Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale

Salisbury

Printed by B. Collins for F. Newbery in Pater-Noster Row

1766

"We should then find that creatures, whose souls are held as dross, only wanted the hand of a refiner; we should then find that wretches, now stuck up for long tortures, lest luxury should feel a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the state in times of danger."

It were to be wished then that power, instead of contriving new laws to punish vice, instead of drawing hard the cords of society till a convulsion come to burst them, instead of cutting away wretches as useless, before we have tried their utility, instead of converting correction into vengeance, it were to be wished that we tried the restrictive arts of government, and made law the protector, but not the tyrant of the people. We should then find that creatures, whose souls are held as dross, only wanted the hand of a refiner; we should then find that wretches, now stuck up for long tortures, lest luxury should feel a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the state in times of danger; that, as their faces are like ours, their hearts are so too; that few minds are so base as that perseverance cannot amend; that a man may see his last crime without dying for it; and that very little blood will serve to cement our security.
(XXVII, pp. 163-4)

Mineral::Dross

Searching "soul" and "dross" in HDIS (Prose)

68 entries in the ESTC (1766, 1767, 1769, 1772, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1795, 1797, 1799, 1800).

See also Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be Written by Himself, 2 vols. (Salisbury: B. Collins, 1766). <Link to ECCO><Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>

Reading Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ed. Stephen Coote (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1986).

04/16/2006

01/04/2011