The vicar of Wakefield

Front matter

Double Number 45

October, 19 00

OLIVER

Prefatory Note

The main points kept in mind in editing this edition of “ The Vicar of Wakefield” are indicated in the detailed suggestions for study. A considerable part of the work is linguistic, as seems necessary with a book of the eighteenth century. But the main aim has been to let the book itself supply the means for its own study. As it happens that in this case the life of the author and the historical position of the book are more important than with some other books, they are therefore made the subject of more detailed treatment.

The text follows, in the main, that of the first edition. But as a critical text seems by no means necessary, the paragraphing has been somewhat altered, the spelling modernized, and many words and expressions either omitted entirely or changed.

Edward E. Hale, Jr.

Union College.

Contents

PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE . iii

INTRODUCTION :

The Life of Goldsmith v

“The Vicar of Wakefield” . . ix

Suggestions for Study xiii

Specimen Examination Questions xix

Introduction

THE LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

Op many authors it may be rightly said that the course of their lives had but little influence upon their work. Of many more it may be said that their lives were quite uneventful, and that they lived along from day to day, doing such ordinary things that had they not been distinguished men themselves, their lives would be quite without interest to us. It is true that we always feel an interest in the life of a favorite author and a curiosity as to what .he did, but very often a great knowledge of biographical detail has no connection at all with the appreciation of an author’s work.

With Goldsmith the case is different. Not merely was his life singularly eventful, but it left its mark on his writings. Many of the events and thoughts of his life are reproduced in “The Vicar of Wakefield.” We shall see, in several of the later chapters of the book, that in telling the adventures of George Primrose, Goldsmith is really telling us of his own; that in giving the thoughts and speculations of the Vicar upon the evils of the time, he is giving us really what he thought himself. So, with Goldsmith, there is more reason than is often the case for learning something about the life of our author. It is more interesting than author’s lives usually are, and it affected his writing more.

One result, however, of Goldsmith’s eventful life is that he did so much that we can only give the slightest account of it all. j In a few words we may say that he was born in Ireland and that he had an Irish character ; that he tried his hand at many different occupations ; that he finally became definitely settled in London as a man of letters ; that he wrote much, both things that the booksellers wanted him to write and things that he wanted to write himself ; that he became famous and highly esteemed, and that when he died his statue was placed in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. I But

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when we come to details they crowd upon us in very bewildering fashion. In all of them, however, he presents the same careless, happy, queer, and lovable character, so that it is not as important to tell everything as it might be.

Goldsmith was born at Pallas, in the central part of Ireland, on November 10, 1728. His father was a clergyman and his elder brother became a clergyman, so though neither of them were very well-to-do in the world, it was natural that Goldsmith should have been destined for one of the “learned” professions (p. 4), and received a good education. The only real drawback to his education was his own careless character : he was clever enough at studying, although not in talking; but he could not manage to go easily through the regular course of things that ordinary men find not so very difficult. At Trinity College, Dublin, the educational centre of Ireland, he quarrelled with his tutor, neglected the studies he did not like, got mixed up in riotous disturbances, left the university for a time on account of some disgrace, and finally (1749) managed to take a degree.

At the age of twenty-one his prospects could not have been brilliant in the eyes of his friends. He himself, on the other hand, was most cheerful and light-hearted, a charming companion, and full of agreeable affection. He agreed easily to the plan that he should go into the Church ; but unfortunately, when he applied to the Bishop for ordination, he was rejected. He consoled himself with thoughts of tutoring, but as soon as he had saved a little money he was carried away by the idea of going to America. Of course he did not get very far, and in a few weeks re-appeared at home. A kind uncle proposed the profession of the law and provided funds. Goldsmith started cheerfully for London, but lost all his money by gambling on the way and was shortly at home again. His family must have been in despair. His uncle suggested medicine and Goldsmith of course agreed. Here he actually made a beginning in life. He left home finally and forever ; he studied medicine, and somehow acquired that title by which he was afterward commonly known — that of “Doctor,”

It is not recorded that he pursued the studies of his profession with very great diligence. He went to Edinburgh, where he remained for two years. Then he started out for Leyden, in Holland, where there had long been a famous university. How much he did at Ley-

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den is unknown ; it is certain, however, that he used up his money, for in no very long time we find him wandering through France on foot, much as George Primrose does in the story (p. 110). He managed in this way to see the greater part of France and Italy, and in 1756 found himself once more in England.

As a matter of course he made for London. It was to London that all who had no definite career turned their steps to seek their fortunes, as the old saying is. Goldsmith does not seem to have had the profession of an author especially in mind; he tried his hand with a company of strolling players as he tramped along the road ; he took the position of usher or under-master at a boy’s school; he corrected proof sheets ; he even endeavored to make a beginning at his real profession of medicine. But none of these ventures were successful or permanent.

Not till after about twelve months of experiment did his true powers find a chance. He attracted the attention of the publishers of one of the London magazines, and was engaged to supply articles to the “Monthly Review.” He was to write anything the editor needed to fill up with.

Although this particular engagement did not last very long, and although Goldsmith tried teaching and medicine again, yet this was his real beginning at his life-work. Certainly the writing anything that might be called for was not a very dignified form of the author’s profession, but at least it kept him alive, and it also led to something else. From this time (1757) to his death, Goldsmith lived chiefly in London and made his living by his pen. He never settled anywhere else, and, in spite of trying his hand at medicine every now and then, he never really did anything else but write.

In the next twenty years he wrote a great deal that was demanded of him by publishers and booksellers, and much of it had no very great merit. But beside these things that he wrote for money, he also found leisure to express his truer thoughts and feelings, and thus wrote some of the best things in the literature of the time. His essays attracted notice ; his poems, “The Traveller ” and “The Deserted Village,” were the best that had appeared since Pope; his play, “ She Stoops to Conquer,” was successful in its day and has kept the stage since, and “ The Vicar of Wakefield ” is one of the best novels of the century. This would be a proud record for any author; from it we understand what Johnson meant when lie said of Goldsmith

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that he left scarcely any mode of writing untouched, and touched none that he did not adorn.

But he did not leap at once to fame. His first important poem, “The Traveller,” appeared in 1764. It gave him a reputation, but he had already worked in great poverty and hardship for seven years. In those years he had become known as a clever essayist and hack writer of whatever sort of thing the booksellers wanted. Now he was seen to be something far better, a man of genius and a poet.

He had already written “ The Vicar of Wakefield,” or had at least planned it. Of this book the story is told that Dr. Johnson one day got a letter from Goldsmith, begging him to come and see him at once. On reaching his lodgings Johnson found him dunned by his landlady for rent. They talked the situation over and Goldsmith said that he had a manuscript novel on his hands which might be turned to t account. Johnson looked at it, “saw its merit,” to use his own words, put it into his pocket, and went away to sell it. He did sell it and Goldsmith paid his rent that time, but the publisher who bought it, for some reason or other did not publish it for some years. It finally appeared in 1766.

He next turned his attention to the stage, but his first comedy, “ The Good-Natured Man,” was not very successful. His hands were now full of work of all kinds — Histories of England, Rome, Greece, works on Science and Natural History — but he also found time to compose “The Deserted Village,” which was regarded with more favor even than “The Traveller.” It is certainly very beautiful poetry of its kind. His last important work was “She Stoops to Conquer,” a play which shares with Sheridan’s “School of Scandal” and “ The Rivals ” the honor of being the most brilliant comedies of our literature.

These are Goldsmith’s chief works. But a list of them gives no real idea of his life nor of his character. His life in London for twenty years, although more settled than his varied experiments in search of a profession, had yet decided ups and downs. He never attained that steady habit of life which is careful of the present and provident for the future. He made a great deal of money, but he was generally in debt; he wrote exquisite and charming works, but he had also to toil days and months upon pieces of book-work which could have had but little interest for him ; he had many of the most distinguished men of his time as friends, yet he was constantly

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IX doing careless and foolish things, like beating booksellers and wearing clothes of bloom-colored plush.

He was certainly made up of strange contradictions, but there was one characteristic which nothing ever changed or even obscured. This was his genuine goodness of nature and his sweet charm of manner. He was often hasty but never unkind, and, in spite of his follies, everybody had a warm heart for him. Dr. Johnson, who blamed him in the sternest manner for his many mistakes and errors, was also, as Mr. Austin Dobson says, the man who understood him best and loved him most. And whether they have fully understood that strange mixture of genius and childishness, of keen perception of the beautiful and careless indifference to common sense — whether they have understood him or not, his readers also for one hundred and fifty years have always felt, that in spite of all failures, here was a man who truly appealed to the heart.

“THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.”

Among the commonest things to be read, for entertainment or improvement, are novels. There is much else to read in this world — the newspaper is much read, and the magazine and many other things. Still for the majority of Americans the chief reading, especially if it be for amusement, is novel-reading. In most public libraries the novels are the books most circulated. In the publishers’ lists of widely selling books the novels are always the most widely selling. When we think of an author, we are apt to think of a novelist.

Those who know a little of literature will remember that this was not always the case. In the time of Shakespeare, for instance, the most common literary amusement was the drama. There were tales and stories which .may be called novels, but the great interest was the drama. Nowadays we can hardly think of a living English dramatist whom we consider an author of power and repute equal to that of our great novelists. But in Shakespeare’s day it was otherwise: there were many dramatists, some of whom have remained famous through three centuries. It was not unnatural, in a time when books were costly and when few people could read, that the theatre should have largely taken the place that the novel takes now. The theatre was a place where any man could go for a little money ;

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he did not need to know how to read, nor did he need to own or borrow books : he went to the theatre and saw exciting stories acted before him — the story of the Danish Prince who saw the. ghost of his father, of the Moorish General who was tricked into murdering his wife, of the old King who was turned out of house and home by his unloving daughters. That was something like novel reading.

But they had not always had a theatre in England. In the time of Chaucer and before, there was no real theatre and there were no novels either. In those days the poor people listened to ballads, and the richer people listened to story-tellers. In Chaucer’s “ Canterbury Tales,” we are told of a number of people who went to Canterbury together, riding along the road. They agreed that as they rode they would tell each other stories — stories of all kinds, funny stories, church legends, tales of chivalry. Where people cannot get books or read, where there is no theatre in which any one can see a story acted on the stage, there they will tell stories to each other. In Chaucer’s day these stories were commonly put in poetry because people felt that for an elegant and charming story, prose w T as too common and ordinary.

Thus the novel did not always exist in England, but had a beginning, and the time of its beginning is commonly set down as the middle of the eighteenth century. It is true that before that time there had been many stories and tales that we must call fiction, which are not unlike what we might now call a novel. Thus Sir Thomas More (1516) wrote of a new and strange country called “Utopia,” as a means of giving his ideas on the true constitution of the best government. Sir Philip Sidney (1590) wrote the “Arcadia,” full of the adventures of knights and ladies, shepherds and shepherdesses. Bunyan (1678) put the experience of the Christian life in the form .of the story of a man who journeyed from one city to another. Swift (1726) put his satire on men and the world around him into the story of Lemuel Gulliver, who travelled into strange lands and saw strange peoples. But the “ Utopia,” the “Arcadia,” “ The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” are not exactly what we should call novels, and even if they had been, each was almost the only one of its kind ; neither can be said to have given the start to the immense literature of fiction which exists to-day.

In the time of Swift, De Foe wrote “Robinson Crusoe” (1719), and a number of other stories not so well known, and Addison

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(1711), in the periodical which he published three times a week, gave a number of sketches of Sir Roger de Coverley, “ a fine old English gentleman,” as the song says. Still we do not find novels of the kind we think of to-day.

In the years between 1740 and 1750 appeared the books which first exhibit to us the true English novel, though not yet developed into all the forms with which we are now familiar. Richardson told long love stories of the people of his own day. Fielding told stories of the men and women he knew, stories of love partly and partly of adventure. Smollett continued with tales of riotous and humorous incidents. As soon as the idea was so far developed, it was caught up by many more, and almost everybody wrote novels of a more or less experimental kind. Dr. Johnson wrote a tale of “Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia” (1759) ; Sir Horace Walpole (1765) wrote ‘ ‘ The Castle of Otranto, ” a story of Gothic mystery and horror. It was at about this time that Goldsmith w T rote “The Yicar of Wakefield.” It is not known exactly when, or how, or why he wrote it — except that, as we have seen, he could and did write everything: plays, poems, essays, histories, treatises — but the story of the publication seems a little as if he had written for fun.

That is to say, “ The Yicar of Wakefield ” is an old English novel. It is one of the novels of the early days of English novels. We must read it with the recollectionthatisnot a novel of our own time. It is a book which has served as a model for many a novel of later time, but in itself it is different from those novels which we read to-day. This gives us the historical position of the book, which here is a matter of some importance.

When we study a book, of course we want to enjoy it, but we also want to do a little more than that, we want to enjoy it intelligently, to enjoy it for what is best in it. “The Yicar of Wakefield” is an early novel ; it has not many things that we are used to in novels. What it does have is something rather different, something that novels, as time went on, were apt to lose. We read many novels of exciting adventure, “ Ivanhoe,” or “The Last of the Mohicans.” But “The Yicar of Wakefield ” is not a story of exciting adventure : there were plenty of chances for excitement ; Goldsmith might have told of the burning of the house or the carrying away of Sophia in an exciting way. But he did not care to : he had other ideas in mind. Or we may read novels with fully developed characters and

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highly finished pictures of manners: “ Silas Marner,” or “David Copperfield.” Goldsmith has quite definite ideas of his characters, but he never thought of making them as highly finished studies as we may find in George Eliot ; he presented life much as he saw it, but he did not have the journalistic eye which enables Dickens to give such a vivid impression of the scenes and life about him.

No : we must not think that Goldsmith’s novel will be like those of Scott or Dickens. They were novelists : Goldsmith was a man of letters who wrote one novel. But that one novel has been accepted as a classic both by his own people and by other nations, which is more than can be said for many very great novelists, because it had some of the lasting and permanent qualities of the genius of its author. We must read it quite simply, then, not demanding adventure, ingenuity of plot, close study of manners, keen views of character; but keeping our appreciation fresh for the kindly story-teller who tells on and on without troubling his head about fifty refinements which have come into novel-writing since his day, and who has given us, when we put the book down, a store of imagination and recollection greater than we have from most books.

The story is not at all probable, it is true, but it never loses our interest, and we can read to the very end with the wish to see what will happen next. The characters are not very minute studies, but they are very natural and almost every touch makes the right effect. The pictures of life may not be strictly true to nature, but they have unfailing charm. The episodes do not help the story along, but we like to read them for themselves. The bits of proverbial and moral wisdom that come in here and there are not very deep, but they almost always appeal to our common sense. The style is not always correct, but it is always easy.

If we will read the book simply, without demanding what it has not, without comparing it with far more highly developed novels, we shall find ample reward ; we shall find that what the book actually has is sterling in worth — for humor, for pathos, for sympathy, we shall find that it has some things that far more careful novels lack.

These are the things to be enjoyed. It is not wholly necessary to define them, to state to ourselves precisely what they are. But if we can state them we shall have gone some way in the direction of knowing what is meant by that word that we are apt enough to use without troubling about a definition, the word “ classic.”

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XIX

And the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.”

— The Deserted Village , 1. 122.

“ Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind.”

And a comparison of all the passages will show that the word means “empty of care,” or “without care.”

Some other parallels may be noted.

Page 163. “though death . . . mock the weary traveller with the view and, like his horizon, still fly before him.”

“ Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view ;

That like the circle bounding earth and skies Allures from far, yet as I follow, flies ”...

— The Traveller , 11. 25-28.

Page 12. “broken soldier”:

“ The broken soldier kindly bade to stay,

Sat by the fire and talked the night away.”

— The Deserted Village , 11. 155, 156.

Some more general comparisons may be made. Compare Dr. Primrose with “The Village Parson,” “The Deserted Village” (11. 137- 192), and the Vicar’s views on politics (pp. 93-96) with “The Traveller ” (11. 335-348).

Such work as this will give an idea which will become more and more accurate as it goes on of Goldsmith’s manner of thought and of writing. These are all things which might be told by the teacher or stated by the editor. The editor certainly must give some guide and direction : the teacher must add something. But it will not do for either to supply everything : a great part of the work should be done by the pupil. If he cannot easily do it at first, practice will be followed by results, and he will finally have a much more definite possession of the book and a much closer and more accurate habit of reading than he could otherwise get.

SPECIMEN EXAMINATION QUESTIONS.

The preceding suggestions will themselves suggest many questions. But of course there are also matters that must be studied in other ways. The following questions indicate some of the things to be

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known about the book in general — the characters, the words and expressions, the circumstances and manners of the time, and the life of Goldsmith :

I. Is “The Vicar of Wakefield” most noteworthy for an interesting plot or story, for well-drawn characters, for clever conversations, for humorous adventures, or for what ? What can be said of the development and working out of the plot ? What episodes are there ?

II. What was Dr. Primrose’s opinion of women ? What is said of his religious feeling ? What do we learn of Moses and his education ? Characterize the Vicar’s three oldest children. What sort of person was Sir William Thornhill ?

III. What is a beadle ? A patron ? A paradox ? A humorist ? A post-chaise ? What is lambs’ wool ? Catgut ? What is meant by patched? Aggravate? Wooden shoes? Where do these words occur in the book ?

IV. What was Grub Street ? What is meant by the expression now ? Why was Dr. Primrose put in prison ? How did the ladies ride on horseback ? What is the interest in the various allusions to ballads ? How did George think of going to America ?

V. What parts of the book contain Goldsmith’s recollection of his own experience ? What is there to remind us of his poems ? Give some of his generalizations on life to be found in the book ? What sort of life did lie live ? What were his most striking characteristics ?

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

Chapter I

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMILY OF WAKEFIELD , 1 IN WHICH A KINDRED LIKENESS PREVAILS, AS WEfiL OF MINDS AS OF PERSONS.

I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked 3 of population. From this motive, I had scarcely taken orders 3 a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but for such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured notable 4 woman; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who at that time could show more. She could read any English hook without much spelling; and for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. She prided herself much also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; yet I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivances.

However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness increased with age. There was, in fact, nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had an elegant house situated in a fine country, and a good neighborhood. The year was spent in moral or rural amusements, in

1 Wakefield is a town in Yorkshire. * 2 i.e did nothing more.

3 entered the Holy Orders of the priest- 4 notable : capable and industrious as a hood. housewife.

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

visiting our rich neighbors, or relieving such as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations 1 from the blue bed to the brown.

As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger come to taste our gooseberry wine, for which we had great reputation; and I profess, with the veracity of an historian, that I never knew one of them to find fault with it. Our cousins, too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the Herald’s Office , 2 and came very frequently to see us. Some of them did us no great honor by these claims of kindred; for, literally speaking, we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt amongst the number. However, my wife always insisted that, as they were the same flesh and blood with us, they should sit with us at the same table . 3 So that if we had not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us; for this remark will hold good through life, that the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated: and as some men gaze with admiration at the colors of a tulip, and others are smitten with the wing of a butterfly, so I was by nature an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house for the first time I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them. By this the house was cleared of such as we did not like; but never was the family of Wakefield known to turn the traveller or the poor dependent out of doors.

1 in the rearrangements of the house- 3 Cf. “The Deserted Village,” 11. 153, 154:

hold. “ The ruined spendthrift, now no longer

2 an establishment in England of which proud,

the chief business now is to keep a record Claimed kindred there, and had his claims of all noble and gentle families. allowed.”

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMILY OF WAKEFIELD. 3

Thus we lived several years in a state of much happiness, not but that we sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its other favors. My orchard was often robbed by schoolboys, and my wife’s custards plundered by the cats or the children. The Squire would sometimes fall asleep in the most pathetic parts of my sermon, or his lady return my wife’s civilities at church with a mutilated 1 courtesy. But we soon got over the uneasiness caused by such accidents, and usually in three or four days we began to wonder how they vexed us.