ABSTRACT
Excepting some short Tales, Oliver Goldsmith gave to the department of the novelist only one works—the inimitable Vicar of Wakefield. It was suppressed for nearly two years, until the publication of the Traveller had fixed his fame. He had been paid for his labour, as he observed, and could have profited nothing by rendering the work ever so perfect. This, however, was false reasoning, though not unnatural in the mouth of him who must earn daily bread by daily labour. The narrative, which in itself is as simple as possible, might have been cleared of certain improbabilities, or rather impossibilities, which it exhibits. The critics must apologize for or censure particular passages in the narrative, as unfit to be perused by youth and innocence. But the wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in a manner which raises him to the highest rank among British authors.
