The lesson is not so glaringly obvious in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, because this _is_ a novel, and a very delightful one. The only point of direct contact with _Rasselas_ is the knowledge of human nature, though in the one book this takes the form of melancholy aphorism and apophthegm, in the other that of felicitous trait and dialogue-utterance. There is plenty of story, though this has not been arranged so as to hit the taste of the martinet in "fable;" the book has endless character; the descriptions are Hogarth with less of _peuple_ about them; the dialogue is unsurpassable. Yet Goldsmith, untiring hack of genius as he was, wrote no other novel; evidently felt no particular call or predilection for the style; would have been dramatist, poet, essayist with greater satisfaction to himself, though scarcely (satisfactory as he is in all these respects) to us. That he tried it at all can hardly be set down to anything else than the fact that the style was popular: and his choice is one of the highest possible testimonies to the popularity of the style. Incidentally, of course, the _Vicar_ has more for us than this, because it indicates, as vividly as any of the work of the great Four themselves, how high and various the capacities of the novel are--how in fact it can almost completely compete with and, for a time, vanquish the drama on its own ground. Much of it, of course--the "Fudge!" scene between Mr. Burchell and the town ladies may be taken as the first example that occurs--_is_ drama, with all the cumbrous accessories of stage and scene and circumstance spared. One may almost see that "notice to quit," which (some will have it) has been, after nearly a century and a half, served back again on the novel, served by the _Vicar of Wakefield_ on the drama.