and when the struggle for the repeal was over, after the last victorious division on the memorable morning of the 22nd of February, and Pitt and Conway came out amid the huzzaings of the crowded lobby, where the leading merchants of the kingdom whom this great question so vitally affected had till almost a winter's return of light' tremblingly awaited the decision, Burke stood at their side, and received share of the same shouts and benedictions.

We

Extraordinary news for the Club, all this; and again the excellent Hawkins is in a state of wonder. 'Sir,' exclaimed Johnson, 'there is no wonder at all. We who 'know Mr. Burke, know that he will be one of the first 'men in the country.' But he had regrets with which to sober this admission. He disliked the Rockingham party, and was zealous for attendance at the Club. ' have the loss of Burke's company,' he complained to Langton, since he has been engaged in the public 'business.' Yet he cannot help adding (it was the first letter he had writtten to Langton from his new study in Johnson's Court, which he thinks 'looks very pretty' about him) that it is well so great a man by nature as Burke, should be expected soon to attain civil greatness. 'He has gained more reputation than perhaps any man at 'his first appearance ever gained before. His speeches 'have filled the town with wonder.'

Ten days after the date of this letter came out an advertisement in the St. James's Chronicle, which affected the town with neither wonder nor curiosity, though not

without matter for both to the members of the Club.

In a few days will be published,' it said, 'in two volumes, twelves, price six shillings bound, or five shil'lings sewed, The Vicar of Wakefield. A tale, supposed 'to be written by himself. Printed for F. Newbery at the Crown in Paternoster Row.' This was the manuscript story sold to Newbery's nephew fifteen months before; and it seems impossible satisfactorily to account for the bookseller's delay. Johnson says that not till now had the Traveller's success made the publication worth while; but eight months were passed, even now, since the Traveller had reached its fourth edition. We are left to conjecture; and the most likely supposition will probably be that the delay was consequent on business arrangements between the younger and elder Newbery. Goldsmith had certainly not claimed the interval for any purpose of retouching his work, and can hardly have failed to desire speedy publication for what had been to him a labour of love as rare as the Traveller itself. But the elder Newbery may have interposed some claim to a property in the novel, and objected to its appearance contemporaneously with the Traveller. often took part in this way in his nephew's affairs; and thus, for a translation of a French book on philosophy which the nephew published after the Vicar, and which Goldsmith at this very time was labouring at, we find, from the summer account handed in by the elder Newbery, that the latter had himself provided the payment. He gave Goldsmith twenty pounds for it; and had also

He

advanced him, at about the time when the Vicar was put in hand (it was printed at Salisbury, and was nearly three months in passing through the press), the sum of eleven guineas on his own promissory note. The impression of a common interest between the booksellers is confirmed by what I find appended to all Mr. Francis Newbery's advertisements of the novel in the various papers of the day (of whom may be had The Traveller or a Prospect 'of Society, a poem by Doctor Goldsmith. Price 1s. 6d.') ; and it seems further to strengthen the surmise of Mr. John Newbery's connection with the book, that he is himself niched into it. He is introduced as the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who had written so many little books for children (he called himself their 'friend, but he was the friend of all mankind'); and as having published for the Vicar against the Deuterogamists of the age.

So let him continue to live with the Whistonian controversy; for the good Doctor Primrose, that courageous monogamist, has made both immortal. No book upon record has obtained a wider popularity, and none is more likely to endure. One who on the day of its appearance had not left the nursery, but who grew to be a popular poet and a man of fine wit, and who happily still survives with the experience of the seventy years over which his pleasures of memory extend, remarked lately to the present writer, that, of all the books which, through the fitful changes of three generations, he had seen rise and fall, the charm

of the Vicar of Wakefield had alone continued as at first; and, could he revisit the world after an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished. Such is the reward of simplicity and truth, and of not overstepping the modesty of nature.

It is not necessary that any critical judgment should be here gone into, of the merits or the defects of this charming tale. Every one is familiar with the Vicar of Wakefield. We read it in youth and in age. We return to it, as Walter Scott has said, again and again; and we 'bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to ' reconcile us to human nature.' With its ease of style, its turns of thought so whimsical yet wise, and the humour and wit which sparkle freshly through its narrative, we have all of us profitably amused the idle or the vacant hour; from year to year we have had its tender or mirthful incidents, its forms so homely in their beauty, its pathos and its comedy, given back to us from the canvas of our Wilkies, Newtons, and Stothards, our Leslies, Maclises, and Mulreadys: but not in those graces of style, or even in that home-cherished gallery of familiar faces, can the secret of its extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart. A something which has found its way there; which, while it amused, has made us happier; which, gently inweaving itself with our habits of thought, has increased our good humour and charity; which, insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and made the world's daily acci

dents easier and kinder to us all: somewhat thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield. It is our first pure example of the simple domestic novel. Though wide as it was various, and most minutely as well as broadly marked with passion, incident, and character, the field selected by Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett for the exercise of their genius and display of their powers, had hardly included this. Nor is it likely that Goldsmith would himself have chosen it, if his leading object had been to write a book. Rather as a refuge from the writing of books was this book undertaken. Simple to very baldness are the materials employed. But he threw into the midst of them his own nature; his actual experience; the suffering, discipline, and sweet emotion, of his chequered life; and so made them a lesson and a delight to all men.

Good predominant over evil, is briefly the purpose and moral of the little story. It is designed to show us that patience in suffering, that persevering reliance on the providence of God, that quiet labour, cheerful endeavour, and an indulgent forgiveness of the faults and infirmities of others, are the easy and certain means of pleasure in this world, and of turning pain to noble uses. It is designed to show us that the heroism and self-denial needed for the duties of life, are not of the superhuman sort; that they may co-exist with many follies, with some simple weaknesses, with many harmless vanities; and that in the improvement of mankind, near and remote, in its progress