Alas! while Cumberland, writing more than thirty years after the event, would have us thus believe that hardly anybody was laughing but himself and friends, the papers of the day report him to have been seen as manifestly miserable in one box, as Hugh Kelly* and Ossian Macpherson showed themselves in another;-not only when Woodward came on, in mourning, to speak Garrick's satirical prologue against the sentimentalists, but also while the laughter, as the comedy went on, seemed to peal the death knell of their school; and particularly when one hearty shout went up for Tony's friend at the Jolly Pigeons, the bear-leader who never danced his If he had survived to correct his friend's memory he would probably have told us 66 us a very worthy and efficient member, long since lost to his friends and the "world at large, Adam Drummond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature "with the most sonorous, and at the same time the most contagious, laugh that "ever echoed from the human lungs. The neighing of the horse of the son of "Hystaspes was a whisper to it; the whole thunder of the theatre could not "drown it. This kind and ingenious friend fairly forewarned us that he knew no 66 more when to give his fire than the cannon did that was planted on a battery. "He desired, therefore, to have a flapper at his elbow, and I had the honour to "be deputed to that office. I planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over "the stage, in full view of the pit and galleries, and perfectly well situated to 66 give the echo all its play through the hollows and recesses of the theatre. The 66 success of our manoeuvre was complete. All eyes were upon Johnson, who sat "in a front row of a side box; and when he laughed, everybody thought them"selves warranted to roar. In the meantime, my friend followed signals with a "rattle so irresistibly comic, that, when he had repeated it several times, the "attention of the spectators was so engrossed by his person and performances, "that the progress of the play seemed likely to become a secondary object, and "I found it prudent to insinuate to him that he might halt his music without any 66 prejudice to the author; but alas! it was now too late to rein him in; he had "laughed upon my signal where he found no joke, and now, unluckily, he fancied "that he found a joke in almost everything that was said, so that nothing in "nature could be more mal-apropos than some of his bursts every now and then * I may make room for one of the many epigrams which coupled him with Kelly. "At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, All the spectators laugh, they say, 1773. Et. 45. 1773. bear but to the very genteelest of tunes, Water Parted or the Et. 45. Minuet in Ariadne. Northcote was present, and wrote to his brother that " quite the reverse to everybody's expecta“tion, it was received with the utmost applause." Mr. Day was present, and also gives the weight of his judicial authority against Cumberland. He says that he and some friends, knowing the adverse expectations entertained of the comedy, had assembled in great force in the pit to protect it; but they found no difficulty to encounter, for it was "received throughout with the greatest acclamations." Indeed all the probabilities are against Cumberland's account;* and only one sentence in it, confirmed by every other authority, can be pronounced unquestionable. "All eyes were upon Johnson," he says, who sat in a front row in a side box; " and when he laughed, everybody thought himself warranted "to roar." 66 66 66 Goldsmith had not come with his friends to the theatre. During the dinner, as Sir Joshua afterwards told Northcote, * Even Horace Walpole writes to Lady Ossory from Arlington-street, the morning after the comedy, "there was a new play by Dr. Goldsmith last night, which "succeeded prodigiously." Vernon Smith's Ossory Letters, i. 57. March 16, 1773. He does not appear to have been present himself till a few nights later, but he had no doubt heard of the night's performance from Beauclerc or some other friend as little likely to overrate the success. I may quote also, as a most unexceptionable witness to the mere reception of the comedy, the Monthly Review (xlviii. 309), which says, in its notice of the published play, that Shuter, Quick, and indeed all the performers, had topped their parts in the representation, and made the house, the upper regions especially, very merry. And as Griffiths had formerly explained the enthusiasm and the coldness with which False Delicacy and the Good Natured Man had been respectively greeted, by an opinion that sentimental comedy should be seen, and humorous comedy read, because the stage always tended to turn comic breadth into mere vulgarity, the sapient and consistent critic now coolly reverses his rule to account for poor Goldsmith's success. 'Doctor Goldsmith's "merit is in that sort of dialogue which lies on a level with the most common "understandings; and in that low mischief and mirth which we laugh at, while "we are ready to despise ourselves for so doing. This is the reason why the "reader must peruse the present comedy without pleasure, while the representa"tion of it may make him laugh." 1773. not only did he hardly speak a word, but was so choked that he could not swallow a mouthful;* and when the party t. 45. left for the theatre, he went an opposite way. A friend found him sauntering between seven and eight o'clock in the Mall of St. James's Park,-struggling to be brave, it may be, with the reflection of what an illustrious line of Ben Jonsons, Websters, Fletchers, Dekkers, Drydens, Congreves, and Fieldings, are comprised in the company of "stage-damned," and it was only on that friend's earnest representation of how useful his presence might be, should sudden alteration be found necessary in any scene, he was prevailed upon to go to the theatre. He entered the stage door at the opening of the fifth act, and heard a solitary hiss at the improbability of Mrs. Hardcastle, in her own garden, supposing herself forty miles off on Crackscull common (a trick, nevertheless, which Sheridan actually played off on Madame de Genlis). "What's that?" he cried out, alarmed not a little at the sound. "Psha! Doctor," said Colman, who was standing at the side-scene, doubtless well pleased to have even so much sanction for all his original forebodings, "don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been 66 sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." Cooke, who gives the best version of this anecdote, corrects assertions elsewhere made that it had happened at the last rehearsal; tells us that Goldsmith himself had related it to him; and adds that "he never forgave it to Colman to the "last hour of his life." To all the actors his gratitude was profuse. So thankful had the Tony Lumpkin, in making Quick's fortune, made him, that he altered a translation 66 * Goldsmith's mouth became so parched and dry, "from the agitation of his mind, that he was unable to swallow a single mouthful." Northcote's Reynolds, i. 286. Northcote repeats the same thing in his Conversations, 41. + Europ. Mag. xxiv. 173. 1773. Æt. 45. of Sedley's from Brueys' comedy of Le Grondeur,* adapted it as a farce, and suffered it to be played with his name for the benefit of Quick, before the season closed; and so pleased was he with the exertions of Lee Lewes, that on the occasion of his benefit, on the night preceding Quick's, he wrote him an occasional epilogue, in his pleasantest vein. The hiss seems to have been really a solitary one; for no difference is to be found in any reliable account, either public or private, as to the comedy's absolute success, and the extraordinary "acclamations" that rang through the theatre "when it was given out for the author's benefit." Indeed the hiss was so notedly exceptional, that one paper gives it to Cumberland, another to Kelly, and a third, in a parody on Ossian,† to Macpherson, who had strong reason for hostility to all the Johnson "clique." clique." It became the manager's turn to be afraid of squibs; for never with more galling effect had they played round any poor mortal's head, than now, for some weeks to come, they rattled round that of Colman. Even Wilkes left his graver brawls to try his hand at them. The sentimentalist leaders were hit heavily on all sides; but the evil-boding manager, to use his own * Thomas Moore saw this comedy at the Français in 1822, and thought it a wretchedly dull farce (Diary, iv. 14). This may be some excuse for Goldsmith having turned it into a farce, though not for having failed to improve its dullness. He ought not to have meddled with it. A specimen scene of Goldsmith's adaptation is printed in Miscell. Works, iv. 333-342, from the licenser's MS. copy in the possession of Mr. Payne Collier. "Dumb the sullen sat. . till at last burst faintly a timorous hiss. . turn "him out, toss him over, was the voice of the crowd. . the manager grumbled "within. the people sat laughing amain." A few smartish verses will show the character of these attacks: "Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd: expression, was put upon the rack. He ran away to Bath 1773. to escape the torture, but it followed him even there, and to Et. 45. Goldsmith himself he at last interceded for mercy. "Colman "is so distressed with abuse," writes Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, "that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack "of the newspapers."* Johnson's subsequent judgment of the comedy need hardly be quoted. "I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience; "that has answered so much the great end of comedy, t When in the theatre, making an audience merry." + even Horace Walpole, though he must have winced a little at the laugh raised in the course of the performance at an old lady friend of his, and a club of which they both were members, found himself obliged to admit that some of the characters were well acted, and that Garrick's " poor epilogue" was admirably spoken by Woodward; and, in As this has 'scaped without a fall, To sink his next prepare; Then swear again the piece must die Before the author's night. Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf, To bring to lasting shame, E'en write the best you can yourself, And print it in his name.' * Mrs. Piozzi's Letters, i. 80. It was not till six years after poor Goldsmith was in his grave that Colman thought of offering a sort of public apology for the rack on which he had himself placed Goldsmith. These lines occur in his prologue to the Chapter of Accidents: "When Fielding, Humour's favorite child, appear'd, + Boswell, iii. 276. The "Albemarle Street Club," to which Young Marlow represents himself |