friend, at that time in London, and from pockets bulging with papers, like those of the Poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe, produced a manuscript which he forthwith proceeded to read, hastily blotting everything to which his listener objected. At last he let out that he had already consulted the author of Clarissa, whereupon his friend, naturally distrustful of his personal judgment in so critical a case, positively declined to express any further opinion, good or bad. And with that the tragedy disappears from Goldsmith's history. Whether he burned it, as his predecessor Steele burned the play he wrote at Oxford, has not been recorded. In all likelihood it was modelled upon Voltaire, whom he greatly admired; and probably reached no higher level than that of Murphy's Orphan of China, or the Zobeide of his later friend, Mr. Joseph Cradock of Gumley, to which he was to supply a pleasant Prologue. Both Zobeide and the Orphan owed their origin to Voltaire, and both were failures. Goldsmith was abler than either of the writers named ; but it may safely be postulated that his genius was better suited to Comedy than Tragedy. In any case, although his subsequent writings show him to have been an exceptionally capable and commonsense critic of plays and players, a period of ten years was allowed to elapse before we hear of his next dramatic effort, The Good Natur'd Man.

The comedy of the Good Natur'd Man was pro duced at Covent Garden Theatre in January, 1768. It is scarcely necessary, as a preliminary to Goldsmith's plays, to recount the history of the English stage in the Eighteenth Century. That it was not a very illustrious

new manner was speedily imported into England, where it flourished, or endeavoured to flourish, concurrently with such survivals of the elder manner as still, at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, struggled for existence against the popularity of pantomime and the cheap resurrection of old plays. But although it had its Vogue and supporters, there were still those who clung obstinately to the traditions of the past, and strove, however hopelessly, to sustain a comic art which should include the element of comedy. Of such was the Jealous Wife of Colman, and even more conspicuously, the Clandestine Marriage which he wrote with Garrick upon a hint from the first scene of Hogarth's Marriage à la mode.

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That Goldsmith, notwithstanding his first attempt at Tragedy, would not be found on the side of the sentimentalists, may perhaps be anticipated. Already, as an obscure and unknown outsider, he had bitterly resented - like Fielding before him that accusation of "lowness," with which the superfine advocates of gentility sought to stifle the true function of Comedy as defined by Aristotle. By the power of one single monosyllable he had written in the Present State of Polite Learning1 "our critics have almost got the victory over humour amongst us. Does the poet paint the absurdities of the vulgar; then he is low; does he exaggerate the features of folly, to render it more thoroughly ridiculous, he is then very low. In short, they have proscribed the comic or satyrical muse from every walk but high life, which, though 1 1759, P. 154.

abounding in fools as well as the humblest station, is by no means so fruitful in absurdity. Among well-bred fools we may despise much, but have little to laugh at; nature seems to present us with an universal blank of silk, ribbands, smiles and whispers; absurdity is the poet's game, and good breeding is the nice concealment of absurdities." In later years even after his first play had been brought out -— his cry is still the same. Humour at present seems to be departing from the Stage, and it will soon happen that our Comic Players will have nothing left for it but a fine Coat and a Song. It depends upon the Audience whether they will actually drive these poor Merry Creatures from the Stage or sit at a Play as gloomy as at the Tabernacle" (i. e., Whitefield's Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road). In the same paper he characterises and criticises the new species of dramatic composition prevailing "under the name of Sentimental Comedy, in which the virtues of Private Life are exhibited, rather than the Vices exposed, and the Distresses rather than the Faults of Mankind make our interest in the piece." He contends that there has been change without improvement; that the primary purpose of Comedy is to render folly or vice ridiculous; that humour is of its essence; and that nothing is gained when it invades the province of Tragedy. Finally, he felicitously defines sentimental comedy as a " kind of mulish production, with all the defects of its opposite parents, and marked with sterility." "If we are permitted to make Comedy weep," he argues, we have an equal right to make Tragedy laugh, and to set down in Blank Verse

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the Jests and Repartees of all the Attendants in a Funeral Procession." These observations, as already stated, come from a paper which belongs to a date subsequent to the production of the Good Natur'd Man. As a matter of fact, it was contributed by Goldsmith to the Westminster Magazine 1 just before the appearance of She Stoops to Conquer. But whenever written, his words embody, accurately enough, the characteristics of the new fashion of stage presentment which had risen up to rival the mirth-making efforts of Vanbrugh and Farquhar.

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It was in 1766 the year of the publication of the Vicar of Wakefield — that Goldsmith set to work upon the Good Natur'd Man, his own practical and individual protest against the existing order of things; and the proximate cause of his attempt seems to have been the production by Garrick and Colman of the before-mentioned Clandestine Marriage, in which there were distinct indications, particularly in the finished character of Lord Ogleby, a superannuated fop and fine gentleman, that what he regarded as the older and better fashion of writing was not entirely extinguished. The favour with which the Clandestine Marriage was received at Drury Lane seemed to augur well for a reaction against "serious" comedy; and animated by this hope, Goldsmith set to work upon a piece aiming chiefly at the delineation of character, and the attainment of nature and humour. During 1766 he laboured at it assiduously in the intervals of his other tasks; and he completed it early 1 December, 1772, vol. i. p. 4.

in the following year. His friends approved it; and Johnson undertook to supply a Prologue. The next thing was to have it played; and this, as the author too well knew, involved a process truly chymical." It had, in his own words, to be “tried in the manager's fire, strained through a licenser, and purified in the Review, or the news-paper of the day."

This quotation is taken from the Present State of Polite Learning,' where, unfortunately, he had also printed several other highly injudicious things with respect to the terrible despotism of the monarchs of the stage, the over-prominence of that “ histrionic Dæmon," the actor, and the cheese-paring policy of vamping-up old pieces to save the expense of "author's nights." These strictures had been anything but grateful to the all-powerful Garrick, who had shewn his sense of them by declining to give his vote to Goldsmith when he was a candidate for the secretaryship at the Royal Academy. For the time being, however, owing to the death of John Rich, the archadvocate of pantomime, the affairs of Covent Garden Theatre were in confusion; and Goldsmith had no option but to offer his work to the rival manager of Drury Lane. An interview between Goldsmith and Garrick was accordingly brought about by Reynolds. Goldsmith was anxious and important: Garrick ceremonious but cold. The result was a not very precise understanding that the play should be brought out. But thereupon followed delays. It is probable that, apart from his grudge against the author, Garrick was 1 1759, pp. 161-2.