ir situation somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot and bitter
repining. Their only employment was quarrelling among each other,
playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode
of idle industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to work at
cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers, the proper wood being
bought by a general subscription, and, when manufactured, sold by my
appointment; so that each earned something every day--a trifle indeed,
but sufficient to maintain him.

"I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of
immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus, in less than a
fortnight I had formed them into something social and humane, and had
the pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience."

Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calculated to shock
the nerves of those who liked their literature perfumed with
rose-water. Madame Riccoboni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote
to Garrick, "Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons,
des gens de mauvaises moeurs, est fort eloigne de me plaire."
Others, no doubt, considered the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady
Blarney as "vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary
critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent about the
book--perhaps they were "puzzled" by it, as Southey has suggested. Mr.
Forster, who took the trouble to search the periodical literature of
the time, says that, "apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a word
was said in the way of criticism about the book, either in praise or
blame." The _St. James's Chronicle_ did not condescend to notice its
appearance, and the _Monthly Review_ confessed frankly that nothing
was to be made of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the patronage of
_Lloyd's Evening Post_, the _London Chronicle_, and journals of that
class; which simply informed their readers that a new novel, called
the _Vicar of Wakefield_, had been published, that "the editor is
Doctor Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents of the
story." Even his friends, with the exception of Burke, did not seem
to consider that any remarkable new birth in literature had occurred;