For the rest of the troubles and adventures of the good Vicar and his family you must go to the book itself.  In the end all comes right, and we leave the Vicar surrounded by his family with Dick and Bill sitting on his knee.  “I had nothing now this side the grave to wait for,” he says; “all my cares were over; my pleasure was unspeakable.”  Even if you do not at first understand all of this book I think it will repay you to read it, for on almost every page you will find touches of gentle humor.  We feel that no one but a man of simple childlike heart could have written such a book, and when we have closed it we feel better and happier for having read it.

But delightful though we find the Vicar of Wakefield, the bookseller who bought it did not think highly enough of it to publish it at once.  Meanwhile Goldsmith published a poem called The Traveller.  His own wanderings on the Continent gave him the subject for this poem, for Goldsmith, like Milton, put something of himself into all his best works.  The Traveller was such a success that the bookseller though it worth while to publish the Vicar of Wakefield.

Goldsmith was now famous, but he was still poor.  He lived in a miserable garret doing all manner of literary work for bread.  Among the things he wrote was a play called The Good Natured Man.  It was a success, and brought him in 500 pounds.

Goldsmith now left his garret, took a fine set of rooms, furnished them grandly, and gave dinner-parties and card-parties to his friends.  These were the days of Goldy’s splendor.  He no longer footed it in the great world in rust black and tarnished gold, but in blue silk breeches, and coat with silken linings and golden buttons.  He dined with great people; he strutted in innocent vanity, delighted to shine in the world, to see and be seen, although in Johnson’s company he could never really shine.  Sam was a great talker, and it was said Goldsmith “wrote like an angel and spoke like poor Poll.”  His friends called him Doctor, although where he took his medical degree no one knows, and he certainly had no other degree given to him as an honor as Johnson had.  So Johnson was Dr. major, Goldsmith only Dr. minor.

But soon these days of wealth were over; soon Goldsmith’s money was all spent, and once again he had to sit down to grinding work.  He wrote many things, but the next great work he published was another poem, The Deserted Village.

The Deserted Village, like The Traveller, is written in the heroic couplet which, since the days of Dryden, had held its ground as the best form of English poetry.  In these poems the couplet has reached its very highest level, for although his rimes are smooth and polished Goldsmith has wrought into them something of tender grace and pathos which sets them above the diamond-like glitter of Pope’s lines.  His couplets are transformed by the Celtic touch.