Chapter 17

PUBLICATION OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD--OPINIONS CONCERNING IT--OF DR. JOHNSON--OF ROGERS THE POET--OF GOETHE--ITS MERITS--EXQUISITE EXTRACT--ATTACK BY KENRICK--REPLY--BOOK-BUILDING--PROJECT OF A COMEDY

The success of the poem of The Traveler, and the popularity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the attention of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of The Vicar of Wakefield had been slumbering for nearly two long years. The idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much surprise has been expressed that he should be insensible to its merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth various inferior writings by the same author. This, however, is a mistake; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, who had become the fortunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally unaccountable. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew had business arrangements together, in which this work was included, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of its success, retarded the publication until the full harvest of The Traveler should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make egregious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excellence, when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called "effect." In the present instance, an intellect vastly superior to that of either of the booksellers was equally at fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some time subsequent to its publication, observed, "I myself did not think it would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller before The Traveler, but published after, so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Traveler, he might have had twice as much money; though sixty guineas was no mean price."

Sixty guineas for the Vicar of Wakefield! and this could be pronounced no mean price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind; for its success was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March, 1766; before the end of May a second edition was called for; in three months more a third; and so it went on, widening in a popularity that has never flagged. Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books which, through the fitful changes of three generations, he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been confined to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture of British scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost