AN ELEGY

ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

2OOD people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,

Who never wanted a good word,-
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass'd the door,
And always found her kind:
She freely lent to all the poor,-
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wondrous winning;
And never follow'd wicked ways,--
Unless when she was sinning.

At church in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew,—
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her,——
When she has walk'd before.

But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;

The doctors found, when she was dead,--

Her fast disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,

For Kent Street well may say,

That had she lived a twelvemonth more,

She had not died to-day.

INTRODUCTION.

HATEVER be the relative merits of the two Comedies that Goldsmith has left us

WH

and each has its advocates for the superiority-there is no doubt that "She Stoops to Conquer" is that upon which his character as a dramatic writer most securely rests. It was produced for the first time on the 15th of March, 1773, at Covent Garden; was received with a heartiness of applause that carried everything—even the solitary hiss of an envious enemy— before it, and secured its triumph-a triumph that was nightly renewed till the end of the season. The main incident in the piece, round which all the others revolve, is the mistaking Squire Hardcastle's house for a country inn, an idea suggested by a joke played off on Goldsmith in his sixteenth year by a wag in Ardagh, who directed him to Squire Fetherstone's, as the village inn, where the joke was humoured and undiscovered till night. The play is full of broad, farcical humour, relieved with some passages of a sentimental nature; and, with one or two exceptions, there is no violation of decorum. Tony Lumpkin is a character sui generis; one that has come to have an individual reality, as well known to us as Bob Acres" or "Scrub." Old Hardcastle, with all his old-fashioned whimsicalities, is true to nature-overdrawn just enough for stage effect; and the extravagances of his wife are highly entertaining. There is a constant vivacity in the dialogue that amuses, and a frequent recurrence of the ludicrous, which is irresistibly provocative of laughter, and makes us feel the truth of Dr. Johnson's criticism: "I know no comedy, for many years, that has so much exhilarated an audience; that has answered so much the great end of comedy, making an audience merry."

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SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT.

ХОТ Х.

SCENE I.—A scene in an old-fashioned house.

Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MR. HARDCASTLE.

Mrs. Hard. I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country, but ourselves, that does not take a trip to town now and then to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbour Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter.

Hard. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home. In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach. Its fopperies come down, not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket.

Mrs. Hard. Ay, your times were fine times, indeed; you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment, your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery.

Hard. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy (taking her hand), you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

Mrs. Hard. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're for ever at your Dorothys, and your old wives. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan, I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that.

Hard, Let me see; twenty added to twenty, makes just fifty and seven. Mrs. Hard. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle: I was but twenty when Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband, was born; and he's not come to years of discretion yet.

Hard. Nor ever will, I dare answer for him.

Ay, you have taught him

finely.