Foote produced on the actual stage of the Haymarket Theatre a "Primitive Puppet-show" entitled The Handsome Housemaid; or, Piety in Pattens, a burlesque sentimental comedy in which "a maiden of low degree, by the mere effects of morality and virtue, raised herself to riches and honours."1 A month later, at Covent Garden, a stronger hand than Foote's struck a lasting blow at Sentimental Comedy in She Stoops to Conquer. The whirligig of time brought in his revenges to Goldsmith, from whose earlier comedy, The Good Natur'd Man, the bailiffs' scene had been excised, in deference to the refined sensibilities of a "genteel" audience.

The attack on Sentimental Comedy, ably led by Foote and Goldsmith, was renewed by Sheridan. In The Rivals, he struck at sentimentality both in comedy and in the novel.2 The apparent concession to the sentimentalists in the JuliaFaulkland under-plot was far more than offset by the prominence of Lydia Languish, who sighs over the sentimental novels of the circulating library and weeps over the prospect of a humdrum wedding in lieu of "one of the most sentimental elopements." Emboldened by the final triumph of The Rivals, Sheridan showed plainly, in the "Prologue spoken on the tenth night," his desire to dethrone "the goddess of the woful countenance the sentimental Muse."

In The School for Scandal Sheridan turned even farther away from contemporary sentimentality. In seeking "this" Hydra, Scandal, in his den," he reverted to that spirit of comedy which makes merry with the faults and foibles of society. Purged of immorality, the Restoration Comedy of Manners triumphed over "the weeping sentimental comedy." In the mouth of the hypocrite, Joseph Surface, sentimental

1 Genest, V, 374-6. See also Oulton, History of the Theatres of London (1796), I, 14–23.

2 See Introduction, The Books of Lydia Languish's Circulating Library. 3 Garrick's Prologue to The School for Scandal.

moralizing lost its charm. In The Critic Sheridan rained parting blows upon the well-nigh extinct body of Sentimental Comedy. "That's a genteel comedy," says Sneer of the lachrymose play which Dangle mistakes for a tragedy. "It is written in a style which they have lately tried to run down; the true sentimental, and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end." How effectually Sheridan himself had run down "true sentimental" comedy is easily read between the lines of mock lament given to Sneer: "The theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made the school of morality: but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment!" Sheridan had banished the tears of "the goddess of the woful countenance the sentimental Muse."

4. SHERIDAN AND GOLDSMITH

Wit and Humor. Born on Irish soil, dramatists of the same decade, rebels alike against sentimentalism, authors of the sole English comedies since Shakespeare which to-day hold the stage after more than a century of popularity, Goldsmith and Sheridan challenge comparison. If wit be defined in the subtle phrase of Professor Beers as "the laughter of the head," and humor as "the laughter of the heart" Sheridan was primarily a wit and Goldsmith a humorist. Yet the creator of Bob Acres was not without humor, and the author of She Stoops to Conquer was not without wit. Sheridan, like Congreve, has incurred the frequent charge that all his characters are witty; Goldsmith, by avoiding incessant sacrifice to wit, gains naturalness. Contrast Sheridan's Fag and David, who rival their masters in repartee, with Goldsmith's "honest Diggory," who, so far from being witty in himself, is not even the cause of wit in his master Hardcastle. Diggory's utter inability to comprehend how social laws can overrule the law of nature which prescribes hunger "whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward,” and of in

stinct which compels a laugh at "the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room," contrasts vividly in natural humor with the artificial wit of Fag's reply to Captain Absolute, “Sir, whenever I draw on my invention for a good current lie, I always forge endorsements as well as the bill." The constant sparkle of dialogue, more justifiable in the artificial world of scandal, is hardly to be expected in The Rivals from clownish servant and from country bumpkin. Sum up the case against Sheridan however strongly, there yet remains supreme brilliancy of wit to offset disregard of naturalness. Sheridan wrote for the stage, with a deliberate heightening of dialogue for stage effect. If far-fetched Elizabethan conceits and even Shakespearean puns in moments of tragic stress be viewed to-day with kindly toleration, some leniency is due even to artificialities. in a dialogue which has never failed to compel laughter. Though the wit is at times polished thin, there remain few verbal crudities. Much of Sheridan's art lies in seemingly artless building up of dialogue toward effective climax. A random illustration is the succession of Sir Peter's and Lady Teazle's speeches, culminating in Lady Teazle's, "For my part, I should think you would like to have your wife thought a woman of taste," and Sir Peter's reply, "Ay-there again— taste! Zounds! madam, you had no taste when you married me!" The Rivals and The School for Scandal overrun with wit; The Critic remains as the most notable triumph in English drama of sheer wit over the usual transitoriness of burlesque.

Character-Drawing. The character-drawing of Goldsmith and Sheridan cannot fairly be dismissed with the curt summary that Goldsmith's characters are natural, Sheridan's artificial. Goldsmith's greater naturalness is partially accounted for by his choice of a less artificial background than that of Bath and London society. Of necessity, Mr. Hardcastle stands closer to Squire Western than can Sir Anthony Absolute or

Sir Peter Teazle. If Diggory breathes the country atmosphere of the Hardcastle home, Trip absorbs somewhat of Charles Surface's lavishness of wit and of money. "The mimicry of Falstaff's page," to borrow an illustration from Sneer, is somewhat of a precedent for Sheridan's dramatization of the proverb, "Like master, like man." Furthermore, in the deliberate change from Solomon Teazle to Sir Peter Teazle, Sheridan intentionally removed his characters from bourgeois to "society" comedy. That The Rivals is less artificial in atmosphere than The School for Scandal partially enforces the argument. Frank should be the concession that Goldsmith's characters are more natural than Sheridan's, yet the case should not rest here.

1

If it be granted freely that Sheridan's lavishness of wit sacrifices truth to brilliancy, it is but just to indicate Goldsmith's limitations in character-drawing. Very unconvincing is the conception of young Marlow as a lion among maids and a sheep among ladies. To another anomaly in character Mr. Austin Dobson directs attention: "Tony Lumpkin, who in Act IV is so illiterate as not to be able to read more than his own name in script, is clever enough, in Act I, to have composed the excellent song of The Three Pigeons." Again, Miss Hardcastle and Miss Neville are not strongly differentiated. If it be urged that The Rivals is marred by the introduction of "humor characters," the same objection applies to Croaker and young Honeywood in The Good Natur'd Man, and to young Marlow himself. In Goldsmith, love-making is as conventional as in Sheridan. If Charles Surface is least at home in the presence of Maria, it may be urged that quite as much interest centers in the recovery of Miss Neville's jewels as in the gaining of her hand. In Goldsmith and Sheridan alike, Jack mates with Jill in accordance with the

1 The Good Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer (Belles-Lettres Series) Introduction, xxviii.

law of comedy rather than of nature. Miss Hardcastle and Miss Neville are as far removed from Rosalind and Viola as are Lydia Languish and Maria. Indeed, it may be questioned whether Goldsmith's comedies offer anything comparable to Sheridan's touch of real sentiment when Lady Teazle, behind the screen, overhears Sir Peter's generous plans for her welfare, and is reclaimed from folly. Dispassionate review of the limitations of Goldsmith's characters will show that injustice. is done to a greater dramatist than Sheridan in ascribing to Goldsmith "Shakespearean naturalness."

Weighed in the Shakespearean balance Goldsmith's and Sheridan's characters are alike wanting, yet criticism must not be wholly destructive. Tony Lumpkin, Bob Acres, and Mrs. Malaprop, at least, rank among distinct dramatic creations, maintaining, despite obvious exaggerations of character, undiminished vitality. Charges that Mrs. Malaprop's "derangement of epitaphs" is altogether too "nice" should not ignore Shakespeare's bestowal upon Mrs. Quickly of half a dozen word-blunders in as many lines, and "derangements" as artificial as "honey-suckle" for "homicidal." If the "oath referential" of Bob Acres is an exaggerated "humor," the dramatist's provocation is certainly greater than that of the novelist who insists upon Uriah Heep's "'umble" and Clara Peggotty's constant bursting off of buttons. Sheridan, like Shakespeare, wrote for the stage, and criticism that ignores the vitality of Mrs. Malaprop and Bob Acres is itself as distorted as the peculiarities which it attacks.

Barring Tony Lumpkin-perhaps even including him—the best drawn character in She Stoops to Conquer is Mr. Hardcastle. The country squire with long-spun anecdotes of the Duke of Marlborough and stories like that of "Ould Grouse in the gun-room" at which his household has laughed "these twenty years," exhales the country air of The Vicar of Wakefield. Mrs. Hardcastle, though farcical, is effective, and