THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
The _Vicar of Wakefield_, considered structurally, follows the lines
of the Book of Job. You take a good man, overwhelm him with successive
misfortunes, show the pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of
the darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and fortitude
and submission, restore him gradually to happiness, with even larger
flocks and herds than before. The machinery by which all this is
brought about is, in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the weak part of the
story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities; in fact, the
expedients by which all the members of the family are brought together
and made happy at the same time, are nothing short of desperate. It is
quite clear, too, that the author does not know what to make of the
episode of Olivia and her husband; they are allowed to drop through;
we leave him playing the French horn at a relation's house; while she,
in her father's home, is supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they
all taken up with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had no very definite
plot concocted; and that it was only when the much-persecuted Vicar
had to be restored to happiness, that he found the entanglements
surrounding him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now
read the _Vicar of Wakefield_; it is not the intricacies of the story
that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must
be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English
home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres.
And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have produced such
a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a
moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings
and clubs? Where had he seen--unless, indeed, he looked back through
the mist of years to the scenes of his childhood--all this gentle
government, and wise blindness; all this affection, and consideration,
and respect? There is as much human nature in the character of the
Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that
day, or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little
secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule. "'Ay,' returned I, not
knowing well what to think of the matter, 'heaven grant they may be
both the better for it this day three months!' This was one of those
observations I usually made to impress my wife with an opinion of my
sagacity; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious wish
fulfilled; but if anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked
on as a prophecy." We know how Miss Olivia was answered, when, at her
mother's prompting, she set up for being well skilled in
controversy:--
"'Why, my dear, what controversy can she have read?' cried I. 'It does
not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you
certainly overrate her merit.'--'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she
does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the
disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson
Crusoe and Friday, the savage; and I am now employed in reading the
controversy in Religious Courtship.'--'Very well,' cried I, 'that's a
good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and
so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pie.'"
It is with a great gentleness that the good man reminds his wife and
daughters that, after their sudden loss of fortune, it does not become
them to wear much finery. "The first Sunday, in particular, their
behaviour served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding
night to be dressed early the next day; for I always loved to be at
church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They
punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the
morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in
all their former splendour; their hair plastered up with pomatum,
their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap
behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at
their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more
discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order
my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were
amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity than
before. 'Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my wife; 'we can walk it
perfectly well: we want no coach to carry us now.'--'You mistake,
child,' returned I, 'we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in
this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
us.'--'Indeed,' replied my wife, 'I always imagined that my Charles
was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.'--'You
may be as neat as you please,' interrupted I, 'and I shall love you
the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only make us hated by all
the wives of our neighbours. No, my children,' continued I, more
gravely, 'those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut;
for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I
do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in
the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the
nakedness of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of
the vain.'
"This remonstrance had the proper effect: they went with great
composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day
I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request,
employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick
and Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory,
the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing." And again when he
discovered the two girls making a wash for their faces:--"My daughters
seemed equally busy with the rest; and I observed them for a good
while cooking something over the fire. I at first supposed they were
assisting their mother, but little Dick informed me, in a whisper,
that they were making a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a
natural antipathy to; for I knew that, instead of mending the
complexion, they spoil it. I therefore approached my chair by sly
degrees to the fire, and grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending,
seemingly by accident overturned the whole composition, and it was too
late to begin another."
All this is done with such a light, homely touch, that one gets
familiarly to know these people without being aware of it. There is no
insistance. There is no dragging you along by the collar; confronting
you with certain figures; and compelling you to look at this and study
that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in his quiet way; and you
are laughing too, when suddenly you find that human beings have
silently come into the void before you; and you know them for friends;
and even after the vision has faded away, and the beautiful light and
colour and glory of romance-land have vanished, you cannot forget
them. They have become part of your life; you will take them to the
grave with you.
The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious blemishes. "There
are an hundred faults in this Thing," says Goldsmith himself, in the
prefixed Advertisement. But more particularly, in the midst of all the
impossibilities taking place in and around the jail, when that
chameleon-like _deus ex machinâ_, Mr. Jenkinson, winds up the tale in
hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a sort of apology. "Nor can I go
on without a reflection," he says gravely, "on those accidental
meetings, which, though they happen every day, seldom excite our
surprise but upon some extraordinary occasion. To what a fortuitous
concurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives!
How many seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed or fed!
The peasant must be disposed to labour, the shower must fall, the wind
fill the merchant's sail, or numbers must want the usual supply." This
is Mr. Thackeray's "simple rogue" appearing again in adult life.
Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing depended on such
accidents as happened to make the Vicar's family happy all at once,
there would be a good deal of shivering and starvation in the world.
Moreover it may be admitted that on occasion Goldsmith's fine instinct
deserts him; and even in describing those domestic relations which are
the charm of the novel, he blunders into the unnatural. When Mr.
Burchell, for example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel
with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar questions his daughter as to whether she
had received from that poor gentleman any testimony of his affection
for her. She replies No; but remembers to have heard him remark that
he never knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was poor.
"Such, my dear," continued the Vicar, "is the common cant of all the
unfortunate or idle. But I hope you have been taught to judge properly
of such men, and that it would be even madness to expect happiness
from one who has been so very bad an economist of his own. Your mother
and I have now better prospects for you. The next winter, which you
will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities of making a
more prudent choice." Now it is not at all likely that a father,
however anxious to have his daughter well married and settled, would
ask her so delicate a question in open domestic circle, and would then
publicly inform her that she was expected to choose a husband on her
forthcoming visit to town.
Whatever may be said about any particular incident like this, the
atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to whom a German translation
of the _Vicar_ was read by Herder some four years after the
publication in England, not only declared it at the time to be one of
the best novels ever written, but again and again throughout his life
reverted to the charm and delight with which he had made the
acquaintance of the English "prose-idyll," and took it for granted
that it was a real picture of English life. Despite all the machinery
of Mr. Jenkinson's schemes, who could doubt it? Again and again there
are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness that we yield
altogether to the necromancer. Look at this perfect picture--of human
emotion and outside nature--put in in a few sentences. The old
clergyman, after being in search of his daughter, has found her, and
is now--having left her in an inn--returning to his family and his
home. "And now my heart caught new sensations of pleasure, the nearer
I approached that peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted
from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and hovered round my
little fireside with all the rapture of expectation. I called up the
many fond things I had to say, and anticipated the welcome I was to
receive. I already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at the
joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace.
The labourers of the day were all retired to rest; the lights were
out in every cottage; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock,
and the deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. I approached my
little abode of pleasure, and, before I was within a furlong of the
place, our honest mastiff came running to welcome me." "_The
deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance_;"--what more perfect
description of the stillness of night was ever given?
And then there are other qualities in this delightful _Vicar of
Wakefield_ than merely idyllic tenderness, and pathos, and sly humour.
There is a firm presentation of the crimes and brutalities of the
world. The pure light that shines within that domestic circle is all
the brighter because of the black outer ring that is here and there
indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate all the
simplicities of the good man's household, but for the rogueries with
which they are brought in contact? And although we laugh at Moses and
his gross of green spectacles, and the manner in which the Vicar's
wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina Skeggs and Lady
Blarney, with their lords and ladies and their tributes to virtue,
there is no laughter demanded of us when we find the simplicity and
moral dignity of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and taunts of
the abandoned wretches in the prison. This is really a remarkable
episode. The author was under the obvious temptation to make much
comic material out of the situation; while another temptation, towards
the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar undertakes the
duty of reclaiming these castaways with a modest patience and
earnestness in every way in keeping with his character; while they, on
the other hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance. His
first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too successful. "Their
insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own
uneasiness from my mind. It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to
attempt to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to return,
and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my advice, and conquer
them by my perseverance. Going, therefore, among them again, I
informed Mr. Jenkinson of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but
communicated it to the rest. The proposal was received with the
greatest good humour, as it promised to afford a new fund of
entertainment to persons who had now no other resource for mirth but
what could be derived from ridicule or debauchery.
"I therefore read them a portion of the service with a loud,
unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry upon the
occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of contrition burlesqued, winking and
coughing, alternately excited laughter. However, I continued with my
natural solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might mend
some, but could itself receive no contamination from any.
"After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which was rather
calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove. I previously
observed, that no other motive but their welfare could induce me to
this; that I was their fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by
preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane; because
they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal: 'For be assured,
my friends,' cried I,--'for you are my friends, however the world may
disclaim your friendship,--though you swore twelve thousand oaths in
a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signifies
calling every moment upon the devil, and courting his friendship,
since you find how scurvily he uses you? He has given you nothing
here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and, by
the best accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good
hereafter.
"'If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go elsewhere.
Were it not worth your while, then, just to try how you may like the
usage of another master, who gives you fair promises at least to come
to him? Surely, my friends, of all stupidity in the world, his must be
the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs to the thief-takers for
protection. And yet, how are you more wise? You are all seeking
comfort from one that has already betrayed you, applying to a more
malicious being than any thief-taker of them all; for they only decoy
and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and, what is worst of all,
will not let you loose after the hangman has done.'
"When I had concluded, I received the compliments of my audience, some
of whom came and shook me by the hand, swearing that I was a very
honest fellow, and that they desired my further acquaintance. I
therefore promised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually
conceived some hopes of making a reformation here; for it had ever
been my opinion, that no man was past the hour of amendment, every
heart lying open to the shafts of reproof, if the archer could but
take a proper aim."
His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from an effort which
seemed to them only to bring ridicule upon him, are met by a grave
rebuke; and on the next morning he descends to the common prison,
where, he says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his
arrival, and each prepared to play some gaol-trick on the Doctor.
"There was one whose trick gave more universal pleasure than all the
rest; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on
the table before me, he very dexterously displaced one of them, and
put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I took no
notice of all that this mischievous group of little beings could do,
but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt
would excite mirth only the first or second time, while what was
serious would be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than six
days some were penitent, and all attentive.
"It was now that I applauded my perseverance and address, at thus
giving sensibility to wretches divested of every moral feeling, and
now began to think of doing them temporal services also, by rendering
their situation somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot and bitter
repining. Their only employment was quarrelling among each other,
playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode
of idle industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to work at
cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers, the proper wood being
bought by a general subscription, and, when manufactured, sold by my
appointment; so that each earned something every day--a trifle indeed,
but sufficient to maintain him.
"I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of
immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus, in less than a
fortnight I had formed them into something social and humane, and had
the pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience."
Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calculated to shock
the nerves of those who liked their literature perfumed with
rose-water. Madame Riccoboni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote
to Garrick, "Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons,
des gens de mauvaises moeurs, est fort éloigné de me plaire."
Others, no doubt, considered the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady
Blarney as "vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary
critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent about the
book--perhaps they were "puzzled" by it, as Southey has suggested. Mr.
Forster, who took the trouble to search the periodical literature of
the time, says that, "apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a word
was said in the way of criticism about the book, either in praise or
blame." The _St. James's Chronicle_ did not condescend to notice its
appearance, and the _Monthly Review_ confessed frankly that nothing
was to be made of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the patronage of
_Lloyd's Evening Post_, the _London Chronicle_, and journals of that
class; which simply informed their readers that a new novel, called
the _Vicar of Wakefield_, had been published, that "the editor is
Doctor Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents of the
story." Even his friends, with the exception of Burke, did not seem
to consider that any remarkable new birth in literature had occurred;
and it is probable that this was a still greater disappointment to
Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of at the Club.
However, the public took to the story. A second edition was published
in May; a third in August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no
pecuniary gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson had
sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery; but his name was growing
in importance with the booksellers.
There was need that it should, for his increasing expenses--his fine
clothes, his suppers, his whist at the Devil Tavern--were involving
him in deeper and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate
himself?--or rather the question that would naturally occur to
Goldsmith was how was he to continue that hand-to-mouth existence that
had its compensations along with its troubles? Novels like the _Vicar
of Wakefield_ are not written at a moment's notice, even though any
Newbery, judging by results, is willing to double that £60 which
Johnson considered to be a fair price for the story at the time. There
was the usual resource of hack-writing; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder Newbery, in
whose debt he was, in a good humour. But the author of the _Vicar of
Wakefield_ may be excused if he looked round to see if there was not
some more profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at this
time that he began to think of writing a comedy.