"While thus I debated, in reverie centred,
An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;
An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.
'What have we got here?—Why this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose—or is it in waiting?'
'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce;
'I get these things often'—but that was a bounce:
'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
Are pleased to be kind—but I hate ostentation.'
'If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay,
'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
No words—I insist on't—precisely at three;
We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;
My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.
What say you—a pasty? It shall, and it must,
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile End;
No stirring—I beg—my dear friend—my dear friend!'
Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables followed behind."
We need not follow the vanished venison—which did not make its appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke—further than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did not deserve to have his name associated with such a clever and careless jeu d'esprit.
CHAPTER XVI.
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.
But the writing of smart verses could not keep Dr. Goldsmith alive, more especially as dinner-parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar diversions pressed heavily on his finances. When his History of England appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day accused him of having been bribed by the Government to betray the liberties of the people:[3] a foolish charge. What Goldsmith got for the English History was the sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an abridgment of the work. Then, by this time, he had persuaded Griffin to advance him the whole of the eight hundred guineas for the Animated Nature, though he had only done about a third part of the book. At the instigation of Newbery he had begun a story after the manner of the Vicar of Wakefield; but it appears that such chapters as he had written were not deemed to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned. The fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another method of replenishing his purse. The Vicar of Wakefield had brought him little but reputation; the Good-natured Man had brought him £500. It was to the stage that he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough in which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a comedy; and that comedy was She Stoops to Conquer.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as Squire Richard says, 'would do no harm to nobody.'"—Goldsmith to Langton, September, 1771.
In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to this play on its appearance in type, Goldsmith hints that the attempt to write a comedy not of the sentimental order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing; and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various stages, was of this opinion too. Colman threw cold water on the undertaking from the very beginning. It was only extreme pressure on the part of Goldsmith's friends that induced—or rather compelled—him to accept the comedy; and that, after he had kept the unfortunate author in the tortures of suspense for month after month. But although Goldsmith knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He hated the sentimentalists and all their works; and determined to keep his new comedy faithful to nature, whether people called it low or not. His object was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh; not to write a piece for school declamation; and he had enough confidence in himself to do the work in his own way. Moreover he took the earliest possible opportunity, in writing this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive creatures who had been shocked by the "vulgarity" of The Good-natured Man. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the jolly companions of Tony Lumpkin, when that promising buckeen has finished his song at the Three Pigeons; then follows criticism:—