and over all
this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of
his own failings and those of others,--then you will have put
together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield.

"The delineation of this character on his course of life through
joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the
combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the
singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been
written; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite
moral, nay, in a pure sense, Christian--represents the reward of a
goodwill and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional
confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil;
and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was
preserved from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows
itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this little work
must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr.
Goldsmith, has, without question, a great insight into the moral
world, into its strength and its infirmities; but at the same time
he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an Englishman, and reckon
highly the advantages which his country and his nation afford him.
The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself,
stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes
in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still
more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural
and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated
waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or
help from the vast fleet which sails around it.

"I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in
memory; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as
he who is induced to read it again, will thank me."--GOETHE, _Truth
and Poetry; from my own Life_ (English translation, vol. i, pp.
378-9).

"He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one
bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his
cradle by the 'good people' who haunted his birthplace, the old
goblin mansion, on the banks of the Inny.

"He carries with him the wayw