[The first representation of this comedy took place at Covent Garden Theatre, on the 15th of March 1773; between which and the conclusion of the season, in consequence of holidays and benefits, no more than twelve nights, including three for the author, remained to the managers: these, however, were occupied by the new comedy, and the house closed with it on the 31st of May. The leading incident of the piece, the mistaking a gentleman's house for an inn, is said to have been borrowed from a blunder of the author himself, while travelling to school at Edgeworthstown. "It is remarkable enough," says Sir Walter Scott, in his Biographical Notices of Goldsmith," that we ourselves are acquainted with another instance of the kind, which took place, however, in the middle rank of life." Speaking of "She Stoops to Conquer," Dr. Johnson said, "I know of no play, for many years, that has answered so much the great end of comedy-making an audience merry."-See Life, ch. xxii.] ΤΟ SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. DEAR SIR, By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the public, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It 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. I have, particularly, reason to thank you for your partiality to this performance. The undertaking a comedy, not merely sentimental, was very dangerous; and Mr. Colman, who saw this piece in its various stages, always thought it so.(1) However, I ventured to trust it to the public; and, though it was necessarily delayed till late in the season, I have every reason to be grateful. I am, dear Sir, Your most sincere friend and admirer, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. (1) [A few days before the first representation, Dr. Johnson wrote thus to a friend :-" Goldsmith has 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." Speaking on the same subject, in 1778, he said, "Both Goldsmith's comedies were once refused : his first by Garrick, his second by Colman, who was prevailed on at last by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force, to bring it on.”— See Boswell, vol. iii. p. 241.] (1) [Smith and Woodward, who were designed to play Young Marlow and Tony Lumpkin, threw up their parts. To this fanciful resignation Lee Lewis and Quick owed much of their early celebrity.] PROLOGUE, WRITTEN BY DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. Enter Mr. WOODWARD, dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief to his eyes. EXCUSE me, Sirs, I pray-I can't yet speak- (1) ["When this piece was brought forward, the taste of the nation had sickened with a preposterous love for what was termed sentimental comedy; that is a dramatic composition, in which the ordinary business of life, which in a free country like England, produces such a diversity of character, was to be superseded by an unnatural affectation of polished dialogue, in which the usages and singularities of the multitude were to be nearly, if not altogether rejected. Kelly and others were enforcing this principle with ardour, when Goldsmith planted the standard of Thalia on the boards of Covent Garden Theatre, and banished triumphantly those mawkish monsters of fashion, which were tending to make sentiment ridiculous, by dissolving its ties with common incidents, and thereby rendering it somewhat independent of social virtue, by weakening its moral interest."-Biog. Dram., vol. iii. p. 263.] |