yet-unnamed comedy, which was to deserve the success denied to the Good Natur'd Man. It is to be supposed that it was finished by the end of 1771.

Meantime the sea

But finishing it in MS., and getting it acted, were two different things. Early in 1772 it was apparently in Colman's hands; and in Colman's hands, unhappily, it stayed. At the end of the year the author was still ignorant what the manager was going to do; and Goldsmith's repeated applications for the decision of the enlightened potentate to whose protection he had fondly hoped (in the Preface to the Good Natur'd Man) "merit would ever be a sufficient passport,' remained without definite reply. son, as before, was wasting away, and his needs were growing urgent. At last, after nearly a year's delay, he wrote pressingly to Colman. He entreated to be relieved from his intolerable suspense. Arbitration he would not endure. But he offered humbly to endeavour to meet all possible objections, and "not argue about them.' He referred frankly to his money difficulties, and begged Colman to take his play, and “let us make the best of it." "Let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad plays as mine." To this moving appeal, which, it is important to remember, was made on behalf of a comedy that to this hour keeps the stage, and keeps it worthily, Colman replied by returning the manuscript, reiterating his intention to bring out the piece, but freely decorating the "copy" with vexatious remarks and criticisms. Deeply mortified, Goldsmith, with no great hope, sent it on as it was to Garrick. But his kind

old Mentor, Johnson, now intervened. He pointed out the unwisdom of the course taken, with the result that the play was again hastily withdrawn from Garrick's hands; and Johnson himself went to see Colman, from whom, by much solicitation, and even, as the Doctor afterwards described it, the exercise of "a kind of force," a promise was extracted that the play should be produced. But even then, it seems, he could not be persuaded to believe in it. "Dr. Goldsmith," wrote Johnson a little later,1has a new comedy in rehearsal at Covent Garden, to which the manager predicts ill-success. I hope he will be mistaken. I think it deserves a very kind reception." In another letter to Boswell (24 February 1773) he was more explicit. ❝ Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy, which is expected in the spring. No name is yet given it. The chief diversion arises from a stratagem by which a lover is made to mistake his future father-in-law's house for an inn. This, you see, borders upon farce. The dialogue is quick and gay, and the incidents are so prepared as not to seem improbable.'

The kind reception " which Johnson hoped for his friend's new effort was, to some extent, promoted by the appearance of a fresh opponent of sensibility. In February, 1773, a few days before Johnson's last quoted letter, Samuel Foote had produced, at the little theatre in the Haymarket, an entertainment called a Primitive Puppet Show, based upon the Italian Fantoccini, and presenting a burlesque sentimental Comedy called The Handsome Housemaid; or, Piety in Pattens, 1 To Dr. White, Bishop of Pennsylvania, 4 March, 1773.

a piece in which -as Foote assured his audience they would not discover much wit or humour," since his brother writers had all agreed that it was highly improper, and beneath the dignity of a mixed assembly, to show any signs of joyful satisfaction; and that creating a laugh was forcing the higher order of an audience to a vulgar and mean use of their muscles

for which reason, he explained, he had, like them, given up the sensual for the sentimental style. And thereupon followed the story of a maid of low degree who, 66 by the mere effects of morality and virtue, raised herself [like Richardson's Pamela], to riches and honours." The public, who for some time had acquiesced in the new order of things under the belief that it tended to the reformation of the stage, and who were beginning to weary of the "moral essay thrown into dialogue" which had for some time supplanted humorous situation, promptly came round under the influence of Foote's irresistible Aristophanic ridicule; and the comédie larmoyante received an appreciable check. A few weeks earlier Goldsmith himself had endeavoured to aid in the same direction by an essay in the Westminster Magazine, from which quotation has already been made.

But notwithstanding these favourable signs of an approaching change in the public taste, the rehearsals of She Stoops to Conquer still went on languidly and without great enthusiasm. The Manager's lack of cordiality communicated itself to the company. One after another, the leading actors threw up their parts. That of the first gentleman fell to Lee Lewes, the harlequin

of the theatre, while another prominent character had to be entrusted to Quick, who, in the Good Natur'd Man, had only filled the subordinate part of a post boy. Garrick, who had adroitly veered with veering public opinion, furnished a prologue in which Sentimental Comedy was stigmatised as a "mawkish drab of spurious breed; " but there were endless troubles about the epilogue, of which no fewer than four versions were composed to meet objections raised by the manager and actresses. What was worse, until a short time before the representation, the play was without a name. Reynolds had suggested The Belle's Stratagem, a title afterwards adopted by Mrs. Cowley; and another friend, The Old House, a New Inn, which had certainly one requisite of a title, the summarising of the story already described by Johnson; while a third proposal was The Mistakes of a Night. Finally, recalling a line from Dryden quer, and yet stoops to rise" for She Stoops to Conquer, to which a Night was added as a sub-title. upon the 15th March, 1773, the and a few days later published in Newbery, at the Corner of St. Goldsmith says Mr. Forster had, up to the last, been so doubtful of success, that he had hesitated to offer the publisher the copyright in redemption of a debt between them. But Newbery was sagacious enough to accept the proposal, by which he afterwards very largely profited." The little eighteenpenny book was inscribed to Johnson with one of those brief

66

But kneels to conGoldsmith decided The Mistakes of Then, at length, play was played; book form by Francis Paul's Churchyard.

dedications in which "Doctor Minor" is unrivalled.

old friend so much as himself.

honour," he went on

to compliment his rugged "It may do me some

It

to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety.”

Although, as the dedication admits, "the undertaking of a comedy, not merely sentimental," had been regarded as "very dangerous," and although Colman had meanly gone so far as to announce its expected failure in the box office, She Stoops to Conquer was well received. The author's friends, after dining together at a tavern, had gone down to Covent Garden, headed by Johnson, resolved to do their best to support the play. But there was no need. Even Horace Walpole, who had sneered at the "lowness" of the theme, was constrained to admit that it had suc.. All eyes ceeded prodigiously."

berland

says Cum"were upon Johnson, who sate in a front row of a side box, and when he laughed every body thought themselves warranted to roar." Meanwhile Goldsmith was disconsolately perambulating the Mall. We may borrow what followed from Mr. Forster. Upon the earnest representation of a friend who found him there, that his presence might be required at the theatre in case of any sudden alteration being needed,

he was prevailed upon to go to the theatre. He entered the stage door at the opening of the fifth act, and heard a solitary hiss at the improbability of Mrs. Hard