To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,
Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed.
Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents;
We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!
Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up,
We now and then take down a hearty cup.
What shall we do? If Comedy forsake us,
They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us
But why can't I be moral? Let me try:

My heart thus pressing-fix'd my face and eye-
With a sententious look, that nothing means,
(Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes,)

Thus I begin "All is not gold that glitters,'
Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters
When Ignorance enters, Folly is at hand;
Learning is better far than house and land.
Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble,
And virtue is not virtue, if she tumble.'

I give it up morals won't do for me;

To make you laugh, I must play tragedy.
Une hope remains, hearing the maid was ill,
A Doctor comes this night to show his skill.
To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion.
He, in Five Draughts prepared, presents a potion:
A kind of magic charm: for, be assured,

If
you
will swallow it, the maid is cured:
But desperate the Doctor, and her case is,
If you reject the dose, and make wry faces.

This truth he boasts, will boast it while he lives,
No poisonous drugs are mixed in what he gives.
Should he succeed, you'll give him his degree;
If not, within he will receive no fee!

The college you, must his pretensions back,
Pronounce him Regular, or dub him Quack.

"All is not gold": From Dryden's Hind and Panther.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

OR,

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT

ACT THE FIRST

Scene I, A CHAMBER IN AN OLD-FASHIONED HOUSE. Enter Mrs. Hardcastle and Mr. Hardcastle.

Mrs. Hardcastle. 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 neighbor Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter.

Hardcastle. 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. Hardcastle. 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 2 mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we

1 faster than a stage-coach: In April, 1765, Jean Pierre Grosley, in his Tour of London, says that the public carriages to Dover are now called "flying machines."

2 rumbling: rambling.

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.

Hardcastle. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; 2 and, I believe, Dorothy, (taking her hand,) you 'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

2

Mrs. Hardcastle. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're forever at your Dorothys and your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan,3 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.

1 old stories of Prince Eugene: On Friday, April 10, 1772, Goldsmith dined with a company at General Oglethorpe's, and the General, then seventy-four years old; told tales of his service with Prince Eugene in the Turkish campaigns of 1716-17 (Hill's Boswell, vol. ii, p. 207). There can be no doubt that, with Hardcastle, Goldsmith loved "such old-fashioned trumpery." After the fashion of Oglethorpe, Hardcastle tries to tell his old stories in Act II. Prince Eugene visited England in 1712, and Steele wrote an essay on him; he also wrote a pamphlet on the Duke of Marlborough the same year.

2 old friends, old times, old manners: A conscious or unconscious paraphrase of Bacon's Apothegms, 97: "Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!"

3 Darby Joan Literary types of husband and wife who remain lovers throughout life. Joan is a typical name for a farm wench. "While greasy Joan doth keel the pot," Love's Labor's Lost (Act V, Sc. 2). The first known use of these names in conjunction occurs in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1735 :

Old Darby with Joan by his side,
You've often regarded with wonder.

I

Hardcastle. Let me see; twenty added to twenty - makes just fifty and seven!

Mrs. Hardcastle. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle; I was but twenty when I was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet.

Hardcastle. Nor ever will, I dare answer for him. Ay, you have taught him finely!

Mrs. Hardcastle. No matter. Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend fifteen hundred a year.

Hardcastle. Learning, quotha! a mere composition of tricks and mischief!

Mrs. Hardcastle. Humor, my dear; nothing but humor. Come, Mr. Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humor.

Hardcastle. I'd sooner allow him a horse-pond! If burning the footmen's shoes, frighting the maids, and worrying the kittens, be humor, he has it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig1 to the back of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popped my bald head in Mrs. Frizzle's face.

Mrs. Hardcastle. And I am to blame? The poor boy was always too sickly to do any good. A school would be his death. When he comes to be a little stronger who knows what a year or two's Latin may do for him?

Hardcastle. Latin for him! A cat and fiddle! No, no; the alehouse and the stable are the only schools he 'll ever go to.

' fastened my wig: This trick was played on Goldsmith himself. See Forster, Life, Book IV, chap. xv.