Sure never was seen two such beautiful ponies;
Other horses are clowns, but these macaronies:
To give them this title I’m sure can’t be wrong,
Their legs are so slim and their tails are so long.
[Their hands are only lent to the Heinel.] See note to l. 28, p. 85.
[EPILOGUE INTENDED FOR
‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.’]
This epilogue, given by Goldsmith to Dr. Percy in MS., was first published in the Miscellaneous Works of 1801, ii. 87–8, as An Epilogue intended for Mrs. Bulkley. Percy did not remember for what play it was intended; but it is plainly (see note to l. 40) the second epilogue for She Stoops to Conquer referred to in the letter printed in this volume.
[There is a place, so Ariosto sings.] ‘The poet alludes to the thirty-fourth canto of The Orlando furioso. Ariosto, as translated by Mr. Stewart Rose, observes of the lunar world;
There thou wilt find, if thou wilt thither post,
Whatever thou on earth beneath hast lost.
Astolpho undertakes the journey; discovers a portion of his own sense; and, in an ample flask, the lost wits of Orlando.’ (Bolton Corney.) Cf. also Rape of the Lock, Canto v, ll. 113–14:
Some thought it mounted to the Lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasur’d there.
Lord Chesterfield also refers to the ‘happy extravagancy’ of Astolpho’s journey in his Letters, 1774, i. 557.
[at Foote’s Alone.] ‘Foote’s’ was the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, where, in February, 1773, he brought out what he described as a ‘Primitive Puppet Show,’ based upon the Italian Fantoccini, and presenting a burlesque sentimental Comedy called The Handsome Housemaid; or, Piety in Pattens, which did as much as She Stoops to laugh false sentiment away. Foote warned his audience that they would not discover ‘much wit or humour’ in the piece, 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, ‘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 Aristophanic ridicule, and the comédie larmoyante received an appreciable check. Goldsmith himself had prepared the way in a paper contributed to the Westminster Magazine for December, 1772 (vol. i. p. 4), with the title of ‘An Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy.’ The specific reference in the Prologue is to the fact that Foote gave morning performances of The Handsome Housemaid. There was one, for instance, on Saturday, March 6, 1773.