A COMEDY,

IN FIVE ACTS;

BY DR. GOLDSMITH.

AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRES ROYAL,

DRURY LANE AND COVENT GARDEN.

PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS

FROM THE PROMPT BOOK.

WITH REMARKS

BY MRS. INCHBALD.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW.

SAVAGE AND EASINGWOOD,

PRINTERS, LONDON.

REMARKS.

The value of this comedy is enhanced by having the name of Goldsmith prefixed;-an author, who adventured his talents in almost every species of writing, was in all highly successful, and in some preeminently so. Yet, possessing this vast literary treasure, he lived in poverty, and died broken hearted in consequence of his necessities.

Oliver Goldsmith, the author of this comedy, was born at Elphin, in the county of Roscommon, in Ireland, in the year 1729, and was the son of a clergyman. Neither at school, nor at the university of Dublin, where he was a student, did he give any proof of that genius which he afterwards evinced. His favourite study at college was medicine; and to qualify himself for the degree of Doctor, he went to Edinburgh, and attended regularly at the lectures given by the physicians of that metropolis.

An unconquerable desire to visit those parts of the Continent, to which the English youth of fortune are sent to complete their education, was the next strong propensity which Goldsmith testified and for want of the means to bear him on this tour as a gentleman, he boldly set out on foot; furnished with the best of all provision for a traveller-curiosity.

The difficulties he encountered in his long jour ney-during which he was often compelled to play a tune on a flute he had taken for his own amusement, in order to gain food or lodging-even these difficulties were, unhappily, no antidote against his sinking under the sufferings of indigence, when he returned and resided in England.

That Goldsmith, had he not been profuse, might, on commencing author, have supported himself in all the conveniencies of life, many will urge: but what are held as conveniencies by one man, are considered only as the cruel means of existence by another. Yet poverty has a sound which every temperate and courageous mind would contemn, but that it includes other wants, more poignant than those of a fine house, or a well furnished table. Poverty, to an author, includes the deprivation of wholesome air, and all the beauteous works of the creation.-It means even worse than this-to tear its wretched victim from all the soothing joys of artificial life.-Poverty, to an enlightened author, is the gaoler of a solitary prison; for it bars from his homely cell all such companions as make society valuable; and he prefers the loneliness inflicted by the law upon criminals, to the conversation of the vulgar or the uninformed.

It ought not therefore to be imputed to the author of this play, that he was prodigal of the wages of his muse, from impatience under the necessities of the body-it was the depression of his spirit in solitude, which led him to seek intercourse among men of similar talents with himself, at the expense of his

probity. The mental delights of good company his utmost industry could not purchase fairly. He therefore incurred debts to an amount which all his poetic genius could not liquidate, and, in acknowledgment, laid down his life.

He died on the 4th of April, 1774, in the 45th year of his age.

Dr. Johnson is said to have had a most sincere friendship for Goldsmith-That Goldsmith, in return, loved and revered Johnson, the affection expressed in his dedication of this play to him, is a sufficient proof. Yet there is a light sentence in a note from Johnson, wherein he announces his friend's death to some of their mutual acquaintance, which bespeaks not that tenderness which might be expected from a man who professed to love him. After saying, that Goldsmith had died a sacrifice to his embarrassed circumstances, for that he owed no less than two thousand pounds, the Doctor adds jocosely. "Was ever poet so trusted before!"

It was only two years previous to the author's death, that" She Stoops to Conquer" appeared on the stage; and it was not without much trouble and anxiety to him, that it appeared at all.-Colman, the elder, was then manager of Covent Garden theatre, and had so unfavourable an opinion of the work, as to predict, even after it was in rehearsal, its condemnation.

Notwithstanding the brilliant success which ensued, and the powerful name of the author of the play, there were critics of that time, and there are such