atrick Nelson._]

_The Vicar of Wakefield_ has faults of improbability and of plot
construction; in fact, the plot is so poorly constructed that the
novel would have been almost a failure, had other qualities not
insured success. The story lives because Dr. Primrose and his family
show with such genuineness the abiding lovable traits of human
nature,--kindliness, unselfishness, good humor, hope, charity,--the
very spirit of the _Sermon of the Mount_. Goethe rejoiced that he felt
the influence of this story at the critical moment of his mental
development. Goldsmith has added to the world's stock of kindliness,
and he has taught many to avoid what he calls "the fictitious demands
of happiness."

Goldsmith wrote two plays, both hearty comedies. The less successful,
_The Good-Natured Man_ (acted 1768), brought him in L500. His next
play, _She Stoops to Conquer_, a comedy of manners, is a landmark in
the history of the drama. The taste of the age demanded regular,
vapid, sentimental plays. Here was a comedy that disregarded the
conventions and presented in quick succession a series of hearty
humorous scenes. Even the manager of the theater predicted the failure
of the play; but from the time of its first appearance in 1773, this
comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century
later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has
never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all
of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In
his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn.
Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for
entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is _The Mistakes of a
Night_; and the play shows the situations which developed when its
hero, Tony Lumpkin, sent two lovers to a pretended inn, which was
really the home of the young ladies to be wooed.

It is interesting to note that his contemporary, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan (1751-1816), produced, shortly after the great success of
_She Stoops to Conquer_, the only other eighteenth-century comedies
that retain their popularity, _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for
Scandal_ (1777), which contributed still further to the overthrow of
the sentimental comedy of the age.

General Characteristics.--Goldsmith is a romanticist at heart; but
he felt the strong classical influences of Johnson and of the earlier
school. In his poetry, Goldsmith used classic