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BOOK THE FOURTH.

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a month before the death of the elder Newbery, that Burke read the comedy of the Good-natur'd Man; and thus, with mirth and sadness for its ushers, the last division of Goldsmith's life comes in. The bond of old and longcontinued service, chequered as its retrospect was with mean and mortifying incidents, could hardly, without some regret, be snapped; nor could the long-attempted trial of the theatre, painful as its outset had been, without some sense of cheerfulness and hope approach its consummation. Newbery died on the 22nd of December, 1767; and the performance of the comedy was now promised for the 28th of the following January.

Unavailingly, for special reasons, had Goldsmith attempted to get it acted before Christmas. Quarrels had broken out among the new proprietary of the theatre, and these were made excuses for delay. Colman had properly insisted on his right, as manager, to cast the part of Imogen to Mrs. Yates, rather than to a pretty-faced simpering lady (Mrs. Lesingham) whom his brother proprietor, Harris, 'protected;' and the violence of the dispute became so notorious, and threatened such danger to the new management, that the papers describe Garrick 'growing taller' on the strength of it. Tall enough he certainly grew, to overlook something of the bitterness of Colman's first desertion of him; and civilities, perhaps arising from a sort of common interest in the issue of the Lesingham dispute, soon after recommenced between the rival managers. Bickerstaff (a clever and facile Irishman, who had, ten years

before, somewhat suddenly thrown up a commission in the Marines, taken to theatrical writing for subsistence, and since obtained repute as the author of Love in a Village and the Maid of the Mill) was just now pressing Colman with his opera of Lionel and Clarissa; and in one of his querulous letters, seems to point at this resumption of intercourse with Garrick, whom he had himself offended by beginning to write for Colman. 'You told me,' he complains, writing on the 26th January, 1768, 'that the ' end of January would be the best time of the year for me, ' and told me that Mr. Goldsmith's play should come out 'before Christmas. The fact is, you broke your word 'with me, in ordering the representation of the Good'natur'd Man in such a manner, as that it must unavoid‹ ably interfere with my opera. . . At the reading, it was 'said that the Good-natur'd Man should appear the

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Wednesday after; but at the same time it was whispered 'to me, that it was privately determined not to bring it out 'till the Saturday fortnight, and there was even a promise given to Mr. Kelly that it should not appear till after 'his nights were over?'

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If such a promise had been given (and circumstances justify the suspicion), Goldsmith had better reason than has been hitherto supposed, for that dissatisfaction with Colman and difference with Kelly which attended the performance of his comedy. Kelly had been taken up by Garrick, in avowed and not very generous rivalry to himself; it was the town talk, some weeks before either performance

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