. Then
fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon
the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.[191]

The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide"
is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must
have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were
writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the
lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative
of the differences between the two men and their respective
surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led
Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the Creator. But
Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to
pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this
world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a
better.[192]

All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a
publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how
he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a
guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a
bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How
Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS.
of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And
how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.

In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of
charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained
neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author
famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to
correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work
contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his
bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all
this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be
regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to
make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its
style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the
preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it
may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece
unites in himself the three greatest char