MARY A. JORDAN, A.M. PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND OLD ENGLISH IN SMITH COLLEGE LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON AND BOMBAY 1898 VARD UNIVERSITY COPYRIGHT, 1896 BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. All rights reserved FIRST EDITION, MAY, 1896 Press of J. J. Little & Co. PREFACE FEW books have less to gain from the commentator than has the "Vicar of Wakefield." And for this there are two reasons. One lies in the nature of the theme, the other in the style. There is no wide or varied use of dialect, no close study of trades or of technical processes, no painstaking reproduction of remote times or ancient customs. The people, the places, the occupations, the interests described, are easily intelligible, though they are not all familiar to the boys and girls of the United States. Goldsmith's style is the perfection of colloquial ease and readiness. In detail it is often not clear, but in general effect it is always vivid. The pupil, therefore, who is to read this book has a different task from that set him in the case of many other works of fiction. His success in mastering the book will not consist in large additions to his information, nor in a varied but definite extension of his knowledge of the world he lives in and of the effect of surroundings on the character and purposes of the men and women he meets. The gain he will get from "reading and practice" in the "Vicar of Wakefield " will be an increase in his powers of literary appreciation. That is, he will read good literature with less effort and more pleasure. And this pleasure no foot-notes can give him. For the most of his literary enjoyment of the right sort he will always have himself to thank, and in getting it he will have to depend upon himself. The editor has tried to supply the few helps that seemed desirable or necessary, but has avoided offering any suggestion where the pupil might |