scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national
character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion
just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political
institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own
minds.

While the fourth edition of the "Traveller" was on the counters
of the booksellers, the "Vicar of Wakefield" appeared, and
rapidly obtained a popularity which has lasted down to our own
time, and which is likely to last as long as our language. The
fable is indeed one of the worst that ever was constructed. It
wants, not merely that probability which ought to be found in a
tale of common English life, but that consistency which ought to
be found even in the wildest fiction about witches, giants, and
fairies. But the earlier chapters have all the sweetness of
pastoral poetry, together with all the vivacity of comedy. Moses
and his spectacles, the vicar and his monogamy, the sharper and
his cosmogony, the squire proving from Aristotle that relatives
are related, Olivia preparing herself for the arduous task of
converting a rakish lover by studying the controversy between
Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the great ladies with their scandal
about Sir Tomkyn's amours and Dr Burdock's verses, and Mr
Burchell with his "Fudge," have caused as much harmless mirth as
has ever been caused by matter packed into so small a number of
pages. The latter part of the tale is unworthy of the beginning.
As we approach the catastrophe, the absurdities lie thicker and
thicker; and the gleams of pleasantry become rarer and rarer.

The success which had attended Goldsmith as a novelist emboldened
him to try his fortune as a dramatist. He wrote the "Goodnatured