The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: Poems. Plays. The bee. Cock-lane ghost

Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs :
On 'squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts-
And, as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
Ev'n Common-councilmen forget to eat.
The fourth act shows her wedded to the Squire,
And madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at operas cries caro!

And quits her Nancy Dawson1 for Che Faro:
Doats upon dancing, and, in all her pride,
Swims round the room, the Heinel 2 of Cheapside;
Ogles and leers, with artificial skill,
Till, having lost in age the power to kill,

She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille.
Such, through our lives, the eventful history—
The fifth and last act still remains for me:
The bar-maid now for your protection prays,
Turns female barrister, and pleads for Bayes.3

EPILOGUE,

TO BE SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF TONY LUMPKIN.

}

By J. CRADOCK, Esq.4

WELL-now all's ended-and my comrades gone,
Pray what becomes of mother's nonly son?
A hopeful blade!-in town I'll fix my station,
And try to make a bluster in the nation :
As for my cousin Neville, I renounce her—
Off, in a crack, I'll carry big Bet Bouncer!

See the Mrs. Bulkley Epilogue, and its note, in the Poems.-ED. 2 See p. 112, and note.-ED.

3 Some editors print "bays." The early editions have "Bayes." Of course bays is meant, but no doubt there is the double meaning which includes Bayes, the character in the Duke of Buckingham's 'Rehearsal,' whose name, as Mr. Bolton Corney says, had become synonymous with dramatist, and had been so used by Garrick and Colman.-ED.

4 This came too late to be spoken.-Note in original. Joseph Cradock, author of 'Zobeide,' &c., see Poems, p. 95. In Goldsmith's letter to

Why should not I in the great world appear?
I soon shall have a thousand pounds a-year!
No matter what a man may here inherit,
In London-'gad, they've some regard to spirit.
I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bet Bouncer bobs to all she meets;
Then hoiks to jigs and pastimes ev'ry night-
Not to the plays-they say it an't polite:
To Sadler's-Wells, perhaps, or operas go,
And once, by chance, to the roratorio.
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions, too, to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard-
Buy pictures, like the great, ten pounds a-yard:
Zounds! we shall make these London gentry say,
We know what's damn'd genteel as well as they!

Cradock, acknowledging the receipt of this epilogue (see Letters in vol. i.), our author simply says that" it could not be used," but "should be printed." Cradock, in his Memoirs,' says it was not meant for publication. Cradock also tells a curious story of having revised, or 66 altered," 'She Stoops to Conquer' for Goldsmith, "in Leicestershire." See the notes to Goldsmith's letters to Cradock in vol. i. In one of these letters Goldsmith tells of some of his troublesome "stage adventures" in connection with the production of She Stoops to Conquer.' For two other epilogues intended for this play, see the Poems. Also for a song intended to have been sung by Miss Hardcastle, see p. 110. At this last reference it is shown that Mrs. Bulkley, the original Miss Hardcastle, could not sing. There is a story that the part was meant for Mrs. Abington (the original Lady Teazle, 1777), who could sing. The story, however, is doubtful; and, as it is told by Mr. Forster, partly on the authority of Northcote, it seems certainly wrong. See the following Appendix.-ED.

APPENDIX

ΤΟ THIS EDITION OF SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

MRS. ABINGTON AND THE PART OF MISS
HARDCASTLE.

THE story to the effect that the part of Miss Hardcastle was refused by Mrs. Abington (as mentioned in the note above), seems to need refutation, seeing that it affects both the celebrated actress who is alleged to have made the refusal and the popular actress, Mrs. Bulk

ley, who really played the part. The story in the first place looks doubtful from the fact that no mention is made of it by Boswell and most of the rest of the numerous gossippers who have retailed so much about Goldsmith's play. Only Northcote, the biographer of Reynolds, tells it, and that some forty years after the play's production. But Mr. Forster, having adopted Northcote's story, and added to it, there seems some chance of its taking root as a popular error. Hence the necessity, as it seems to us, of the following attempted refutation. Mr. Forster says (Life of Goldsmith,' 1854, vol. ii. p. 369), "Mortification still attended Goldsmith there [at Covent Garden Theatre]. The actors and actresses had taken their tone from the manager. Gentleman Smith threw up Young Marlow; Woodward refused Tony Lumpkin; Mrs. Abington (and this was the greatest blow of all) declined Miss Hardcastle; and in the teeth of his own misgivings, Colman could not contest with theirs. So alarming was the defection, to some of Goldsmith's friends, that they urged the postponement of the comedy. No,' he said, giving to his necessity the braver look of independence, 'I'd rather my play were damned by bad players, than merely saved by good acting." This, so far as Mrs. Abington is concerned, is founded upon Northcote's Life of Sir J. Reynolds,' 1818, vol. i. p. 128, where it is stated that:-" She [Mrs. Abington], however, much offended Goldsmith, at last, by refusing to take the part which he had written on purpose for her, in his comedy of She Stoops to Conquer,' which character was, of necessity, performed by another actress, to Goldsmith's great mortification, on the first night's representation." The statement of the refusal, &c., must be wrong, because Mrs. Abington was not of the Covent Garden company at the time, but was, instead, of the rival house, Drury Lane. Of course Goldsmith originally may have had an eye to Mrs. Abington as an impersonator of his Miss Hardcastle; but, after having given up his comedy to Colman for production at Colman's theatre, and waited some months for its production there (see Goldsmith's correspondence with both Colman and Garrick upon the subject in the Letters at the end of our vol. i.), he could hardly have expected Mrs. Abington would play in it. Mr. Forster has further embellished his version of the story by adding that Goldsmith "freely talked in Gerrardstreet of the part he had written on purpose for Mrs. Abington""; but Mr. Forster has not stated where he got the item showing how Goldsmith "freely talked," &c. It is not with the other statement in Northcote. Goldsmith published in his Good-Natured Man' a note praising Mrs. Bulkley for her delivery of the Epilogue to this play (see the Epilogue), and we may assume, therefore, that he was at least fairly well satisfied with the way in which this actress had played his first stage heroine, Miss Richland.-ED.