Went. Perforce!

Sour. Yes; by order, he says, of Clarissa; but since I now find she is unworthy, I give her up-renounce her for ever.

[The young couple enter immediately after this declaration, and finding no farther obstruction to their union, the piece finishes with the consent of the Grumbler, "in the hope," as he says, "that they are possessed of mutual requisites to be the plague of each other."]

THE

VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

A TALE.

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

Sperate miseri, cavete felices

Salisbury:

Printed by B. Collins,

For F. Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row, London.

MDCCLXVI.

2 vols. 12mo.

"The Vicar of Wakefield" was published on the 27th of March, 1766, in

two volumes 12mo, price five shillings. A second edition appeared on the 5th of June; a third on the 25th of August of the same year; a fifth in 1773, and it reached a sixth edition in the year of its writer's death.

All that Goldsmith received for this admirable story was sixty guineas. See Forster's "Life of Goldsmith," vol. ii. p. 1-20.

The text of this reprint is that of the fifth edition, 1773, the last which Goldsmith lived to see published.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THERE are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an 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 characters upon earth; he is a priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity. In this age of opulence and refinement, whom can such a character please? Such as are fond of high life, will turn with disdain from the simplicity of his country fire-side. Such as mistake ribaldry for humour, will find no wit in his harmless conversation; and such as have been taught to deride religion, will laugh at one whose chief stores of comfort are drawn from futurity.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.