The Vicar of Wakefield Read online

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

  GENERAL EDITOR: PAUL NEGRI EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUSAN L. RATTINER

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2004 by Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Bibliographical Note

  This Dover edition, first published in 2004, is an unabridged republication of the second edition of the work, originally published in two volumes and printed for F. Newbery, London, in 1766. A new introductory Note has been specially prepared for the present edition.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Goldsmith, Oliver, 1730?–1774.

  The vicar of Wakefield / Oliver Goldsmith.

  p. cm.—(Dover thrift editions)

  “An unabridged republication of the second edition of the work, originally published in two volumes and printed for F. Newbery, London, in 1766”—T.p. verso.

  9780486110806

  1. Clergy—Fiction. 2. Children of clergy—Fiction. 3. Poor families—Fiction. 4. Abduction—Fiction. 5. Prisoners—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

  PR3490.A1 2004

  823’.6—dc22

  2003063502

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

  Note

  PLAYWRIGHT AND NOVELIST Oliver Goldsmith (ca. 1730–1774) was born in Ireland, the son of an Anglican clergyman. Growing up in poverty, he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar—a student who did menial jobs for wealthier undergraduates. His clever wit and sense of fun always led him to engage in student escapades, which left him little time to study. Although his restlessness and laziness nearly sabotaged his chances of earning a diploma, he did manage to curtail his rash behavior enough to graduate in 1749. After several false starts in selecting a career, Goldsmith set out to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. However, instead of completing a degree, Goldsmith wandered about Europe, living hand to mouth, and supported himself through a series of odd jobs. In 1756 he returned to England destitute and set up an unsuccessful medical practice among the poor.

  Perennially in debt, Goldsmith worked as a hack writer for various publishers in London, producing literary works of any topic on demand. “Nothing,” wrote Goldsmith, “is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than Poverty.” These anonymous potboilers—translations, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as books for children—were written with humor, picturesque descriptions, and a natural, graceful style. Of these, a series of essays and letters later reprinted as A Citizen of the World (1762) began to attract favorable attention in London’s literary circles. Shortly after his authorship was revealed, Goldsmith embarked on a long acquaintance with Samuel Johnson, the foremost literary figure of the day, and was one of the original members of Johnson’s celebrated literary society known as the Club.

  In 1764 Goldsmith’s philosophic poem, “The Traveller,” was published and firmly established him as an influential writer. The sale and publication of his only novel, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), was supposedly arranged by Johnson to save Goldsmith from going to jail for debt. Goldsmith’s foray into dramatic works was also successful, with The Good Natur’d Man (1768), and one of the best-known comedies of British drama, She Stoops to Conquer (1773). He continued to write popular books to order, including histories of Rome, Greece, and England as well as books on natural history, but these are not noted for their accuracy. Although Goldsmith earned an ample wage as a writer, his habitual extravagance and generosity with needy friends kept him continually in debt. When his health began to fail, Goldsmith rejected the advice of doctors and treated his illness by himself. He died at the age of forty-four in London in 1774. His shrewd observations of character, his lively prose style, and his comedic command of situation have endeared his work to many generations.

  A TALE

  Supposed to be written by HIMSELF

  Sperate miseri, cavete fœlices

  ADVERTISEMENT

  There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth; he is a priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey, as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity. In this age of opulence and refinement whom can such a character please? Such as are fond of high life, will turn with disdain from the simplicity of his country fire-side. Such as mistake ribaldry for humour, will find no wit in his harmless conversation; and such as have been taught to deride religion, will laugh at one whose chief stores of comfort are drawn from futurity.

  OLIVER GOLDSMITH

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS - GENERAL EDITOR: PAUL NEGRI EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUSAN L. RATTINER

  Copyright Page

  Note

  A TALE - Supposed to be written by HIMSELF

  ADVERTISEMENT

  CHAPTER 1 - The description of the family of Wakefield; in which a kindred likeness prevails as well of minds as of persons

  CHAPTER 2 - Family misfortunes. The loss of fortune only serves to encrease the pride of the worthy

  CHAPTER 3 - A migration. The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found at last to be of our own procuring

  CHAPTER 4 - A proof that even the humblest fortune may grant happiness, which depends not on circumstance, but constitution

  CHAPTER 5 - A new and great acquaintance introduced. What we place most hopes upon, generally proves most fatal

  CHAPTER 6 - The happiness of a country fire-side

  CHAPTER 7 - A town wit described. The dullest fellows may learn to be comical for a night or two

  CHAPTER 8 - An amour, which promises little good fortune, yet may be productive of much

  CHAPTER 9 - Two ladies of great distinction introduced. Superior finery ever seems to confer superior breeding

  CHAPTER 10 - The family endeavours to cope with their betters. The miseries of the poor when they attempt to appear above their circumstances

  CHAPTER 11 - The family still resolve to hold up their heads

  CHAPTER 12 - Fortune seems resolved to humble the family of Wakefield. Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities

  CHAPTER 13 - Mr. Burchell is found to be an enemy; for he has the confidence to give disagreeable advice

  CHAPTER 14 - Fresh mortifications, or a demonstration that seeming calamities may be real blessings

  CHAPTER 15 - All Mr. Burchell’s villainy at once detected. The folly of being over-wise

  CHAPTER 16 - The family use art, which is opposed with still greater

  CHAPTER 17 - Scarce any virtue found to resist the power of long and pleasing temptation

  CHAPTER 18 - The pursuit of a father to reclaim a lost child to virtue

  CHAPTER 19 - The description of a person discontented with the present government, and apprehensive of the loss of our liberties

  CHAPTER 20 - The history of a philosophic vagabond, pursuing novelty, but losing content

  CHAPTER 21 - The short continuance of friendship amongst the vicious, which is coeval only with mutual satisfaction

  CHAPTER 22 - Offences are easily pardoned where there is love at bottom

  CHAPTER 23 - None but the guilty can be long and completely miserable

  CHAPTER 24 - Fresh calamities

  CHAPTER 25 - No situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of comfort attending it

  CHAPTER 26 - A reformation in the gaol. To make laws complete, they sh
ould reward as well as punish

  CHAPTER 27 - The same subject continued

  CHAPTER 28 - Happiness and misery rather the result of prudence than of virtue in this life. Temporal evils or felicities being regarded by heaven as things merely in themselves trifling and unworthy its care in the distribution

  CHAPTER 29 - The equal dealings of providence demonstrated with regard to the happy and the miserable here below. That from the nature of pleasure and pain, the wretched must be repaid the balance of their sufferings in the life hereafter

  CHAPTER 30 - Happier prospects begin to appear. Let us be inflexible, and fortune will at last change in our favour

  CHAPTER 31 - Former benevolence now repaid with unexpected interest

  CHAPTER 32 - The Conclusion

  DOVER • THRIFT • EDITIONS

  CHAPTER 1

  The description of the family of Wakefield; in which a kindred likeness prevails as well 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 of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders 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 such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured notable woman; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who could shew more. She could read any English book without much spelling, but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; tho’ I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivances.

  However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness encreased as we grew old. 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 neighbourhood. The year was spent in moral or rural amusements; in visiting our rich neighbours, and relieving such as were poor. 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.

  As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger visit us 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 find fault with it. Our cousins too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the Herald’s office, and came very frequently to see us. Some of them did us no great honour by these claims of kindred; as 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, they should sit with us at the same table. So that if we had not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us; for this remark will hold good thro’ life, that the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated: and as some men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip, or 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, I ever took care to lend him a riding coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes an 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.

  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 favours. My orchard was often robbed by school-boys, 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 curtesy. But we soon got over the uneasiness caused by such accidents, and usually in three or four days began to wonder how they vext us.

  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. When I stood in the midst of the little circle, which promised to be the supports of my declining age, I could not avoid repeating the famous story of Count Abensberg, who, in Henry II’s progress through Germany, while other courtiers came with their treasures, brought his thirty-two children, and presented them to his sovereign as the most valuable offering he had to bestow. In this manner, though I had but six, I considered them as a very valuable present made to my country, and consequently looked upon it as my debtor. Our eldest son was named George, after his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our second child, a girl, I intended to call after her aunt Grissel; but my wife, who during her pregnancy had been reading romances, insisted upon her being called Olivia. In less than another year we had another daughter, and now I was determined that Grissel should be her name; but a rich relation taking a fancy to stand godmother, the girl was, by her directions, called Sophia; so that we had two romantic names in the family; but I solemnly protest I had no hand in it. Moses was our next, and after an interval of twelve years, we had two sons more.

  It would be fruitless to deny my exultation when I saw my little ones about me; but the vanity and the satisfaction of my wife were even greater than mine. When our visitors would say, “Well, upon my word, Mrs.. Primrose, you have the finest children in the whole country.”—“Ay, neighbour,” she would answer, “they are as heaven made them, handsome enough, if they be good enough; for handsome is that handsome does.” And then she would bid the girls hold up their heads; who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handsome. Mere outside is so very trifling a circumstance with me, that I should scarce have remembered to mention it, had it not been a general topic of conversation in the country. Olivia, now about eighteen, had that luxuriancy of beauty with which painters generally draw Hebe; open, sprightly, and commanding. Sophia’s features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution; for they were soft, modest, and alluring. The one vanquished by a single blow, the other by efforts successfully repeated.

  The temper of a woman is generally formed from the turn of her features, at least it was so with my daughters. Olivia wished for many lovers, Sophia to secure one. Olivia was often affected from too great a desire to please. Sophia even represt excellence from her fears to offend. The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious. But these qualities were never carried to excess in either, and I have often seen them exchange characters for a whole day together. A suit of mourning has transformed my coquet into a prude, and a new set of ribbands has given her younger sister more than natural vivacity. My eldest son George was bred at Oxford, as I intended him for one of the learned professions. My second boy Moses, whom I designed for business, received a sort of a miscellaneous education at home. But it is needless to attempt describing the particular characters of young people that had seen but very little of the world. In short, a family likeness prevailed through all, and properly speaking, they had but one character, that of being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive.

  CHAPTER 2

  Family misfortunes. The loss of fortune only serves to encrease the pride of the worthy

  THE TEMPORAL concerns of our family were chiefly committed to my wife’s management, as to the spiritual I took them entirely under my own direction. The profits of my living, which amounted to but thirty-five pounds a year, I made over to the orphans and widows of the clergy of our diocese; for having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty without reward. I also set a resolution of keeping no curate, and of being acquainted with every man in the parish, exhorting the married men to temperance and the bachelors to matrimony; so that in a few years it was a common saying, that there were three strange wants at Wakefield, a par
son wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and ale-houses wanting customers.

  Matrimony was always one of my favourite topics, and I wrote several sermons to prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar tenet which I made a point of supporting; for I maintained with Whiston, that it was unlawful for a priest of the church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, or to express it in one word, I valued myself upon being a strict monogamist.

  I was early innitiated into this important dispute, on which so many laborious volumes have been written. I published some tracts upon the subject myself, which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking are read only by the happy Few. Some of my friends called this my weak side; but alas! they had not like me made it the subject of long contemplation. The more I reflected upon it, the more important it appeared. I even went a step beyond Whiston in displaying my principles: as he had engraven upon his wife’s tomb that she was the only wife of William Whiston; so I wrote a similar epitaph for my wife, though still living, in which I extolled her prudence, œconomy, and obedience till death; and having got it copied fair, with an elegant frame, it was placed over the chimney-piece, where it answered several very useful purposes. It admonished my wife of her duty to me, and my fidelity to her; it inspired her with a passion for fame, and constantly put her in mind of her end.

  It was thus, perhaps, from hearing marriage so often recommended, that my eldest son, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections upon the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who was a dignitary in the church, and in circumstances to give her a large fortune: but fortune was her smallest accomplishment. Miss Arabella Wilmot was allowed by all, except my two daughters, to be completely pretty. Her youth, health, and innocence, were still heightened by a complexion so transparent, and such an happy sensibility of look, as even age could not gaze on with indifference. As Mr.. Wilmot knew that I could make a very handsome settlement on my son, he was not averse to the match; so both families lived together in all that harmony which generally precedes an expected alliance. Being convinced by experience that the days of courtship are the most happy of our lives, I was willing enough to lengthen the period; and the various amusements which the young couple every day shared in each other’s company, seemed to encrease their passion. We were generally awaked in the morning by music, and on fine days rode a hunting. The hours between breakfast and dinner the ladies devoted to dress and study: they usually read a page, and then gazed at themselves in the glass, which even philosophers might own often presented the page of greatest beauty. At dinner my wife took the lead; for as she always insisted upon carving every thing herself, it being her mother’s way, she gave us upon these occasions the history of every dish. When we had dined, to prevent the ladies leaving us, I generally ordered the table to be removed; and sometimes, with the music master’s assistance, the girls would give us a very agreeable concert. Walking out, drinking tea, country dances, and forfeits, shortened the rest of the day, without the assistance of cards, as I hated all manner of gaming, except backgammon, at which my old friend and I sometimes took a two-penny hit. Nor can I here pass over an ominous circumstance that happened the last time we played together: I only wanted to fling a quatre, and yet I threw deuce ace five times running.