Chapter Versatile to Victor Amadeus of V by Brewer's Readers Handbook

order him at all. Why don’t you go and do as I bid you?” or, “Tell Harry to admit the doctor. No, not just yet; in five minutes. I don’t know when. Was ever man so tormented?” So with everything.

Lady Vibrate, wife of the above. Extravagant, contradictious, fond of gaiety, hurry, noise, embarrassment, confusion, disorder, uproar, and a whirl of excitement. She says to his lordship—

I am all gaiety and good humour; you are all turmoil and lamentation. I sing, laugh, and welcome pleasure wherever I find it; you take your lantern to look for misery, which the sun itself cannot discover. You may think proper to be as miserable as Job; but don’t expect me to be a Job’s wife.—Act ii. 1.

Lady Jane Vibrate, daughter of the above. An amiable young lady, attached to Delaval, whom she marries.—Holcroft: He’s Much to Blame (1790).

Vicar of Bray (The). (I) Mr. Brome says the noted vicar was Simon Alleyn, vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, for fifty years. In the reign of Henry VIII. he was catholic till the Reformation; in the reign of Edward VI. he was calvinist; in the reign of Mary he was papist; in the reign of Elizabeth he was protestant. No matter who was king, he resolved to die the vicar of Bray.—D’Israeli: Curiosities of Literature.

(2) Another statement gives the name of Pendleton as the true vicar. He was afterwards rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook (Edward VI. to Elizabeth).

(3) Haydn says the vicar referred to in the song was Simon Symonds, who lived in the Commonwealth, and continued vicar till the reign of William and Mary. He was independent in the protectorate, episcopalian under Charles II., papist under Jame II., moderate protestant under William and Mary.

N.B.—The song called The Vicar of Bray was written in the reign of George I., by colonel Fuller or an officer in Fuller’s regiment, and does not refer to Alleyn, Pendleton, or Symonds, but to some real or imaginary person who was vicar of Bray from Charles II. to George 1 The first verse begins: “In good king Charles’s golden days,” I was a zealous high-churchman. Ver. 2; “When royal James obtained the crown,” I found the Church of Rome would fit my constitution. Ver. 3: “When William was our king declared,” I swore to him allegiance. Ver. 4: “When gracious Anne became our queen,” I became a tory. Ver. 5: “When George, in pudding-time came o’er,” I became a whig. And “George my lawful king shall be—until the times do alter.”

I have had a long chase after the vicar of Bray, on whom the proverb…Mr. Fuller, in his Worthies, …takes no notice of him…I am informed it is Simon Alleyn or Allen, who was vicar of Bray, about 1540, and died 1588—Brome to Rawlins, June 14, 1735. (See Letters from the Bodleian, II. i. 100).

Vicar of Wakefield (The), Dr. Primrose, a simple-minded, pious clergyman, with six children, begins life with a good fortune, a handsome house, and wealthy friends; but is reduced to utter poverty without any fault of his own, and, being reduced like Job, like Job he is restored. First, he loses his fortune through the rascality of the merchant who held it. His next great sorrow was the elopement of his eldest daughter, Olivia, with squire Thornhill. His third was the entire destruction by fire of his house, furniture, and books, together with the savings which he had laid by for his daughters’ marriage portions. His fourth was being incarcerated in the county jail by squire Thornhill for rent, his wife and family being driven out of house and home. His fifth was the announcement that his daughter Olivia “was dead,” and that his daughter Sophia had been abducted. His sixth was the imprisonment of his eldest son, George, for sending a challenge to squire Thornhill. His cup of sorrow was now full, and comfort was at hand: (1) Olivia was not really dead, but was said to be so in order to get the vicar to submit to the squire, and thus obtain his release. (2) His daughter Sophia had been rescued by Mr. Burchell (sir William Thornhill), who asked her hand in marriage. (3) His son George was liberated from prison, and married Miss Wilmot, an heiress. (4) Olivia’s marriage to the squire, which was said to have been informal, was shown to be legal and binding. (5) The old vicar was released, re-established in his vicarage, and recovered a part of his fortune.—Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).