By the Rev. Chr. Wordaworth, M.A. 363 



two butchers of the " town." These names are like those invented 

 by Ben Jonson, Bunyan, or by Goldsmith in his Good Natured Man 

 (1768), and in some numbers (27, 28) of his Chinese Letters of the 

 ' Citizen of the World" (1762), or in the Bee (Nos. 2, 3) in 1759. 

 But they have nothing to do witli Wiltshire more than any other 

 county, nor is there a speck of local colouring in the sketcli after 

 we pass the title prefixed to it. The story, as it thus stood, shewed 

 little more connexion with this county than Goldsmith's famous 

 romance had with the real town of Wakefield. But the interest 

 of the sketch does not stop here. We may, indeed, indulge in 

 speculation as to the causes which led to the selection of Wiltshire 

 as the abode of the worthy " Vicar," or, as we should now style 

 him, Curate-in-charge assisting the non-resident Dr. Snarl. Shall 

 we conjecture that the name was suggested by Newbery, the 

 publisher, who probably knew the neighbourhood and would prefer 

 to mention it rather than his own adjoining county ? Moreover, 

 he had relations with Salisbury : for, about nine months before, 

 his nephew Francis had published The Vicar of Wakefield, by 

 Goldsmith, through Dr. Johnson's negotiation ; and he had had it 

 printed in our Cathedral city by March, 1766, when it first ap- 

 peared after the MS. had lain by him for some little time. From 

 1760 to 1763 Goldsmith himself had written regularly for the 

 British Magazine, and it has been pointed out that in the first year 

 of that publication there appeared a story called the History of 

 Miss Stanton, which some literary critics have ascribed, with 

 considerable certainty, to Goldsmith, and have detected in it the 

 origin of the more famous and elaborate Vicar of Wakefield. This 

 theory was propounded by Sir James Prior in his biography of 

 Goldsmith, in 1837, and it has been elaborated by Mr. J. W. M. 

 Gibbs in his edition of Goldsmith's Works, edited in five volumes 

 for Bohn's Standard Library in 1886.^ Though Goldsmith had 



> Bohn's Goldsmith, ed. J. W. M. Gibbs, i., 237 ; iv., 416, 491 ; v. 412-3. 

 See also a letter from Mr. Gibbs in the Literary World, 1898, p. 325, 

 commenting on a suggestion by Mr. Percy Ames, ib. p. 300. The last-named 

 letter I have not seen. The former was kindly shewn me by Mr. Mullins. 

 Mr. Dartnell has likewise furnished me with a report of Dr. Ames' paper. 

 And Dr. Ames has been so good as to send me a copy of the paper itself. 



2 C 2 



