knew nothing pearance, and the Monthly Review but the shell of life,* confessed frankly that nothing was to be made of it.** The Written in 1848. may be "Richardson had picked the kernel "of life (he said) while Fielding was con"tented with the husk." Mrs. Piozzi's ** I subjoin the close of the notice Anecdotes, 198. Fielding being mentioned, which appeared in that respectable Johnson exclaimed, "He was a blockperiodical: "Through the whole course "head;" and upon Boswell expressing "of our travels in the wild regions of his astonishment at so strange an asser"romance, we never met with anything tion, he said, "What I mean by his being "more difficult to characterise than the "a blockhead is, that he was a barren "Vicar of Wakefield... In brief, with all "rascal." BOSWELL: "Will you not al"its faults, there is much rational enter-"low, sir, that he draws very natural "tainment to be met with in this very "pictures of human life?" JOHNSON: "singular tale." Monthly Review, XXXIV. "Why, sir, it is of very low life. 407, May 1766. Well might Southey say "Richardson used to say, that had he not that the Vicar of Wakefield had proved "a "known who Fielding was, he should "puzzler" to its critics! "have believed he was an ostler." (So 66 Α 1766. t. 38. excused for thinking the Vicar a tion, nevertheless, gathered slow'mere fanciful performance." It ly and steadily around it. would seem that none of the club second edition* appeared at the indeed, excepting Burke, cared close of May, and a third much about it: and one may on the 25th of August; it read, in the French letters of the reached its seventh editime, how perfectly Madame Ricceiver. Then "peu de jours après, voilà coboni agrees with her friend "une lettre de Mr. Burke. Un style Garrick as to the little to be "charmant, des excuses de sa longue learned from it; and how sur-"nage léger, de l'esprit, de l'agrément, négligence, mille politesses, un badiprised the lively lady is that the "de la finesse; rien de plus joli. Il prend Burkes should have found it "la liberté de m'envoyer, il a l'honneur pathetic, or be able to approve "Le Vicaire de Wakefield. Un Irlandois "de me présenter, qui, quoi? devinez, of its arguments in favour of "doit me le remettre, avec," &c. But the thieves and outcasts.* Admira- Irishman, alas, proved only another Jenkinson; and he ushered in still further much the worse, I would ask leave to disappointments, till at last the little say, for Richardson.) "Sir, there is lady, exasperated almost to despair, re"more knowledge of the heart in one ceives "un billet de Mr. Garrick, une "letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom"lettre de Mr. Becket, et ce Vicaire si dé"Jones! I, indeed, never read Joseph "siré, si longtemps attendu-je pousse "Andrews." ERSKINE : "Surely, sir, "un cri de joie," &c. Then of course, ás "Richardson is very tedious." JOHNSON: usual when expectation has been so "Why, sir, if you were to read Richard-highly wrought, disappointment succeeds. 66 son for the story, your impatience"Vous avez raison," she writes to Gar"would be so much fretted that you rick, "de dire, qu'il ne m'apprendra rien. 66 would hang yourself. But you must "C'est un homme qui va de malheurs en "read him for the sentiment." Boswell," malheurs assez rapidement, et de bonIII. 207, 208. (For an exception he would "heurs en bonheurs tout aussi vîte. Cela occasionally make in favour of Amelia,"ne ressemble guère à la vie du monde. see Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, 221-2.) This │“ Je ne suis pas un juge compétent du talk was at Sir Alexander Macdonald's in 66 style, mais le plan de l'ouvrage ne m'a pas intéressée; le pathétique annoncé "par Mr. Burke ne m'a point frappée: le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons, des gens de mau"vaises mœurs, est fort éloigné de me "plaire." 1772, and "the Erskine" who finds" Richardson tedious was a "young officer "in the regimentals of the Scots Royal, "who talked with a vivacity, fluency, "and precision so uncommon, that he at"tracted particular attention;" who afterwards attracted more particular at- *I ought not to mention this second tention still as the first advocate of West-impression without adding that it conminster-hall, and ultimately lord high tained some additions, such as Burchel's chancellor: and whose genuine sense of humour, and natural wit, must surely have resented very strongly this most astounding of all Johnson's heresies. repetition of his famous monosyllable at each pause in the revelations of Miss Skeggs; and some omissions, as of a passage that Goldsmith may possibly have The lively Frenchwoman's letter found in use against himself, in which he will be found in the Garrick Correspondence, had said of Moses, "for he always II. 492-4. She had heard so much of the "ascribed to his wit that laughter which Vicar that she was dying to read it. But "was lavished on his simplicity." We though everybody wrote to tell her that owe to Johnson, as I have shown in a they had sent it, the little book never previous note, the mention of two omiscame. A Mr. Jenkinson was to have sions made before publication, which he conveyed it to her, but the Mr. Jenkinson could hardly have remembered if he had of the novel did not turn out a baser de-not very carefully read the MS. tion in little more than seven smith had been dead nearly half years; and thus early it had a century. Nor were any solider been translated into several enjoyments from it to be his, any 1766. continental languages. * more than these delights of fame. These were indications of As it had been with the Traveller Æt. 38. success which its author so it was with the Vicar. In the lived to enjoy, but there were year of his death its seventh ediothers in which he was not to tion was published; but he went share. He was not to know that to his grave without receiving the little story would make its from the booksellers the least way into every English home, addition to that original sorry and take its place as one of the payment which Johnson himself half-dozen masterpieces of the thought "accidentally" less than language. While yet he lived, it it ought to have been. In this, had helped to form the character as in so many other instances, of the greatest man of modern his marked ill-fortune attended days; but its writer was not to him. That people "made a know it. When a French sove-"point" of not buying what he reign declared that it had been to wrote, could not at least be said him, in his English exile, a plea- of the Vicar, either in Paul'ssure not equalled since the re-churchyard or Paternoster-row. storation of his throne,** Gold-Yet the very month when the appearance of its second edition *These have since multiplied to ex-may have brought this assurance cess. I add a mention of one or two of to himself, was also that in which the latest that have been sent to me. "Le Ministre de Wakefield. Précédé he was to receive assurance not "d'un Essai sur la vie et les écrits less convincing, that, with even "d'Oliver Goldsmith. Par M. Hennequin such a success following hard "Paris, Brédrip, 1825." This is careful that of his poem, his and good. "Le Vicaire de Wakefield. upon "Traduit par Charles Nodier. Paris, troubles and toil were not to pass "Gorselin, 1841." The notice by Nodier prefixed is charming. "Der Landpredi- away. "ger von Wakefield. Leipsic, 1835." Here a number of illustrations are reproduced from Westall. Another published in the same city, six years later, has an abundant series of woodcuts by Louis Richter, very humorous and pleasant. The list might be extended indefinitely. **"The writer of these remarks," says the reviewer of the first edition of this biography in the Morning Chronicle of the 13th June, 1848, "is enabled to state "that, at the coronation of the late King "of France, Charles X, he told the Duke "of Northumberland that he had never "known, since the restoration of his "family, the pleasure he used to enjoy at "Hartwell-house in reading The Vicar of 66 Wakefield." |