PREFACE.

WHEN I undertook to write a comedy, I confess I was strongly prepossessed in favour of the poets of the last age, and strove to imitate them. The term genteel comedy, was then unknown amongst us, and little more was desired by an audience, than nature and humour, in whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous. The author of the following scenes never imagine that more would be expected of him, and therefore, to delineat character has been his principal aim. Those who know any thin of composition, are sensible that in pursuing humour, it will sometimes lead us into the recesses of the mean; I was even tempted to look for it in the master of a spunging-house: but, in deference to the public taste, grown of late, perhaps, too delicate, the scene of the bailiffs was retrenched in the representation. In deference also to the judgment of a few friends, who think in a particular way, the scene is here restored. The Author submits it to the reader in his closet; and hopes that too much refinement will not banish humour and character from ours, as it has already done from the French theatre. Indeed, the French comedy is now become so very elevated and sentimental, that it has not only banished humour and Moliere from the stage, but it has banished all spectators too.

Upon the whole, the Author returns his thanks to the public for the favourable reception which the Good-Natured Man has met with; and to Mr. Colman in particular, for his kindness to it. It may not also be improper to assure any who shall hereafter write for the theatre, that merit, or supposed merit, will ever be a sufficient passport to his protection.

PROLOGUE, WRITTEN BY DR. JOHNSON.

SPOKEN BY MR. BENSLEY.

PREST by the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of human-kind;
With cool submission joins the labouring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain.
Our anxious bard, without complaint, may share
This bustling season's epidemic care;
Like Cæsar's pilot, dignified by fate,

Tost in one common storm, with all the great;
Distrest like, the statesman and the wit,
When one a borough courts, and one the pit.
The busy candidates for power and fame
Have hopes and fears, and wishes, just the same:
Disabled both to combat, or to fly,

Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply.
Uncheck'd, on both, loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage.
Th' offended burgess hoards his angry tale,
For that blest year when all that vote may rail;
Their schemes of spite the poet's foes dismiss,
Till that glad night when all that hate may hiss.
This day the powder'd curls and golden coat,
Says swelling Crispin, begg'd a cobler's vote.
This night our wit, the pert apprentice cries,
Lies at my feet: I hiss him, and he dies.
The great, 'tis true, can charm th' electing tribe;
The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe.
Yet, judg'd by those whose voices ne'er were sold,
He feels no want of ill-persuading gold;
But, confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts, without fear, to merit and to you.

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

ACT I.

SCENE I. An apartment in Young Honeywood's House. Enter Sir William Honeywood, Jarvis.

Sir William.

GOOD Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness. Fidelity, like yours, is the best excuse for every freedom.

Jarvis. I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my master. All the world loves him.

Sir Will. Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

Jarvis. I'm sure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are, though he has not seen you since he was a child.

Sir Will. What signifies his affection to me? or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb find an easy entrance?

Jarvis. I grant that he's rather too good-natured; that he's too much every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another: but whose instruction may he thank for all this?

Sir Will. Not mine, sure! My letters to him, during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend, his errors.

Jarvis. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm sorry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only served to spoil him. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but

n errant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't, I'm always sure he's going to play the fool.

Sir Will. Don't let us ascribe his faults to his philosophy, I entreat you. No Jarvis, his good nature arises rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy.

But, to be sure

Jarvis. What it arises from, I don't know. every body that asks it has it.

Sir Will. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a concealed spectator of his follies, and find them as boundless as his dissipations.

Jarvis. And, yet, faith, he hath some fine name or other for them all. He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting ever body, universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mu-nificence; ay, that was the name he gave it.

Sir Will. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, though with very little hopes to reclaim him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is, to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity: to arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.

Jarvis. Well, if I could by any way see him thoroughly vexed, every groan of his would be music to me; yet faith, I believe it is impossible. I have tried to fret him myself every morning these three years; but instead of being angry, he sits as calmly to hear me scold, as he does to his hairdresser.

Sir Will. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant to put my scheme into execution: and I don't despair of succeeding, as, by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him, without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good-will to others should produce so much neglect of himself, as to require correction! Yet we must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. [Exit. Jarvis. Well go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reason the world allows thee to be the best of But here comes his hopeful nephew; the strange, goodnatured, foolish, open-hearted-And yet, all his faults are such, that one loves him still the better for them.

men.

Enter Honeywood.

Honeyw. Well, Jarvis, what messages from my friends this morning?

Jarvis. You have no friends.

Honeyw. Well; from my acquaintance then?

Jarvis. (Pulling out bills.) A few of our usual cards of compliment, that's all. This bill from your tailor; this from your mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked-lane. He says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed.

Honeyw. That I don't know; but I'm sure we were at a great deal of trouble in getting him to lend it

Jarvis. He has lost all patience.

Honeyw. Then he has lost a very good thing.

Jarvis. There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would stop his mouth, for awhile at least.

Honeyw. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the mean time? Must I be cruel because he happens to be importunate; and, to relieve his avarice, leave them to insupportable distress?

Jarvis. 'Sdeath, sir, the question now is, how to relieve yourself. Yourself-Hav'nt I reason to be out of my senses, when I see things going at sixes and sevens?

Honeyw. Whatever reason you may have for being out of your senses, I hope you'll allow, that I'm not quite unreasonable for continuing in mine.

Jarvis. You're the only man alive in your present situation that could do so-Everything upon the waste. There's Miss Richland and her fine fortune gone already, and upon the point of being given to your rival.

Honeyw. I'm no man's rival.

Jarvis. Your uncle in Italy preparing to disinherit you; your own fortune almost spent; and nothing but pressing creditors, false friends, and a pack of drunken servants, that your kindness has made unfit for any other family.

Honeyw. Then they have the more occasion for being in mine.

Jarvis. So! What will you have done with him that I caught stealing your plate in the pantry? In the fact: I caught him

in the fact.

Honeyw. In the fact! If so, I really think that we should pay him his wages, and turn him off.

Jarvis. He shall be turned off at Tyburn, the dog; we'll hang him, if it be only to frighten the rest of the family.

Honeyw. No, Jarvis: it's enough that we have lost what he has stolen, let us not add to it the loss of a fellow-creature.

Jarvis. Very fine; well, here was the footman just now to complain of the butler; he says he does most work, and ought to have most wages.

Honeyw. That's but just; though perhaps here comes the butler to complain of the footman.

Jarvis. Ay, it's the way with them all, from the scullion to the privy-counsellor. If they have a bad master, they keep quarrelling with him; if they have a good master they keep quarrelling with one another.

Enter Butler, drunk.

Butler. Sir, I'll not stay in the family with Jonathan: you must part with him or with nic, that's the ex-exposition of the matter, sir.

Honeyw. Full and explicit enough. But what's his fault, good Philip?