Miss Yonge says: "There is a
certain dry humour in some passages and a tenderness in others that
incline us much to the belief that it could come from no one else but
the writer of 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and 'The Deserted Village.'
Indeed, we could almost imagine that Dr Primrose himself had described
the panic at the supposed ghost in the church in the same tone as the
ride to church, the family portrait, or the gross of green
spectacles.'[D] We find in "Goody Two Shoes" every one of those
distinctive qualities of Goldsmith's writings which Mr William Black
so well summarizes in the book already referred to--"his genuine and
tender pathos, that never at any time verges on the affected or
theatrical;" his "quaint, delicate, delightful humour;" his "broader
humour, that is not afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of
mankind by dealing with common and familiar ways and manners and men;"
his "choiceness of diction;" his "lightness and grace of touch, that
lend a charm even to" his "ordinary hack work."
* * * * *
The reprint which is here presented is a photographic facsimile of
the earliest complete copy that we have been able to procure.
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