.

The _Vicar of Wakefield_, considered structurally, follows the lines
of the Book of Job. You take a good man, overwhelm him with successive
misfortunes, show the pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of
the darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and fortitude
and submission, restore him gradually to happiness, with even larger
flocks and herds than before. The machinery by which all this is
brought about is, in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the weak part of the
story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities; in fact, the
expedients by which all the members of the family are brought together
and made happy at the same time, are nothing short of desperate. It is
quite clear, too, that the author does not know what to make of the
episode of Olivia and her husband; they are allowed to drop through;
we leave him playing the French horn at a relation's house; while she,
in her father's home, is supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they
all taken up with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had no very definite
plot concocted; and that it was only when the much-persecuted Vicar
had to be restored to happiness, that he found the entanglements
surrounding him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now
read the _Vicar of Wakefield_; it is not the intricacies of the story
that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must
be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English
home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres.

And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have produced such
a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a
moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings
and clubs? Where had he seen--unless, indeed, he looked back through
the mist of years to the scenes of his childhood--all this gentle
government, and wise blindness; all this affection, and consideration,
and respect? There is as much human nature in the character of the
Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that
day, or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little
secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule. "'Ay,' returned I, not
knowing well what to think of the matter, 'heaven grant they may be