THE

VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

A TALE.

but six, I considered them as a very valuable present made to my country, and consequently looked upon it as my debtor. Our eldest son was named George, after his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our second child, a girl, I intended to call after her aunt Grissel; but my wife, who, during her pregnancy, had been reading romances, insisted upon her being called Olivia. In less than another year we had another daughter, and now I was determined that Grissel should be her name; but a rich relation taking a fancy to stand godmother, the girl was by her directions called Sophia; so that we had two romantic names in the family; but I solemnly protest I had no hand in it. Moses was our next, and, after an interval of twelve years, we had two sons more.

It would be fruitless to deny my exultation when I saw my little ones about me; but the vanity and the satisfaction of my wife were even greater than mine. When our visitors would say, "Well, upon my word, Mrs Primrose, you have the finest children in the whole country." -"Ay, neighbour," she would answer, "they are as Heaven made them-handsome enough, if they be good enough; for handsome is, that handsome does." And then she would bid the girls hold up their heads; who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handsome. Mere outside is so very trifling a circumstance with me, that I should scarce have remembered to men tion it, had it not been a general topic of conversation in the country. Olivia, now about eighteen, had that luxuriancy of beauty with which painters generally draw Hebe; open, sprightly, commanding. Sophia's features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution; for they were soft, modest, and alluring. The one vanquished by a single blow, the other by efforts successively repeated.

The temper of a woman is generally formed from the turn of her features; at least it was so with my daughters. Olivia wished for many lovers; Sophia to secure one. Olivia was often affected, from too great a desire to please; So phia even repressed excellence, from her fears to offend. The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious. But these qualities were never carried to excess in either, and I have often seen them exchange characters for a whole day together. A suit of mourning has transformed my coquet into a prude, and a new set of ribbons has given her youngest sister more than natural vivacity. My eldest son, George, was bred at Oxford, as I intended him for one of the learned professions. My second boy, Moses, whom I designed for business, received a sort of miscellaneous education at home. But it is needless to attempt describing the particular characters of young people that had seen but very little of the world. In short, a family likeness prevailed through all; and, properly speak

ing, they had but one character-that of being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive.

CHAP. II.

Family misfortunes-the loss of fortune only serves to increase the pride of the worthy.

THE temporal concerns of our family were chiefly committed to my wife's management; as to the spiritual, I took them entirely under my own direction. The profits of my living, which amounted to about thirty-five pounds ayear, I made over to the orphans and widows of the clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty without reward. I also set a resolution of keeping no curate, and of being acquainted with every man in the parish, exhorting the married men to temperance, and the bachelors to matrimony; so that in a few years it was a common saying, that there were three strange wants at Wakefield-a parson wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and alehouses wanting customers.

Matrimony was always one of my favourite topics, and I wrote several sermons to prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar tenet which I made a point of supporting; for I maintained, with Whiston, that it was unlawful for a priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second; or, to express it in one word, I valued myself upon being a strict monogamist.

I was early initiated into this important dispute, on which so many laborious volumes have been written. I published some tracts upon the subject myself, which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking are read only by the happy few. Some of my friends called this my weak side; but, alas! they had not, like me, made it a subject of long contemplation. The more I reflected upon it, the more important it appeared. I even went a step beyond Whiston in displaying my principles. As he had engraven upon his wife's tomb that she was the only wife of William Whiston; so I wrote a similar epitaph for my wife, though still living, in which I extolled her prudence, economy, and obedience, till death; and having got it copied fair, with an elegant frame, it was placed over the chimney-piece, where it answered several very useful purposes. It admonished my wife of her duty to me, and my fidelity to her; it inspired her with a passion for fame, and constantly put her in mind of her end.

It was thus, perhaps, from hearing marriage so often recommended, that my eldest son, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections upon the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who

with some acrimony, which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance; but on the day before that appointed for the ceremony, we agreed to discuss the subject at large.

ed to restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow. During this interval, my thoughts were employed on some future means of supporting them; and at last a small cure of fifteen pounds a-year was offered me in a distant neighbourhood, where I could still enjoy my principles without molestation. With this proposal I joyfully closed, having determined to increase my salary by managing a little farm.

Having taken this resolution, my next care was to get together the wrecks of my fortune; and, all debts collected and paid, out of fourteen thousand pounds we had but four hundred remaining. My chief attention, therefore, was now to bring down the pride of the family to their circumstances; for I well knew that aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself. "You can not be ignorant, my children," cried I, "that no prudence of ours could have prevented our late misfortune; but prudence may do much in disappointing its effects. We are now poor, my fondlings, and wisdom bids us to conform to our humble situation. Let us then, without repining, give up those splendours with which numbers are wretched, and seek, in humble circumstances, that peace with which all may be happy. The poor live pleasantly without our help; why then should not we learn to live without theirs? No, my children, let us from this moment give up all pretensions to gentility; we have still enough left for happiness, if we are wise, and let us draw upon content for the deficiencies of fortune."

As my eldest son was bred a scholar, I determined to send him to town, where his abilities might contribute to our support and his own. The separation of friends and families is, perhaps, one of the most distressful circumstances attendant on penury. The day soon arrived on which we were to disperse for the first time. My son, after taking leave of his mother and the rest, who mingled their tears with their kisses, came to ask a blessing from me. This I gave him from my heart, and which, added to five guineas, was all the patrimony I had now to bestow. "You are going, my boy," cried I, "to London on foot, in the manner Hooker, your great ancestor, travelled there before you. Take from me the same horse that was given him by the good Bishop Jewel-this staff; and take this book too, it will be your comfort on the way; these two lines in it are worth a million-I have been young, and now am old; yet never saw I the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. Let this be your consolation as you travel on. Go, my boy. Whatever be thy fortune, let me see thee once a-year; still keep a good heart, and farewell." As he was possessed of integrity and honour, I was under no apprehensions from throwing him naked into the amphitheatre of life; for I knew he

would act a good part, whether vanquished or

victorious.

own, which arrived a few days afterwards. The His departure only prepared the way for our leaving a neighbourhood in which we had enjoyed so many hours of tranquillity, was not without a tear, which scarce fortitude itself could suppress. Besides, a journey of seventy miles, to a family that had hitherto never been sion, and the cries of the poor, who followed us above ten from home, filled us with apprehenfor some miles, contributed to increase it. The first day's journey brought us in safety within thirty miles of our future retreat, and we put up for the night at an obscure inn, in a village by the way. desired the landlord, in my usual way, to let us When we were shewn a room, I have his company, with which he complied, as what he drank would increase the bill next morning. He knew, however, the whole neighbourhood to which I was removing, particularly Squire Thornhill, who was to be my landlord, and who lived within a few miles of the place. This gentleman he described as one who desired to know little more of the world than its pleasures, being particularly remarkable for his atvirtue was able to resist his arts and assiduity, tachment to the fair sex. He observed, that no and that there was scarce a farmer's daughter within ten miles round but what had found him successful and faithless. Though this account upon my daughters, whose features seemed to gave me some pain, it had a very different effect triumph; nor was my wife less pleased and conbrighten with the expectation of an approaching fident of their allurements and virtue. While entered the room to inform her husband, that our thoughts were thus employed, the hostess the strange gentleman, who had been two days in the house, wanted money, and could not satisfy them for his reckoning. "Want money!" replied the host, "that must be impossible; for it was no later than yesterday he paid three guineas to our beadle to spare an old broken soldier that was to be whipped through the town for dog-stealing." The hostess, however, still persisting in her first assertion, he was preparing to leave the room, swearing that he would be satisfied one way or another, when I begged the landlord would introduce me to a stranger of so much charity as he described. With this he complied, shewing in a gentleman who seemed were laced. His person was well-formed, and to be about thirty, dressed in clothes that once his face marked with the lines of thinking. He seemed not to understand ceremony, or to dehad something short and dry in his address, and spise it. Upon the landlord's leaving the room, I could not avoid expressing my concern for the stranger, at seeing a gentleman in such circumpresent demand. " I take it with all my heart, stances, and offered him my purse to satisfy the

sir," replied he, " and am glad that a late oversight, in giving what money I had about me, has shewn me, that there are still some men like you. I must, however, previously entreat being informed of the name and residence of my benefactor, in order to repay him as soon as possible.' In this I satisfied him fully, not only mentioning my name, and late misfortune, but the place to which I was going to remove. "This," cried he, "happens still more lucky than I hoped for, as I am going the same way myself, having been detained here two days by the floods, which, I hope, by to-morrow, will be found passable." I testified the pleasure I should have in his company, and my wife and daughters joining in entreaty, he was prevailed upon to stay supper. The stranger's conversation, which was at once pleasing and instructive, induced me to wish for a continuance of it; but it was now high time to retire, and take refreshment against the fatigues of the following day.

only one side of their character; so that he began to lose a regard for private interest in universal sympathy. He loved all mankind; for fortune prevented him from knowing that they were rascals. Physicians tell us of a disorder in which the whole body is so exquisitely sensible, that the slightest touch gives pain: what some have thus suffered in their persons, this gentleman felt in his mind. The slightest distress, whether real or fictitious, touched him to the quick, and his soul laboured under a sickly sensibility of the miseries of others. Thus disposed to relieve, it will be easily conjectured he found numbers disposed to solicit. His profusion began to impair his fortune, but not his good-nature; that, indeed, was seen to increase as the other seemed to decay; he grew improvident, as he grew poor; and though he talked like a man of sense, his actions were those of a fool. Still, however, being surrounded with importunity, and no longer able to satisfy every request that The next morning we all set forward together: was made of him, instead of money he gave promy family on horseback, while Mr Burchell, mises; they were all he had to bestow, and he our new companion, walked along the foot-path had not resolution enough to give any man pain by the road-side, observing, with a smile, that by a denial. By this he drew round him crowds as we were ill mounted, he would be too gene- of dependants, whom he was sure to disappoint, rous to attempt leaving us behind. As the floods yet wished to relieve. These hung upon him for were not yet subsided, we were obliged to hire a time, and left him with merited reproaches and a guide, who trotted on before, Mr Burchell and contempt. But in proportion as he became conI bringing up the rear. We lightened the fa- temptible to others, he became despicable to tigues of the road with philosophical disputes, himself. His mind had leaned upon their aduwhich he seemed to understand perfectly. But lation, and, that support taken away, he could what surprised me most was, that, though he find no pleasure in the applause of his heart, was a money-borrower, he defended his opinions which he had never learned to reverence. The with as much obstinacy as if he had been my pa- world now began to wear a different aspect; the tron. He now and then also informed me to whom flattery of his friends began to dwindle into the different seats belonged that lay in our view simple approbation. Approbation soon took the as we travelled the road. "That," cried he, more friendly form of advice; and advice, when pointing to a very magnificent house which stood rejected, produced their reproaches. He now, at some distance," belongs to Mr Thornbill, a therefore, found that such friends as benefits young gentleman who enjoys a large fortune, had gathered round him, were little estimable; though entirely dependant on the will of his he now found that a man's own heart must be uncle, Sir William Thornhill, a gentleman who, ever given to gain that of another. I now found content with a little himself, permits his nephew that-that-I forgot what I was going to obto enjoy the rest, and chiefly resides in town." serve: in short, sir, he resolved to respect him-"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, self, and laid down a plan of restoring his fallen then, the nephew of a man whose virtues, ge- fortune. For this purpose, in his own whimsinerosity, and singularities, are so universally cal manner, he travelled through Europe on known? I have heard Sir William Thornhill foot; and now, though he has scarce attained represented as one of the most generous, yet the age of thirty, his circumstances are more whimsical, men in the kingdom; a man of con- affluent than ever. At present his bounties are summate benevolence."-"Something, perhaps, more rational and moderate than before; but he too much so," replied Mr Burchell: "at least still preserves the character of a humourist, and he carried benevolence to an excess when young; finds most pleasure in eccentric virtues." for his passions were then strong, and as they all were upon the side of virtue, they led it up to a romantic extreme. He early began to aim at the qualifications of the soldier and the scholar; was soon distinguished in the army, and had some reputation among men of learning. Adulation ever follows the ambitious; for such alone receive most pleasure from flattery. He was surrounded with crowds, who shewed him

My attention was so much taken up by Mr Burchell's account, that I scarce looked forward as we went along, till we were alarmed by the cries of my family; when, turning, I perceived my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, thrown from her horse, and struggling with the torrent. She had sunk twice, nor was it in my power to disengage myself in time to bring her relief. My sensations were even too