aracters are designed,
make the _Vicar of Wakefield_ one of the most delicious morsels of
fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed.

"... We read the _Vicar of Wakefield_ in youth and in age--we return
to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who
contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature."--SIR WALTER
SCOTT.

172 "Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his
first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, "and together with
his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the later
publications besides. Among these he announced to us the _Vicar of
Wakefield_ as an excellent work, with the German translation of
which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us
himself....

"A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful
subject for a modern idyl; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest
and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can be
imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most
part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in
family relationships; he is a father, a master of a family, an
agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this
pure, beautiful, earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him
is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their
spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of
their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if
consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and
guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure
human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any
circumstances, and by this already elevated above the multitude of
whom one cannot expect purity and firmness; give him the learning
necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity,
which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good--and
you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the
necessary limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small
circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a smaller; grant him
good nature, placability, resolution, and everything else
praiseworthy that springs from a decided character,