GREAT BOOKS. 



140 



Dora 



Ju -r 



8r 



Jiui,. 



Dori 



Boba 



Jfaro 



riirui 

 4-rni 



,1 . P-.1 



I>ur 



Sura 



COM 



roo-dui 

 doo-rui 



.,!,. r.li 



rih-uh 



Ai-ko 



ko-sai 



He gild*. 



Hurreudert (cf towns). 



Sir. 



I laugh. 



Thou gildeft. 



Property, victual*, merchandise, 



A cheat. [robe. 



Eude. 



Durations. 



Sarah. 



Erased. 



With himself. 



Things. 



This is the plural of eosa, thing (pronounced kd-sah), one of 

 those exceptional words where tho must bo pronounced with a 

 sharp, hissing sound, though it is placed between two vowels. 

 This exception should be imprinted on the reader's memory, 

 because, as is obvious from its meaning, the word is of the most 

 frequent occurrence. 



Sire st'e-rai Formerly Sir, now Sire. 



Reto rai-zo Ecndered. 



Soma so-nmh Burden. 



mah-zo Tom. 



bef-fiih-rai To scoff. 



of-fiii-zo Offended. 



s.'if-fi e-tchai Soft, flexible, supple. 



sof-fo-go I suffocate. 



soof-foo-zo Wetted. 



ko-rahl-lo Coral. 



vee-Wl-lo Calf. 



kah-vfl-io I nnnoy, quibble. 



sah-tol-lo Satisfied, satiated, tired. 



kah-tool-lo Catullus. 



tchai-ndhm-mo We supped. 



dee-lem-mah Dilemma (logicaf). 



ai-niin-iii:ili Enigma. [chin. 



som-iuom-mo A blow with the fist under the 



ahf-foom-mo I smoke (meat). 



in-gahn-no Deceit. 



ahn-ti-u-nah Yard (of a ship). 



ai-rfn-nee The Furies. 



ah-rou-mi Aarou. 



ah-loon-no Alumnus, pupil. 



kah-pahr-rah Earnest money. 



aht-Wrr-ro I knock down. 



boo-tirr-ro Butter. 



ree-korr-ro I recur. 



ah-dz6or-ro Azure. 



ahb-bahs-so Low. 



os-sos-so Possessed, bored, dunned. 



ahf-ffs-so Affixed. 



in-d6s-so Upon the back. 



con-koos-so Moved, shaken, contrite. 



Soffice 



So/Togo 



Sufuso 



Corolla 



ViMla 



Cavillo 



Satollo 



Catullo 



Cennmma 



Dilemma 



Enimma 



Sommommo 



Affummo 



JJrinni 



Aronne 



.Ihmno 



Coporra 



Attcrro 



Butirro 



Ricorro 



Azzwro 



Abbasso 



Orsesgo 



Affitso 



Indosso 



Concitsso 



GREAT BOOKS. 



XIV.-THE VICAE OF WAKEFIELD. 



NOVELS at the present day have become a species of manufac- 

 ture. The demand for them is so vast, and so constantly in- 

 creasing, that it may almost be said they are produced to order, 

 and the wonder is, not that so many are worthless, but that so 

 much ability should be exhibited in the composition of a consider- 

 able number every year. At the beginning of last century, 

 the novel, as we now understand it, was unknown in England. 

 Defoe was the first to produce those popular fictions which are 

 such powerful agents either for good or evil ; but the stories of 

 Defoe do not exactly answer to the idea of the novel, as a 

 picture of society and manners in the general, without reference 

 to class portraiture, or the definite inculcation of morals. 

 Fielding is usually regarded as "the father of the English 

 novel;" yet his "Joseph Andrews" was preceded by Richard- 

 son's " Pamela,'' of which it was in some degree a burlesque. 

 But Richardson, as Sir Walter Scott has observed, never 

 succeeded in freeing himself from the trammels of the French 

 romance ; he therefore, in this matter, gives place to Fielding. 

 By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, " the novel " 

 was an accepted form of literary art. In " The Vicar of Wake- 

 field," Goldsmith adopted a method which he found ready-made 

 to his hand, but used it with so much art, wit, and invention, 

 that his story has become a classic. 



Before writing "The Vicar of Wakefield," Goldsmith had 

 employed himself in other departments of letters. His life 



altogether bod been strange and varied. He had studied 

 iiH-ilicino on the Continent, travelling about from city to rity in 

 a hlnftlesH way, and upending in dissipation what little money 

 ho could earn. He had served an usher at a school at Peck ham 

 had been a chemist's assistant, a physician with little or no 

 practice, and a reader at Richardson's printing-office ; and had 

 finally taken to authorship the usual refuge for the destitute 

 when a man has abilities and sometimes when he ha* none. 

 This was about 1758, at which time Goldsmith was thirty years 

 of age. Thenceforward, until his death in 1774, when he wan 

 not much beyond forty-five, his life was that of a toiling 

 literary man, whose talents were almost equally divided between 

 mere joba for the booksellers, and the production of works, 

 both in poetry and prose, which have proved their title to 

 immortality. His lax habits, and his entire want of worldly 

 knowledge and practical sense, kept him continually in diffi- 

 culties, while his amiable nature, with its alloy of harmles* 

 vanity, endeared him to his friends. There are few pleasanter 

 figures among the men of that time than Oliver Goldsmith ; 

 but it is impossible to regard him with any great respect. 



It can be readily understood that a life of such varied 

 experiences peculiarly qualified Goldsmith to shine as a 

 novelist ; yet the only novel ho ever produced was " The Vicar 

 of Wakefield." That celebrated work was written in 17C'2, 

 and an interesting anecdote is told with respect to it. Dr. 

 Johnson, always the faithful and attached friend of Goldsmith, 

 one morning received a message from him, saying that he wan 

 in great distress, and begging him to call as soon as he was 

 able. As the case was too obviously cne of money, Johnson 

 immediately sent him a guinea, and himself repaired soot, 

 afterwards to the needy author's lodgings. His landlady had 

 arrested him for rent, and he was in a violent passion ; but ho 

 had already changed the guinea for a bottle of Madeira. 

 Johnson began to talk about his prospects, and the most 

 feasible means for getting out of the existing difficulty. 

 Goldsmith said he had a novel ready for the press, and put it 

 in tho hands of his friend, who looked into it, and saw at once 

 the cleverness with which it was written. Telling the landlady 

 he would soon return, he went to Newberry, the publisher, and 

 persuaded him to purchase the manuscript for J860. Newberry, 

 however, seems to have been in no hurry to print it, and it was 

 not until 1766 that it appeared. Thus did " The Vicar of 

 Wakefield " come into the world. It had Goldsmith for ite 

 author, and Johnson for its patron. 



This delightful story of old English country life is secure of 

 a permanent place in our national literature ; but it may be 

 doubted whether it is read as much by the present generation 

 as it was even fifty years ago. The highly- wrought and stimu- 

 lating character of modern fiction has put us out of taste for 

 the quiet and somewhat prim manner of Goldsmith's novel. 

 People say it is old-fashioned, and so indeed it is ; at the same 

 tine, it is not sufficiently antiquated to have acquired the 

 pictureaqueness which belongs to the Middle Ages, or to tho 

 reign of Elizabeth. To the ordinary modern reader, it is a little 

 discouraging to find a novelist prefacing his story by such sen- 

 tences as these : " The hero in this piece unites in himself the 

 three greatest characters upon earth : he is a priest, a husband- 

 man, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to 

 teach, and ready tj obey as simple in affluence, and majestic 

 in adversity. In this age of opulence and refinement, how can 

 such a character please ? Such as are fond of high life will 

 turn with disdain from the simplicity of his country fireside'," 

 Ac. It is not to be denied that a good deal x>f " The Vicar of 

 Wakefield " is couched in this style, and it is a styie no longer 

 relished by English people. We have grown distrustful of 

 the didactic, and require a vivid drama of life, passion, and 

 action, which shall be left to work out its own moral, if, indeed, 

 we seek a moral at all. This distrust of formal moralising, so 

 characteristic of our age, is doubtless at the bottom of the 

 increasing reluctance of readers to do more than admire 

 Goldsmith's great production at a distance. An injustice is 

 thus committed, and the public lose the delight and instruction 

 of a work of genius which has a truth of its own. despite the 

 few conventionalities with which it is overlaid. The charm of 

 " The Vicar of Wakefield " has been felt and acknowledged by 

 thousands, and it is a charm that will not de^ay. The humour 

 is of the finest kind ; the observation of life, broad, general, 

 and tolerant ; the criticism of human motives, such as one 



