VICAR O F WAKEFIELD: A TA L E. Supposed to be written by HIMSElf. Sperate miferi, cavete falices. VOL. I SALISBURY: Printed by B. COLLINS, MDCCLXVI THE PREFACE. HE Vicar of Wakefield was first published in March, 1766, by Francis Newbery, of Paternofter Row, nephew to John Newbery, "the philanthropic bookfeller in St. Paul's churchyard." There are feveral contemporary accounts of the circumstances connected with its entry into the world, each differing from the reft, though rather in details than in effentials. The earliest of thefe in point of date is to be found in the volume published by Mrs. Piozzi in 1786, under the title of Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnfon, LL.D., during the laft Twenty Years of his Life [i.e. from 1764 to 1784.] For the greater part of this period Mrs. Piozzi was the wife of Johnson's friend Thrale. At pp. 119-20 she says: "I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than 1765 or 1766, that he [Johnson] was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, faid, he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs befet him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for diftraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to fale. Mr. Johnson therefore fet away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and defiring fome immediate relief; which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the houfe directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment. "It was not till ten years after, I dare say, that fomething in Dr. Goldsmith's behaviour struck me with an idea that he was the very man, and then Johnson confelfed that he was fo; the novel was the charming Vicar of Wakefield." The next version of the story is given by Sir John Hawkins (Life of Samuel Johnfon, LL.D., 2nd Edn., 1787, pp. 420 and 421):— "Of the bookfellers whom he styled his friends, Mr. Newbery was one. This perfon had apartments in Canonbury-house, where Goldsmith often lay concealed from his creditors. Under a preffing neceffity be there wrote his Vicar of Wakefield, and for it received of Newbery forty pounds."* A few lines further on he Says: "In the latter [i.e. poverty] he was at one time fo involved, that for the clamours of a woman, to whom he was indebted for lodging, and for bailiffs that waited to arreft him, he was equally unable, till he had made himself drunk, to stay within doors, or go abroad to hawk among the bookfellers a piece of his writing, the title whereof my author [my authority?] does not remember. In this diftrefs be fent for Johnson, who immediately went to one of them, and brought back money for his relief." After Hawkins comes Bofwell. Bofwell perfonally difliked both his predeceffors, who he fays (vol. i., p. 225, * This paragraph is not in the 1st Edn. of the fame year. ed. 1791) have "strangely mis-stated" the facts; and he proceeds to give them "authentically" from what be affirms to be Johnson's "own exact narration": “I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great diftrefs, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as Soon as poffible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as foon as I was dreft, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent paffion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. 1 put the cork into the bottle, defired he would 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 prefs, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and faw its merit; told the landlady I fhould foon return; and having gone to a bookfeller, fold it for fixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having ufed him fo ill." Laft, but to reverse the current phrafe-certainly leaft in importance, is the narrative of Goldsmith's old rival for dramatic honours, Richard Cumberland, whofe Memoirs, written by himself, were first published in 1806. “I have," he says, at pp. 372-3, vol. i., of the 8vo. edn. of 1807, "heard Dr. Johnjon relate with infinite humour the circumftance of his refcuing him [Goldsmith] from a ridiculous dilemma by the purchase money of his Vicar of Wakefield, which he fold on his behalf to Dodfley, and, as I think, for the fum of ten pounds only. He had run up a debt with his landlady for board and lodging of fome` few` |