Chapter II (7)

Goldsmith was an essayist and critic, a story-writer, a poet, a comic dramatist, and a literary drudge: the last all the time, the others "between whiles." His drudgery produced such works as the 'Memoirs of Voltaire,' the 'Life of Nash,' two Histories of England, Histories of Rome and Greece, Lives of Parnell and Bolingbroke. The 'History of Animated Nature' was undertaken as an industry, but it reads, as Johnson said, "like a Persian tale,"--and of course, the more Persian the less like nature. For the prose of Goldsmith writing for a suit of clothes or for immortality is all of a piece, inimitable. "Nothing," says he, in his 'Essay on Taste,' "has been so often explained, and yet so little understood, as simplicity in writing.... It is no other than beautiful nature, without affectation or extraneous ornament."

This ingenuous elegance is the accent of Goldsmith's work in verse and prose. It is nature improved, not from without but by exquisite and esoteric art, the better to prove its innate virtue and display its artless charm. Such a style is based upon a delicate "sensibility to the graces of natural and moral beauty and decorum." Hence the ideographic power, the directness, the sympathy, the lambent humor that characterize the 'Essays,' the 'Vicar,' the 'Deserted Village,' and 'She Stoops to Conquer.' This is the "plain language of ancient faith and sincerity" that, pretending to no novelty, renovated the prose of the eighteenth century, knocked the stilts from under Addison and Steele, tipped half the Latinity out of Johnson, and readjusted his ballast. Goldsmith goes without sprawling or tiptoeing; he sails without rolling. He borrows the carelessness but not the ostentation of the Spectator; the dignity but not the ponderosity of 'Rasselas'; and produces the prose of natural ease, the sweetest English of the century. It in turn prefaced the way for Charles Lamb, Hunt, and Sydney Smith. "It were to be wished that we no longer found pleasure with the inflated style," writes Goldsmith in his 'Polite Learning.' "We should dispense with loaded epithet and dressing up trifles with dignity.... Let us, instead of writing finely, try to write naturally; not hunt after lofty expressions to deliver mean ideas, nor be forever gaping when we only mean to deliver a whisper."

Just this naturalness constitutes the charm of the essay on 'The Bee' (1759), and of the essays collected in 1765. We do not read him for information: whether he knows more or less of his subject, whether he writes of Charles XII., or Dress, The Opera, Poetry, or Education, we read him for simplicity and humor. Still, his critical estimates, while they may not always square with ours, evince not only good sense and aesthetic principle, but a range of reading not at all ordinary. When he condemns Hamlet's great soliloquy we may smile, but in judicial respect for the father of our drama he yields to none of his contemporaries. The selections that he includes in his 'Beauties of English Poetry' would argue a conventional taste; but in his 'Essay on Poetry Distinguished from the Other Arts,' he not only defines poetry in terms that might content the Wordsworthians, he also to a certain extent anticipates Wordsworth's estimate of poetic figures.

While he makes no violent breach with the classical school, he prophesies the critical doctrine of the nineteenth century. He calls for the "energetic language of simple nature, which is now grown into disrepute." "If the production does not keep nature in view, it will be destitute of truth and probability, without which the beauties of imitation cannot subsist." Still he by no means falls into the quagmire of realism. For, continues he, "if on the other hand the imitation is so close as to be mistaken for nature, the pleasure will then cease, because the [Greek: mimesis] or imitation, no longer appears."

Even when wrong, Goldsmith is generally half-way right; and this is especially true of the critical judgments contained in his first published book. The impudence of 'The Enquiry' (1759) is delicious. What this young Irishman, fluting it through Europe some five years before, had _not_ learned about the 'Condition of Polite Learning' in its principal countries, might fill a ponderous folio. What he did learn, eked out with harmless misstatement, flashes of inspiration, and a clever argument to prove that criticism has always been the foe of letters, managed to fill a respectable duodecimo, and brought him to the notice of publishers and scholars.

The essay has catholicity, independence, and wit, and it carries itself with whimsical ease. Every sentence steps out sprightly. Of the French Encyclopedies: "Wits and dunces contribute their share, and Diderot as well as Desmaretz are candidates for oblivion. The genius of the first supplies the gale of favor, and the latter adds the useful ballast of stupidity." Of the Germans: "They write through volumes, while they do not think through a page.... Were angels to write books, they never would write folios." And again: "If criticism could have improved the taste of a people, the Germans would have been the most polite nation alive." That settles the Encyclopedias and the Germans. So each nationality is sententiously reviewed and dismissed with an epigram that even to-day sounds not altogether unjust, rather amusing and urbane than acrimonious.

But it was not until Goldsmith began the series of letters in the Public Ledger (1760), that was afterwards published as 'The Citizen of the World' that he took London. These letters purport to be from a philosophic Chinaman in Europe to his friends at home. Grave, gay, serene, ironical, they were at once an amusing image and a genial censor of current manners and morals. They are no less creative than critical; equally classic for the characters they contain: the Gentleman in Black, Beau Tibbs and his wife, the pawnbroker's widow, Tim Syllabub, and the procession of minor personages, romantic or ridiculous, but unique,--equally classic for these characters and for the satire of the conception. These are Goldsmith's best sketches. Though the prose is not always precise, it seems to be clear, and is simple. The writer cares more for the judicious than the sublime; for the quaint, the comic, and the agreeable than the pathetic. He chuckles with sly laughter--genial, sympathetic; he looses his arrow phosphorescent with wit, but not barbed, dipped in something subacid,--straight for the heart. Not Irving alone, but Thackeray, stands in line of descent from the Goldsmith of the 'Citizen.'

'The Traveller,' polished _ad unguem_, appeared in 1764, and placed Goldsmith in the first rank of poets then living; but of that later. There is good reason for believing that his masterpiece in prose, 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' had been written as early as 1762, although it was not published until 1766. It made Goldsmith's mark as a storyteller. One can readily imagine how, after the grim humor of Smollett, the broad and _risque_ realism of Fielding, the loitering of Sterne, and the moralizing of Richardson, the public would seize with a sense of relief upon this unpretentious chronicle of a country clergyman's life: his peaceful home, its ruin, its restoration. Not because the narrative was quieter and simpler, shorter and more direct than other narratives, but because to its humor, realism, grace, and depth it added the charity of First Corinthians Thirteenth. England soon discovered that the borders of the humanities had been extended; that the Vicar and his "durable" wife, Moses, Olivia with the prenatal tendency to romance, Sophia, the graceless Jenkinson,--the habit and temper of the whole,--were a new province. The prose idyl, with all its beauty and charity, does not entitle Goldsmith to rank with the great novelists; but of its kind, in spite of faults of inaccuracy, improbability, and impossibility, it is first and best. Goethe read and re-read it with moral and aesthetic benefit; and the spirit of Goldsmith is not far to seek in 'Hermann and Dorothea.' 'The Vicar' is perhaps the most popular of English classics in foreign lands.

In poetry, if Goldsmith did not write much, it was for lack of opportunity. What he did write is good, nearly all of it. The philosophy of 'The Traveller' (1764) and the political economy of 'The Deserted Village' (1770) may be dubious, but the poetry is true. There is in both a heartiness which discards the formalized emotion, prefers the touch of nature and the homely adjective. The characteristic is almost feminine in the description of Auburn: "_Dear_ lovely bowers"; it is inevitable, artless, in 'The Traveller': "His first, best country ever is at home." But on the other hand, the _curiosa felicitas_ marks every line, the nice selection of just the word or phrase richest in association, redolent of tradition, harmonious, classically proper, but still natural, true, and apt. "My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee"--not a word but is hearty; and for all that, the line is stamped with the academic authority of centuries: "Coelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt." Both poems are characterized by the infrequency of epithet and figure,--the infrequency that marks sincerity and that heightens pleasure,--and by a cunning in the use of proper names, resonant, remote, suggestive: "On Idra's cliffs or Arno's shelvy side,"--the cunning of a musical poem. Both poems vibrate with personality, recall the experience of the writer. It would be hard to choose between them; but 'The Deserted Village' strikes the homelier chord, comes nearer, with its natural pathos, its sidelong smile, and its perennial novelty, to the heart of him who knows.

Goldsmith is less eloquent but more natural than Dryden, less precise but more simple than Pope. In poetic sensibility he has the advantage of both. Were the volume of his verse not so slight, were his conceptions more sublime, and their embodiment more epic or dramatic, he might rank with the greatest of his century. As it is, in imaginative insight he has no superior in the eighteenth century; in observation, pathos, representative power, no equal: Dryden, Pope, Gray, Thomson, Young,--none but Collins approaches him. The reflective or descriptive poem can of course not compete with the drama, epic, or even lyric of corresponding merit in its respective kind. But Goldsmith's poems are the best of their kind, better than all but the best in other kinds. His conception of life is more generous and direct, hence truer and gentler, than that of the Augustan age. Raising no revolt against classical principles, he rejects the artifices of decadent classicism, returns to nature, and expresses _it_ simply. He is consequently in this respect the harbinger of Cowper, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Clare, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. In technique also he breaks away from Pope. His larger movement, his easier modulation, his richer tone, his rarer epithet and epigram, his metaphor "glowing from the heart," mark the defection from the poetry of cold conceit.

For lack of space we can only refer to the romantic quality of his ballad 'Edwin and Angelina' (1765), the spontaneous humor of 'The Haunch of Venison,' and the exquisite satire of 'Retaliation' (1774).

To appreciate the historical position of Goldsmith's comedies, one must regard them as a reaction against the school that had held the stage since the beginning of the century--a "genteel" and "sentimental" school, fearing to expose vice or ridicule absurdity. But Goldsmith felt that absurdity was the comic poet's game. Reverting therefore to Farquhar and the Comedy of Manners, he revived that species, at the same time infusing a strain of the "humors" of the tribe of Ben. Hence the approbation that welcomed his first comedy, and the applause that greeted the second. For 'The Good-natured Man' (1768) and 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1773) did by example what Hugh Kelly's 'Piety in Pattens' aimed to do by ridicule,--ousted the hybrid comedy (tradesman's tragedy, Voltaire called it) of which 'The Conscious Lovers' had been the most tolerable specimen, and 'The School for Lovers' the most decorous and dull.

But "Goldy" had not only the gift of weighing the times, he had the gift of the popular dramatist. His _dramatis personae_ are on the one hand nearly all legitimate descendants of the national comedy, though none is a copy from dramatic predecessors; on the other hand, they are in every instance "imitations" of real life, more than once of some aspect of his own life; but none is so close an imitation as to detract from the pleasure which fiction should afford. The former quality makes his characters look familiar; the latter, true. So he accomplishes the feat most difficult for the dramatist: while idealizing the individual in order to realize the type, he does not for a moment lose the sympathy of his audience.

Even in his earlier comedy these two characteristics are manifest. In the world of drama, young Honeywood is the legitimate descendant of Massinger's Wellborn on the one side, and of Congreve's Valentine Legend on the other, with a more distant collateral resemblance to Ben Jonson's Younger Knowell. But in the field of experience this "Good-natured Man" is that aspect of "Goldy" himself which, when he was poorest, made him not so poor but that Irishmen poorer still could live on him; that aspect of the glorious "idiot in affairs" which could make to the Earl of Northumberland, willing to be kind, no other suggestion of his wants than that he had a _brother_ in Ireland, "poor, a clergyman, and much in need of help." Similarly might those rare creations Croaker and Jack Lofty be traced to their predecessors in the field of drama, even though remote. That they had their analogies in the life of Goldsmith, and have them in the lives of others, it is unnecessary to prove. But graphic as these characters are, they cannot make of 'The Good-natured Man' more than a passable second to 'She Stoops to Conquer.' For the premises of the plot are absurd, if not impossible; the complication is not much more natural than that of a Punch-and-Judy show, and the denouement but one shade less improbable than that of 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' The value of the play is principally historical, not aesthetic.

Congreve's 'Love for Love,' Vanbrugh's 'Relapse, Farquhar's 'Beaux' Stratagem,' Goldsmith's 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and Sheridan's 'School for Scandal,' are the best comedies written since Jonson, Fletcher, and Massinger held the stage. In plot and diction 'She Stoops to Conquer' is equaled by Congreve; in character-drawing by Vanbrugh; in dramatic ease by Farquhar, in observation and wit by Sheridan: but by none is it equaled in humor, and in naturalness of dialogue it is _facile princeps_. Here again the characterization presents the twofold charm of universality and reality. Young Marlow is the traditional lover of the type of Young Bellair, Mirabell, and Aimwell, suggesting each in turn but different from all; he is also, in his combination of embarrassment and impudence, not altogether unlike the lad Oliver who, years ago, on a journey back to school, had mistaken Squire Featherstone's house in Ardagh for an inn.

A similar adjustment of dramatic type and historic individual contributes to the durability of Tony Lumpkin. In his _dramatis persona_ he is a practical joker of the family of Diccon and Truewit, and first cousin on the Blenkinsop side to that horse-flesh Sir Harry Beagle. But Anthony is more than the practical joker or the squire booby: he is a near relative of Captain O'Blunder and that whole countryside of generous, touch-and-go Irishmen; while in reality, _in propria persona_, he is that aspect of Noll Goldsmith that "lived the buckeen" in Ballymahon. Of the other characters of the play, Hardcastle, Mrs. Hardcastle, and Kate have a like prerogative of immortality. They are royally descended and personally unique.

The comedy has been absurdly called farcical. There is much less of the farcical than in many a so-called "legitimate" comedy. None of the circumstances are purely fortuitous; none unnecessary. Humor and caprice tend steadily to complicate the action, and by natural interaction prepare the way for the denouement. The misunderstandings are the more piquant because of their manifest irony and their ephemeral character. Indeed, if any fault is to be found with the play, it is that Goldsmith did not let it resolve itself without the assistance of Sir Charles Marlow.

One peculiarity not yet mentioned is illustrative of Goldsmith's method. A system of mutual borrowing characterizes his works. The same thought, in the same or nearly the same language, occurs in half a dozen. 'The Enquiry' lends a phrase to 'The Citizen,' who passes it on to the 'Vicar,' who, thinking it too good to keep, hands it over to the 'Good-natured Man,' whence it is borrowed by 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and turned to look like new,--like a large family of sisters with a small wardrobe in common. This habit does not indicate poverty of invention in Goldsmith, but associative imagination and artistic conservatism.

Goldsmith was the only Irish story-writer and poet of his century. Four Irishmen adorned the prose of the period: Goldsmith is as eminent in the natural style as Swift in the satiric, or Steele in the polished, or Burke in the grand. In comedy the Irish led; but Steele, Macklin, Murphy, Kelly, do not compare with Farquhar, Sheridan, and Goldsmith. The worst work of these is good, and their best is the best of the century.

Turning to Goldsmith the man, what the "draggle-tail Muses" paid him we find him spending on dress and rooms and jovial magnificence, on relatives or countrymen or the unknown poor, with such freedom that he is never relieved of the necessity of drudgery. Still, sensitive, good-natured, improvident, Irish,--and a genius,--Goldsmith lived as happy a life as his disposition would allow. He had the companionship of congenial friends, the love of men like Johnson and Reynolds, the final assurance that his art was appreciated by the public. To be sure, he was never out of debt, but that was his own fault; he was never out of credit either. "Was there ever poet so trusted?" exclaimed Johnson, after this poet had got beyond reach of his creditors. His difficulties however affected him as they affect most Irishmen,--only by cataclysms. He was serene or wretched, but generally the former: he packed _noctes coenaeque deum_ by the dozen into his life. "There is no man," said Reynolds, "whose company is more liked." But maybe that was because his naivete, his brogue, his absent-mindedness, and his blunders (real or apparent) made him a ready butt for ridicule, not at the hands of Reynolds or Johnson, but of Beauclerk and the rest. For though his humor was sly, and his wit inimitable, Goldsmith's conversation was queer. It seemed to go by contraries. If permitted, he would ramble along in his hesitating, inconsequential fashion, on any subject under heaven--"too eager," thought Johnson, "to get on without knowing how he should get off." But if ignored, he would sit silent and apart,--sulking, thought Boswell. In fact, both the Dictator and laird of Auchinleck were of a mind that he tried too much to shine in conversation, for which he had no temper. But "Goldy's" _bons-mots_--such as the "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur _istis_" to Johnson, as they passed under the heads on Temple Bar,--make it evident that Garrick, with his

"Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,"

and most of the members of the Literary Club, did not understand their Irishman. A timidity born of rough experience may have occasionally oppressed, a sensitiveness to ridicule or indifference may have confused him, a desire for approbation may frequently have led him to speak when silence had been golden; but that his conversation was "foolish" is the judgment of Philistines who make conversation an industry, not an amusement or an art.

Boswell himself recounts more witty sayings than incomprehensible. And the "incomprehensible" are so only to Boswells and Hawkinses, who can hardly be expected to appreciate a humor, the vein of which is a mockery of their own solemn stupidity. Probably Goldsmith did say unconsidered things; he liked to think aloud in company, to "rattle on" for diversion. Keenly alive to the riches of language, he was the more likely to feel the embarrassment of impromptu selection; and while he was too much of a genius to keep count of every pearl, he was too considerate of his fellows to cast pearls only. But most of his fellows (Reynolds excepted) appreciated neither his drollery nor his unselfishness,--had not been educated up to the type of Irishman that with an artistic love of fun, is ever ready to promote the gayety of nations by sacrificing itself in the interest of laughter. For none but an artist can, without cracking a smile, offer up his wit on the altar of his humor.

Prior describes Goldsmith as something under the middle size, sturdy, active, apparently capable of endurance; pale, forehead and upper lip rather projecting, face round, pitted with small-pox, and marked with strong lines of thinking. But Reynolds's painting idealizes and therefore best expresses the man, his twofold nature: on the one hand, self-depreciatory, generous, and improvident; on the other, aspiring, hungry for approval, laborious. Just such a man as would gild poverty with a smile, decline patronage and force his last sixpence on a street-singer, pile Pelion on Ossa for his publishers and turn out cameos for art.

[Signature: Charles Mills Gayley]

THE VICAR'S FAMILY BECOME AMBITIOUS

From 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors, and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing. Instead therefore of finishing George's shirts, we now had them new-modeling their old gauzes, or flourishing upon catgut. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.

But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come to raise us into perfect sublimity. The tawny sibyl no sooner appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece, to cross her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling, though for the honor of the family it must be observed that they never went without money themselves, as my wife always generously let them have a guinea each to keep in their pockets, but with strict injunctions never to change it. After they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great. "Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?" "I protest, papa," says the girl, "I believe she deals with somebody that is not right, for she positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth!" "Well now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of a husband are you to have?" "Sir," replied she, "I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire." "How," cried I, "is that all you are to have for your two shillings? Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have promised you a prince and a nabob for half the money!"

This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious effects: we now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.

* * * * *

It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. In the first case we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us. It is impossible to repeat the train of agreeable reveries we called up for our entertainment. We looked upon our fortunes as once more rising; and as the whole parish asserted that the Squire was in love with my daughter, she was actually so with him, for they persuaded her into the passion. In this agreeable interval my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world, which she took care to tell us every morning with great solemnity and exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughter's pockets filled with farthings, a certain sign of their being shortly stuffed with gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They felt strange kisses on their lips; they saw rings in the candle; purses bounced from the fire, and true-love knots lurked in the bottom of every teacup.

Towards the end of the week we received a card from the town ladies, in which, with their compliments, they hoped to see all our family at church the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together, and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a latent plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in spirits, she began thus: "I fancy, Charles my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company at our church to-morrow." "Perhaps we may, my dear," returned I; "though you need be under no uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon whether there be or not." "That is what I expect," returned she; "but I think, my dear, we ought to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?" "Your precautions," replied I, "are highly commendable. A decent behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout and humble, cheerful and serene." "Yes," cried she, "I know that; but I mean we should go there in as proper a manner as possible; not altogether like the scrubs about us." "You are quite right, my dear," returned I; "and I was going to make the very same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go there as early as possible, to have time for meditation before the service begins." "Phoo, Charles!" interrupted she; "all that is very true, but not what I would be at. I mean we should go there genteelly. You know the church is two miles off, and I protest I don't like to see my daughters trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking for all the world as if they had been winners at a smock-race. Now, my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plow-horses, the colt that has been in our family these nine years, and his companion Blackberry that has scarcely done an earthly thing this month past. They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should not they do something as well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little they will cut a very tolerable figure."

To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed and the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broke to the rein, but had a hundred vicious tricks; and that we had but one saddle and pillion in the whole house. All these objections however were overruled; so that I was obliged to comply. The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such materials as might be necessary for the expedition, but as I found it would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading-desk for their arrival, but not finding them come as I expected, I was obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some uneasiness at finding them absent. This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the family. I therefore walked back by the horse-way, which was five miles round, though the foot-way was but two, and when I got about half-way home, perceived the procession marching slowly forward towards the church; my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted upon one horse, and my two daughters upon the other. I demanded the cause of their delay; but I soon found by their looks they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses had at first refused to move from the door, till Mr. Burchell was kind enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel. Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this dismal situation when I found them; but perceiving everything safe, I own their present mortification did not much displease me, as it would give me many opportunities of future triumph, and teach my daughters more humility.

Michaelmas Eve happening on the next day, we were invited to burn nuts and play tricks at neighbor Flamborough's. Our late mortifications had humbled us a little, or it is probable we might have rejected such an invitation with contempt; however, we suffered ourselves to be happy. Our honest neighbor's goose and dumplings were fine, and the lamb's wool, even in the opinion of my wife, who was a connoisseur, was excellent. It is true his manner of telling stories was not quite so well; they were very long and very dull, and all about himself, and we had laughed at them ten times before; however, we were kind enough to laugh at them once more.

Mr. Burchell, who was of the party, was always fond of seeing some innocent amusement going forward, and set the boys and girls to blindman's buff. My wife too was persuaded to join in the diversion, and it gave me pleasure to think she was not yet too old. In the mean time my neighbor and I looked on, laughed at every feat, and praised our own dexterity when we were young. Hot cockles succeeded next, questions and commands followed that, and last of all they sat down to hunt the slipper. As every person may not be acquainted with this primeval pastime, it may be necessary to observe that the company at this play planted themselves in a ring upon the ground, all except one, who stands in the middle, whose business it is to catch a shoe which the company shove about under their hams from one to another, something like a weaver's shuttle. As it is impossible in this case for the lady who is up to face all the company at once, the great beauty of the play lies in hitting her a thump with the heel of the shoe on that side least capable of making a defense. It was in this manner that my eldest daughter was hemmed in and thumped about, all blowzed in spirits, and bawling for fair play with a voice that might deafen a ballad-singer, when, confusion on confusion! who should enter the room but our two great acquaintances from town, Lady Blarney and Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs! Description would but beggar, therefore it is unnecessary to describe this new mortification. Death! To be seen by ladies of such high breeding in such vulgar attitudes! Nothing better could ensue from such a vulgar play of Mr. Flamborough's proposing. We seemed stuck to the ground for some time, as if actually petrified with amazement.

The two ladies had been at our house to see us, and finding us from home, came after us hither, as they were uneasy to know what accident could have kept us from church the day before. Olivia undertook to be our prolocutor, and delivered the whole in the summary way, only saying, "We were thrown from our horses." At which account the ladies were greatly concerned; but being told the family received no hurt, they were extremely glad; but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance; Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love to give the whole name) took a greater fancy to her sister. They supported the conversation between themselves, while my daughters sat silent, admiring their exalted breeding. But as every reader, however beggarly himself, is fond of high-lived dialogues, with anecdotes of lords, ladies, and Knights of the Garter, I must beg leave to give him the concluding part of the present conversation.

"All that I know of the matter," cried Miss Skeggs, "is this: that it may be true, or it may not be true; but this I can assure your ladyship, that the whole route was in amaze; his lordship turned all manner of colors, my lady fell into a swoon, but Sir Tomkyn, drawing his sword, swore he was hers to the last drop of his blood."

"Well," replied our peeress, "this I can say: that the duchess never told me a syllable of the matter; and I believe her Grace would keep nothing a secret from me. This you may depend upon as fact: that the next morning my lord duke cried out three times to his _valet-de-chambre_, 'Jernigan, Jernigan, Jernigan, bring me my garters!'"

But previously I should have mentioned the very impolite behavior of Mr. Burchell, who during this discourse sat with his face turned to the fire, and at the conclusion of every sentence would cry out "_Fudge!_"--an expression which displeased us all, and in some measure damped the rising spirit of the conversation.

"Besides, my dear Skeggs," continued our peeress, "there is nothing of this in the copy of verses that Doctor Burdock made upon the occasion." _Fudge!_

"I am surprised at that," cried Miss Skeggs; "for he seldom leaves anything out, as he writes only for his own amusement. But can your Ladyship favor me with a sight of them?" _Fudge!_

"My dear creature," replied our peeress, "do you think I carry such things about me? Though they are very fine, to be sure, and I think myself something of a judge; at least I know what pleases myself. Indeed, I was ever an admirer of all Doctor Burdock's little pieces; for except what he does, and our dear countess at Hanover Square, there's nothing comes out but the most lowest stuff in nature; not a bit of high life among them." _Fudge!_

"Your Ladyship should except," says t'other, "your own things in the Lady's Magazine. I hope you'll say there's nothing low-lived there? But I suppose we are to have no more from that quarter?" _Fudge!_

"Why, my dear," says the lady, "you know my reader and companion has left me to be married to Captain Roach, and as my poor eyes won't suffer me to write myself, I have been for some time looking out for another. A proper person is no easy matter to find, and to be sure, thirty pounds a year is a small stipend for a well-bred girl of character, that can read, write, and behave in company; as for the chits about town, there is no bearing them about one." _Fudge!_

"That I know," cried Miss Skeggs, "by experience. For of the three companions I had this last half-year, one of them refused to do plain work an hour in the day, another thought twenty-five guineas a year too small a salary, and I was obliged to send away the third because I suspected an intrigue with the chaplain. Virtue, my dear Lady Blarney, virtue is worth any price; but where is that to be found?" _Fudge!_

My wife had been for a long time all attention to this discourse, but was particularly struck with the latter part of it. Thirty pounds and twenty-five guineas a year made fifty-six pounds five shillings, English money, all which was in a manner going a-begging, and might easily be secured in the family. She for a moment studied my looks for approbation; and to own a truth, I was of opinion that two such places would fit our two daughters exactly. Besides, if the Squire had any real affection for my eldest daughter, this would be the way to make her every way qualified for her fortune. My wife therefore was resolved that we should not be deprived of such advantages for want of assurance, and undertook to harangue for the family. "I hope," cried she, "your ladyships will pardon my present presumption. It is true, we have no right to pretend to such favors; but yet it is natural for me to wish putting my children forward in the world. And I will be bold to say my two girls have had a pretty good education and capacity; at least, the country can't show better. They can read, write, and cast accounts; they understand their needle, broad-stitch, cross-and-change, and all manner of plain work; they can pink, point, and frill, and know something of music; they can do up small-clothes, work upon catgut; my eldest can cut paper, and my youngest has a very pretty manner of telling fortunes upon the cards." _Fudge!_

When she had delivered this pretty piece of eloquence, the two ladies looked at each other a few moments in silence, with an air of doubt and importance. At last Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs condescended to observe that the young ladies, from the opinion she could form of them from so slight an acquaintance, seemed very fit for such employments. "But a thing of this kind, madam," cried she, addressing my spouse, "requires a thorough examination into characters, and a more perfect knowledge of each other. Not, madam," continued she, "that I in the least suspect the young ladies' virtue, prudence, and discretion; but there is a form in these things, madam, there is a form."

My wife approved her suspicions very much, observing that she was very apt to be suspicious herself; but referred her to all the neighbors for a character; but this our peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient, and upon this we rested our petition.

* * * * *

When we returned home, the night was dedicated to schemes of future conquest. Deborah exerted much sagacity in conjecturing which of the two girls was likely to have the best place, and most opportunities of seeing good company. The only obstacle to our preferment was in obtaining the Squire's recommendation; but he had already shown us too many instances of his friendship to doubt of it now. Even in bed my wife kept up the usual theme: "Well, faith, my dear Charles, between ourselves, I think we have made an excellent day's work of it." "Pretty well," cried I, not knowing what to say. "What, only pretty well!" returned she; "I think it is very well. Suppose the girls should come to make acquaintances of taste in town! This I am assured of, that London is the only place in the world for all manner of husbands. Besides, my dear, stranger things happen every day; and as ladies of quality are so taken with my daughters, what will not men of quality be! _Entre nous_, I protest I like my Lady Blarney vastly; so very obliging. However, Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs has my warm heart. But yet when they came to talk of places in town, you saw at once how I nailed them. Tell me, my dear, don't you think I did for my children there?" "Ay," returned I, not knowing well what to think of the matter; "Heaven grant that 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 upon as a prophecy.

NEW MISFORTUNES: BUT OFFENSES ARE EASILY PARDONED WHERE THERE IS LOVE AT BOTTOM

From 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

The next morning I took my daughter behind me, and set out on my return home. As we traveled along, I strove by every persuasion to calm her sorrows and fears, and to arm her with resolution to bear the presence of her offended mother. I took every opportunity, from the prospect of a fine country through which we passed, to observe how much kinder Heaven was to us than we were to each other, and that the misfortunes of nature's making were very few. I assured her that she should never perceive any change in my affections, and that during my life, which yet might be long, she might depend upon a guardian and an instructor. I armed her against the censures of the world; showed her that books were sweet, unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.

The hired horse that we rode was to be put up that night at an inn by the way, within about five miles from my house; and as I was willing to prepare my family for my daughter's reception, I determined to leave her that night at the inn, and to return for her accompanied by my daughter Sophia, early the next morning. It was night before we reached our appointed stage; however, after seeing her provided with a decent apartment, and having ordered the hostess to prepare proper refreshments, I kissed her, and proceeded towards 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 laborers 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 the 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.

It was now near midnight that I came to knock at my door; all was still and silent; my heart dilated with unutterable happiness; when to my amazement I saw the house bursting out in a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud convulsive outcry, and fell upon the pavement insensible. This alarmed my son, who had till this been asleep, and he perceiving the flames instantly waked my wife and daughter, and all running out naked and wild with apprehension, recalled me to life with their anguish. But it was only to objects of new terror; for the flames had by this time caught the roof of our dwelling, part after part continuing to fall in, while the family stood with silent agony looking on, as if they enjoyed the blaze. I gazed upon them and upon it by turns, and then looked round me for my two little ones: but they were not to be seen. Oh misery! "Where," cried I, "where are my little ones?" "They are burnt to death in the flames," said my wife calmly, "and I will die with them." That moment I heard the cry of the babes within, who were just awaked by the fire; and nothing could have stopped me. "Where, where are my children?" cried I, rushing through the flames, and bursting the door of the chamber in which they were confined; "where are my little ones?" "Here, dear papa, here we are," cried they together, while the flames were just catching the bed where they lay. I caught them both in my arms, and snatched them through the fire as fast as possible, while just as I was got out, the roof sunk in. "Now," cried I, holding up my children, "now let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish. Here they are; I have saved my treasure. Here, my dearest, here are our treasures, and we shall yet be happy." We kissed our little darlings a thousand times, they clasped us round the neck and seemed to share our transports, while their mother laughed and wept by turns.

I now stood a calm spectator of the flames, and after some time began to perceive that my arm to the shoulder was scorched in a terrible manner. It was therefore out of my power to give my son any assistance, either in attempting to save our goods, or preventing the flames spreading to our corn. By this time the neighbors were alarmed, and came running to our assistance; but all they could do was to stand, like us, spectators of the calamity. My goods, among which were the notes I had reserved for my daughters' fortunes, were entirely consumed, except a box with some papers that stood in the kitchen, and two or three things more of little consequence which my son brought away in the beginning. The neighbors contributed, however, what they could to lighten our distress. They brought us clothes, and furnished one of our out-houses with kitchen utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched dwelling, to retire to. My honest next neighbor and his children were not the least assiduous in providing us with everything necessary, and offering whatever consolation untutored benevolence could suggest.

When the fears of my family had subsided, curiosity to know the cause of my long stay began to take place; having therefore informed them of every particular, I proceeded to prepare them for the reception of our lost one, and though we had nothing but wretchedness now to impart, I was willing to procure her a welcome to what we had. This task would have been more difficult but for our recent calamity, which had humbled my wife's pride and blunted it by more poignant afflictions. Being unable to go for my poor child myself, as my arm grew very painful, I sent my son and daughter, who soon returned, supporting the wretched delinquent, who had not the courage to look up at her mother, whom no instructions of mine could persuade to a perfect reconciliation; for women have a much stronger sense of female error than men. "Ah, madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place you have come to after so much finery. My daughter Sophy and I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept company only with people of distinction. Yes, Miss Livy, your poor father and I have suffered very much of late; but I hope Heaven will forgive you." During this reception the unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply; but I could not continue a silent spectator of her distress; wherefore, assuming a degree of severity in my voice and manner which was ever followed with instant submission:--"I entreat, woman, that my words may be now marked once for all: I have here brought you back a poor deluded wanderer; her return to duty demands the revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let us not therefore increase them by dissension among each other. If we live harmoniously together, we may yet be contented, as there are enough of us to shut out the censuring world and keep each other in countenance. The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be directed by the example. Heaven, we are assured, is much more pleased to view a repentant sinner than ninety-nine persons who have supported a course of undeviating rectitude. And this is right; for that single effort by which we stop short in the down-hill path to perdition, is itself a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice."

* * * * *

Some assiduity was now required to make our present abode as convenient as possible, and we were soon again qualified to enjoy our former serenity. Being disabled myself from assisting my son in our usual occupations, I read to my family from the few books that were saved, and particularly from such as by amusing the imagination contributed to ease the heart. Our good neighbors, too, came every day with the kindest condolence, and fixed a time in which they were all to assist at repairing my former dwelling. Honest Farmer Williams was not last among these visitors, but heartily offered his friendship. He would even have renewed his addresses to my daughter; but she rejected them in such a manner as totally repressed his future solicitations. Her grief seemed formed for continuing, and she was the only person of our little society that a week did not restore to cheerfulness. She had now lost that unblushing innocence which once taught her to respect herself, and to seek pleasure by pleasing. Anxiety now had taken strong possession of her mind, her beauty began to be impaired with her constitution, and neglect still more contributed to diminish it. Every tender epithet bestowed on her sister brought a pang to her heart and a tear to her eye; and as one vice, though cured, ever plants others where it has been, so her former guilt, though driven out by repentance, left jealousy and envy behind. I strove in a thousand ways to lessen her care, and even forgot my own pain in a concern for hers, collecting such amusing passages of history as a strong memory and some reading could suggest. "Our happiness, my dear," I would say, "is in the power of One who can bring it about a thousand unforeseen ways that mock our foresight."

In this manner I would attempt to amuse my daughter; but she listened with divided attention, for her own misfortunes engrossed all the pity she once had for those of another, and nothing gave her ease. In company she dreaded contempt, and in solitude she only found anxiety. Such was the color of her wretchedness, when we received certain information that Mr. Thornhill was going to be married to Miss Wilmot, for whom I always suspected he had a real passion, though he took every opportunity before me to express his contempt both of her person and fortune. This news only served to increase poor Olivia's affliction; such a flagrant breach of fidelity was more than her courage could support. I was resolved however to get more certain information, and to defeat if possible the completion of his designs, by sending my son to old Mr. Wilmot's with instructions to know the truth of the report, and to deliver Miss Wilmot a letter intimating Mr. Thornhill's conduct in my family. My son went in pursuance of my directions, and in three days returned, assuring us of the truth of the account; but that he had found it impossible to deliver the letter, which he was therefore obliged to leave, as Mr. Thornhill and Miss Wilmot were visiting round the country. They were to be married, he said, in a few days, having appeared together at church the Sunday before he was there, in great splendor; the bride attended by six young ladies, and he by as many gentlemen. Their approaching nuptials filled the whole country with rejoicing, and they usually rode out together in the grandest equipage that had been seen in the country for years. All the friends of both families, he said, were there, particularly the Squire's uncle, Sir William Thornhill, who bore so good a character. He added that nothing but mirth and feasting were going forward; that all the country praised the young bride's beauty and the bridegroom's fine person, and that they were immensely fond of each other; concluding that he could not help thinking Mr. Thornhill one of the most happy men in the world.