Churchyard. . . compiling materials for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip': this book appears on John Newbery's List for 1762; (4) Boswell did not make Johnson's acquaintance until 1763, and it will be noted that he does not tell of what passed under his own eyes, but 'authentically from Johnson's own exact narration'. Additions were made later to the novel-such as The Hermit and the Elegy on a Mad Dog; but these, admirable in themselves, were mere padding to help the volumes out to the required length, and do not carry the story forward in any way.

But reluctant as all concerned seem to have been to bring The Vicar of Wakefield to life, once published it began to make its way. Issued on March 27, 1766, a second edition was called for by the end of May; on the 25th of August a third edition appeared. There were also in the same year two unauthorized reprints-one at Dublin, the other at London. A fourth edition came out in 1770, a fifth in 1773, a sixth in 1779. These were all small editions, according to the booksellers' accounts, so that the success of the book was not at first overwhelming. In 1792 an edition appeared with plates after Stothard's design, and by this time the twenty-second edition had been reached. There is no need to further enumerate the successive editions of what has proved to be one of the most popular books of English literature. Those interested in pictorial art may be referred to an article by Mr. Austin Dobson entitled, The Vicar of Wakefield and its illustrators,' in Side-walk Studies, pp. 130-47.

The question has been asked and partially answered, 'Why did Goldsmith call his masterpiece "The Vicar of WAKEFIELD"?' The place itself plays only a small part in the story. In the first chapter its name is merely mentioned; in chapter ii we are told that there were three strange wants there: 'a parson wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and ale-houses wanting customers'; in the third chapter the Vicar and his family migrate to a distant neighbourhood. There is probably no trace of any direct connexion between Goldsmith and Wakefield now discoverable; but Mr. Ford in his interesting and persuasive article published in the National Review of May, 1883, shows how the somewhat puzzling topography may be accounted for on the basis of Goldsmith's own hints and figures. See also under Wakefield, p. 484.

SUPPRESSED OR ALTERED PASSAGES

CHAPTER III

Page 204, lines 19-22. 'I could not but smile. . . make us more happy.' 1766 edition reads 'I could not but smile to hear her talk in this strain: one almost at the verge of beggary thus to assume language of the most insulting affluence, might excite the ridicule of ill-nature; but I was never much displeased with those innocent delusions that tend to make us more happy."

CHAPTER V

Page 212, line 30. After 'for which he had the satisfaction of being laughed at' 1766 edition has- for he always ascribed to his wit that laughter which was lavished at his simplicity.' This may have been struck out by Goldsmith from self-conscious motives, as the passage conveys a striking image of his own character as seen by his intimates.

Page 213, lines 12-14. For nor why Mr. Simkins got the ten thousand prize in the lottery, and we sate down with a blank ' 1766 edition reads—' nor why one got the ten thousand prize in the lottery, and another sate down with a blank. "But those," added I, "who either aim at husbands greater than themselves, or at the ten thousand pound prize, have been fools for their ridiculous claims, whether successful or not."

CHAPTER VII

Page 224, lines 9-11. After 'The vice does not lie in assenting to the proofs they see; but in being blind to many of the proofs that offer' 1766 has-' Like corrupt judges on a bench, they determine right on that part of the evidence they hear; but they will not hear all the evidence. Thus, my son, though, &c.'

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CHAPTER XV

Page 275, lines 30-3. Thus my children . . . still remaining.' 1766 edition reads- Thus, my children, after men have travelled through a few stages in vice, they no longer continue to have shame at doing evil, and shame attends only upon their virtues."

CHAPTER XVI

Page 277, lines 18-19. For 'in the composition of a pudding, it was her judgment that mixed the ingredients' 1766 edition reads in the composition of a pudding, her judgment was infallible.'

CHAPTER XXVIII

Page 377, lines 31-2. After 'I must suffer, my life is forfeited, and let them take it' 1766 cdition adds—' it is my last happiness that I have committed no murder, tho' I have lost all hopes of pardon.'

Page 378, lines 34 seq. For I have sent a challenge, and as I am the first transgressor upon the statute, I see no hopes of pardon' 1766 edition reads—' I have sent a challenge, and that is death by a late act of parliament.'

Mr. Burchell might here have 'ingeminated' Fudge with good reason; there was no such enactment on the statute-book. See Note 26.

OTHER IMPUTED SUPPRESSIONS.

Johnson, in conversation with Boswell, mentions other passages as having been deleted :

BoSWELL. There was "When I was

'Johnson. I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge : "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing." That was a fine passage. JOHNSON. Yes, Sir: another fine passage too, which he struck out: a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for, I found that generally what was new was false." (Boswell's Life, iii. 375-6, ed. Birkbeck Hill.)

With respect to the second instance Johnson's memory (he was speaking in 1779) may have misled him, for the same thought occurs, in rather different words, in chapter xx, pp. 310-11.

NOTE 16.-GOLDSMITH AND DR. WHISTON. Page 193. William Whiston, from whom Goldsmith borrowed several traits-more especially as regards the Vicar's views on monogamy in The Vicar of Wakefield—and who was a thorn in the side of many authorities, ecclesiastical, scientific, and academical,

during his stormy life played many parts, and stirred up many hornets' nests. In the Memoirs of his Life and Writings written by himself (London, ed. 2, 1749), he expresses his views on monogamy and other subjects with a plain-spoken asperity which can scarcely have failed to raise him up many powerful enemies, as did Dr. Primrose when he trampled Mr. Wilmot under foot, and would not allow him to be a husband in any sense of the word. The pith of the Vicar's remarks on monogamy, by which he meant in brief the remarriage of a clergyman of the Church of England, will be found at p. 540 of Whiston's Memoirs. At p. 197 there is an obvious reference to Archbishop Tenison's harsh treatment of him, likewise mentioned in The Vicar (p. 265) in almost identical terms. Sir Leslie Stephen contributed a full life of Whiston to volume lxi of the Dictionary of National Biography. Whiston identified the Lost Ten Tribes with the Tartars; claimed to have identified Mary Tofts, the rabbit woman', with the woman mentioned in the book of Esdras; claimed to have predicted an earthquake of about the same date; and assured Prince Eugène on the general's famous visit to Queen Anne that he had fulfilled some of the prophecies of the Apocalypse, whereto the Prince replied that he had not been aware that he had the honour of being known to St. John '. It is only fair to the Prince to say that he presented Dr. Whiston with an honorarium of fifteen guineas in recognition of the 'dedication of his first imperfect Essay on the Revelation of St. John'.

Whiston was buried near his wife, who died in January, 1750-1, at Lyndon, Rutlandshire. I have not found any record of the alleged inscription on her tomb (Vicar of Wakefield, p. 193); it is, no doubt, a simple fabrication of Goldsmith's, who is fond of similar mystifications, even when they can be dismissed by a moment's comparison of facts. Whiston is now remembered chiefly, if at all, by his translation of Josephus, now itself happily superseded by that of Prof. Margoliouth. His Memoirs still retain distinct value as a picture of the state of religion and manners in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Whiston's learning was certainly vast in bulk and many-sided, but he lacked common-sense and critical power, so that very few of his numerous writings can be read to-day. The trail of

forgotten controversies is over them all; but it is not amiss perhaps that a few readers should now and then linger over their dusty pages. He would doubtless have been a far happier man if he had abjured his own strange theology for the mathematical studies in which he might have made a great and unassailable reputation.

NOTE 17.-JOHNNY ARMSTRONG'S LAST GOOD-NIGHT. Page 207.

Goldsmith more than once shows his keen regard for this old ballad. 'The music of the most accomplished singer,' he says in his Essays, 'is dissonance to what I felt when an old dairymaid sang me into tears with Johnnie Armstrong's Last Good-Night.' The verses are said to have been composed by one of the Armstrongs, executed for the murder of Sir John Carmichael of Edrom, Warden of the Middle Marches. Two stanzas are printed by Scott in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (vol. ii, p. 123) :— This night is my departing night,

For here nae langer must I stay;

There's neither friend nor foe o' mine

But wishes me away.

What I have done thro' lack of wit

I never, never can recall;

I hope ye're a' my friends as yet;

Good-night, and joy be with you all!

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NOTE 18.-Two LOVERS STRUCK DEAD BY LIGHTNING. Page 226. The story of the two lovers so sweetly described by Mr. Gay, who were struck dead in each other's arms' was told by Gay in a letter to Mr. F[ortescue], written from Stanton Harcourt, where he was staying with Pope, on August 9, 1718, and published in 1737. It runs thus in Pope's Works, viii. 115, ed. 1751 :

:

'The only news that you can expect to have from me here, is news from heaven, for I am quite out of the world, and there is scarce any thing can reach me except the noise of thunder, which undoubtedly you have heard too.. A cock of barley in

our next field has been burned to ashes. Would to God that this heap of barley had been all that perished! for unhappily beneath this little shelter sat two more such constant lovers than