ot be curtailed, in order to
circumscribe its substance within the limits of a practical drama.
Jefferson was blamed for condensing and slightly changing the comedy of
_The Rivals_. Yet the author, who probably knew something about his
work, deemed it a wretchedly defective piece, and expressed the
liveliest regret for having written it. Wills did not reproduce
Goldsmith's Vicar upon the stage: in some particulars he widely diverged
from it--and his work, accordingly, may be censured. Yet _The Vicar of
Wakefield_ is far from being a faultless production, such as a divinity
should be supposed to hedge. Critical students are aware of this. It is
not worth while to traverse the old ground. The reader who will take the
trouble--and pleasure--to refer to that excellent chapter on Goldsmith
in Dr. Craik's _History of English Literature_ will find the structural
defects of the novel specifically enumerated. If the dramatist has
ignored many details he has at least extracted from the narrative the
salient points of a consistent, harmonious story. The spectator can
enjoy the play, whether he has read the original or not. At the end of
its first act he knows the Vicar and his family, their home, their way
of life, their neighbours, the two suitors for the two girls, the
motives of each and every character, and the relations of each to all;
and he sees, what is always touching in the spectacle of actual human
life, the contrasted states of circumstance and experience surrounding
and enmeshing all. After this preparation the story is developed with
few and rapid strokes. Two of the pictures were poems. At the end of act
first the Vicar, who has been apprised of the loss of his property,
imparts this sad news to his family. The time is the gloaming. The
chimes are sounding in the church-tower. It is the hour of evening
prayer. The gray-haired pastor calls his loved ones around him, in his
garden, and simply and reverently tells them of their misfortune, which
is to be accepted submissively, as Heaven's will. The deep religious
feeling of that scene, the grouping, the use of sunset lights and
shadows, the melody of the chimes, the stricken look in the faces of the
women and children, the sweet gravity of the Vicar--instinct with the
nobleness of a sorrow not yet become corrosive and lachrymose, as is the
tendency of settled grief--and, over all, the sense of blighted
happiness and an uncertain future, made up a dramatic as well as a
p