I put the cork into the bottle, desired him to be calm, and began
to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He
then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he
produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merits, told the
landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller
sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he
discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in high tone
for having used him so ill."
The novel which thus set Goldsmith free for the moment was the
famous Vicar of Wakefield. "There are an hundred faults in this
thing," says Goldsmith himself, and if we agree with him there we
also agree with him when he goes on to say, "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.
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