inning to end,
with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit
derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of
all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations
he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had
alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an
interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it
undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is
inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of
Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the
words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that
home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its
extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart.
A something which has found its way _there_; which, while it amused,
has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits
of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which,
insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and
made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat
thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of
Wakefield.'"

In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles
Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.[193] The
first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as
Boswell tells us, that it should be published--an estimate justified by
the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.

Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold
converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to
man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it
becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire,
which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable
Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr.
Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe
the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness,
and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the
most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only
could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal,