I was forcibly reminded of the fact that our estimate of a work of literature depends largely upon our mood and upon surrounding circumstances after my last reading of “The Vicar of Wakefield.” Upon a former reading I had been filled with great admiration for Goldsmith’s novel. The plot seemed admirably constructed, the characters well drawn, and the literary charm of the book inexpressibly attractive. On the subsequent perusal the work did not come up to the standard I had imagined. Both the style and the plot appeared somewhat artificial, and the combination of incidents improbable. The literary charm was there, but even that was not so great as I had supposed. I can not altogether account for this change of view. Perhaps it is due to the fact that my earlier reading was just after my perusal of “Tom Jones,” and followed a certain disappointment and disgust at Fielding’s work, whereas the final reading followed the perusal of Manzoni’s masterpiece, “The Betrothed,” by the side of which even “The Vicar of Wakefield” shines with a lustre that is somewhat dim. It is perhaps also due to the fact that the sudden alternations of fortune described in Goldsmith’s novel are more startling, and therefore more attractive on a freshimpression than they are when they are anticipated.
“The Vicar of Wakefield” begins with a delightful description of the family of the good man who tells the story,—of his wife, “chosen for the qualities that would wear well,” but whose conduct, I thought, did not altogether justify such a selection; of his two daughters, Olivia and Sophia, with romantic names in which the father had no choice; and of his younger sons. Among these, he says, a family likeness prevailed, and “properly speaking, they had but one character, that of being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive.” He describes the part he took in the Whistonian controversy, maintaining that it was unlawful for a priest of the church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take another,—a controversy which led to a difference with a neighboring clergyman, Mr. Wilmot, the father of Arabella, to whom the vicar’s son George was betrothed, and ended in the breaking off of the engagement, after it was also found that the vicar’s fortune had been lost. Then follows a description of the removal of the family to a new parish; of the departure of George to seek his fortune; of the straightened circumstances and simple life of the others; of the love of finery displayed by the wife and daughters; of their efforts at gentility and their attempts to attract Squire Thornhill, their dissolute landlord, and to secure him as a husband for Olivia. The squire brings from London two women of abandonedcharacter, whom he introduces as ladies of high rank, and who seek to induce the daughters of the honest clergyman to return with them to the town.
Two attractive episodes are here introduced. In order to defray the expenses necessary to keep up appearances and to send the girls to London, the boy Moses is sent to a fair to sell the colt, and an amusing account is given of his return with a gross of worthless green spectacles, which a sharper had palmed off upon him. Then the vicar himself goes to sell the other horse, and the same man, one Ephraim Jenkinson, who appeared to be a pious and venerable gentleman, and displayed great learning about Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus, Ocellus Lucanus, and the cosmogony of the world, gives him a worthless draft upon one of his neighbors in payment. These two episodes call to mind some of the adventures of Gil Blas.
Upon his return home the vicar finds that the two great ladies from London have departed, without his daughters, being dissuaded from taking them by a letter of one Mr. Burchell, a friend of the family, a gentleman in reduced circumstances, as was supposed, whose attentions to Sophia have caused her father much anxiety. A letter of Burchell is discovered, containing some dark insinuations, which are erroneously thought to apply, not to the two women, but to the vicar’s own family, and great is the indignation at Burchell for his scandalous interference. Squire Thornhill continues his attentions to the vicar’s eldest daughter, and is included with the familyin a huge picture, which is inadvertently made so large that it will not go into any of the rooms of the vicar’s cottage, but has to stand against the kitchen wall. Instead of pressing his suit openly, however, the squire elopes with Olivia, upon whom he imposes a fictitious marriage, and then, after a time, abandons her. The poor clergyman starts upon a vain pursuit of his daughter, believing that Burchell is responsible for her abduction. In his wanderings he comes upon his son George, who is attached to a company of strolling players, and the young man gives him an account of his adventures; of his travels in Holland, whither he has gone to teach the Dutch English, without reflecting that for this purpose it was necessary that he should first learn Dutch; of his induction into the art of a connoisseur of pictures at Paris, where he learns that the whole secret of it consists in a strict adherence to two rules,—“the one, always to observe the picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other, to praise the works of Pietro Perugino.” The squire arrives during the vicar’s interview with his son, and agrees to purchase for George a commission in a West India regiment, taking from the father a bond for a hundred pounds, the purchase money.
But shortly afterwards the vicar comes upon his daughter Olivia, who is in great distress, and he learns from her that it is the squire, and not Burchell, who has betrayed her. When the good man returns home he finds his dwelling in flames,and rescues his two little boys, but is seriously burned in the conflagration, and shortly afterwards he has an altercation with the squire, who thereupon arrests him for non-payment of the hundred pounds, and throws him into jail. One of his fellow-prisoners begins to talk about cosmogony, Sanchoniathon, etc., and he recognizes the rogue Jenkinson, who now, however, becomes his friend. A simple and pathetic account is given of the scenes in the prison; of his exhortations to his fellow-prisoners to reform their evil courses; of their laughter, the pranks they play on him, and the ultimate respect and love which he awakens. So long as his daughter lives, the vicar will not seek to secure his release from prison by making his submission to the squire; but he soon learns from Jenkinson that the poor girl is dead. His second daughter, Sophia, is suddenly abducted, and George unexpectedly comes into the prison in fetters, prosecuted by the squire for sending a challenge and for injuring one of his servants. At this point the climax of human wretchedness would seem to be reached. But here everything changes. Burchell, who has just rescued Sophia and brought her back in safety, now comes upon the scene and discloses himself as the uncle of Squire Thornhill and the real owner of the estate which the young squire has been enjoying. Thornhill arrives, and his villainies are one after another unmasked. Miss Wilmot, whom he is about to marry, learns of his infidelities, renounces him, and again accepts her formersuitor, George. The squire impudently insists on keeping her fortune, according to the marriage contract, but Jenkinson now reveals the fact that Thornhill is already wedded to Olivia, since the priest who married them was a true priest, and it was he and not the girl who had been imposed upon. Olivia herself now appears; she is not dead, Jenkinson having declared that she was for the purpose of inducing the good vicar to make his submission to the squire and get out of prison. Burchell, now Sir William Thornhill, seeks the hand of Sophia, the vicar’s property is restored to him, and the story concludes with two weddings and universal happiness. The conclusion is more satisfactory than that of the book of Job, to which the story bears some slight resemblance, for in Goldsmith’s novel even the dead are restored to life.
It is quite evident, from the foregoing outline of the plot, that there is decidedly too much machinery in it to be altogether natural; and this artificiality, which seems characteristic rather of the age than of the author, is also found in the diction of the book, in which Johnsonian antitheses sometimes appear, although these were used by Goldsmith with more restraint and with better taste than by any other writer of the period. For instance, in the author’s Advertisement, speaking of the vicar, it is said:
“He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity.”
“He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity.”
Describing the early prosperous days of the family, the vicar says:
“We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.”
“We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.”
Again:
“My children, the offspring of temperance, as they were educated without softness, so they were at once well-formed and healthy; my sons hardy and active, my daughters beautiful and blooming.... The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious,” etc., etc.
“My children, the offspring of temperance, as they were educated without softness, so they were at once well-formed and healthy; my sons hardy and active, my daughters beautiful and blooming.... The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious,” etc., etc.
Of course the language of the book is elegant and beautiful,—nothing that Goldsmith ever wrote was otherwise; but I think that our present era is to be congratulated upon the fact that however great its defects of style in other particulars such formalism is now mostly obsolete.
Two of the characters in the book are extremely well drawn,—the good vicar himself, with his simplicity, kindness, and religious reverence; his patience, however, on two or three occasions interrupted by most natural outbreaks of indignation; and his wife, motherly and foolish, with her shallow schemes for the advancement of her daughters.
The three poems introduced into the story,—“The Hermit,” the “Elegy on a Mad Dog,” and last and most beautiful of all, the verses beginning—
“When lovely woman stoops to folly,And finds, too late, that men betray,”
“When lovely woman stoops to folly,And finds, too late, that men betray,”
“When lovely woman stoops to folly,And finds, too late, that men betray,”
will long be known and admired in English literature. They are models of purity and simplicity, though Goldsmith, as well as Wordsworth, sometimes comes dangerously near the line which separates that which is delicately beautiful from that which is sentimental and commonplace.