Reviews and other notices in the Newspapers of She Stoops to Conquer

1. Public Advertiser, Mar. 18, 1773

The new comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night, now performing at the

Reviews and other notices in the Newspapers of She Stoops to Conquer

1. Public Advertiser, Mar. 18, 1773

The new comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night, now performing at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, will be acted (for the third time) this evening, for the benefit of the author.—On account of the intervention of the benefits, the fourth night is obliged to be deferred till Thursday the 25th instant, of which those ladies and gentlemen who have engaged places are requested to take notice.

On Tuesday last the new comedy, called “She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night,” written by Dr. Goldsmith, was performed for the second time. The uncommon applause with which it has been receiv’d is a proof that true taste and sound understanding will prevail at last over prejudice and habit. The merit of this comedy consists not in a labored opposition of characters, each carried perhaps beyond the bounds of nature; nor in a reciprocation of moral sentiments, such as every book of proverbs may supply; but in a disposition of things uncommon and unexpected, but very artfully made credible; in a rapid succession of diverting incidents, from which the attention can never be disengaged, and in a train of lively dialogues, in which, by a perpetual mistake of his own situation, every speaker thinks justly, and yet always thinks wrong.

Another correspondent observes, that the applause given to a new piece on the first evening of its reception is sometimes supposed to be the tribute of partial friendship. The approbation shewn on the second exhibition of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy exceeded that with which its first appearance was attended. Uninterrupted laughter or clamorous plaudits accompanied his Muse to the last line of his play; and when it was given out for the author’s benefit the theatre was filled with the loudest acclamations that ever rung within its walls.

2. St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post Mar. 18–20, 1773

To the printer of the S. J. Chronicle.

Sir,

In this letter, according to my promise, I shall throw out some observations upon Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy.

I have declaimed very warmly, Mr. Baldwin, against sentimental comedy, and I do not now wish to retract. The Goddess of Dullness has almost entirely buried the livelier passions under her leaden wing: her soporific poppies (frequent as sentiments in a modern comedy) have spread their influence every where; and even the actor who repeats, yawns as widely as the audience who sit on the benches. Immortality to every pen that opposes the pestiferous infection!

In this regard, Dr. Goldsmith merits the bosom of the publick; and those few who seem to remember, that Nature once gave laws upon our theatre, felicitate themselves in seeing one man of genius made a proselyte, and forsaking that dull herd of comic writers, who have turned the Holy Bible into scenes and acts.

Allowing then the Doctor’s intention to have been in the highest degree praise-worthy, let us examine how he has executed it. It is the error of human nature that it is seldom moderate. In our eagerness to effect our purpose we forget the advice of Horace—In medio tutissimus ibis; and we rush forward, as Dr. Goldsmith has done, from the one extreme to the other—from the stare of Tragedy to the grin of Farce. In his eagerness to escape from his canting, sermonizing, methodological fellow-dramatists, he scoured past the true Comic Muse, and caught hold of that looser baggage her sister, ycleped Farce. If proofs are required, they are numerous, and as plain and positive as holy writ. In this description I include every improbability, and every exaggerated incident, in the piece.

Perhaps, to quarrel with the foundation, would be to reject the whole superstructure. I am far from intending to be so severe; but I cannot suppress the observation, that the mistake of Marlow’s, upon which all the other Mistakes are founded, is extremely improbable. That a gentleman should arrive at a private house, the master of which knew him, and also the delicate importance of his visit, and his own interest in it—mistake this house for an inn, and continue in this mistake for some hours, without one hint being dropped in any of the scenes between the gentleman and the master of the family, or one expression to alarm him: all this, I say, exceeds even English credulity. We could admit this in a farce, but in a comedy we cannot. But there is one circumstance which completes the improbability of this: Marlow on his arrival calls for a bill of fare! Is it then unusual to call for a bill of fare in a gentleman’s family? Is it possible that Hardcastle should not put this very question to his impudent guest? Is it at least the only natural reply that could be made to so extraordinary a demand.

The Doctor, aware perhaps of these improprieties, has called in the assistance of several circumstances to their support, and even wrested them to his purpose. Among these I place the incident of Miss Hardcastle’s changing her dress. In the morning she is allowed to dress in a gay stile, to make her visits, and to please herself; in the evening she puts on a humbler garb, to please her father. Now, let us be informed what the visits are, which a young lady living in a remote and retired country has to repeat every day. When I heard her talk of paying her morning-visits, my mind recurred to the streets and the inhabitants of the West End of the Town; but when I compared the idea with the circumstances of a young lady’s life, whom we cannot suppose (from what we are told) to be situated in the neighbourhood of any people of fortune or fashion, and who, at any rate, could not have visits to repeat every day. When I reflected upon this, I conceived the affair in its true light, and was convinced that the circumstances of the change of dress was dragged in, on purpose to give the lady a more plausible pretext of passing upon her lover as a bar-maid. But another reflection greatly heightened the inconsistency of the thing. Allowing the motives of the change of dress to be as they are stated; allowing that the lady visited in the morning, and pleased her father in the evening—is it probable that she would assume a mean dress this evening, when she was formally to meet a love, and when the house had strangers in it, and another was still expected? This is a whimsical idea, which, I think, is not accounted for.

I have observed that faults of this nature are too common in the practice or our dramatic writers. Instead of tracing Nature step by step, and following her by the line of their fable, till the last period, they convert it from its natural channel, on purpose to cover their errors, or to surprize us with something which we do not, and which we ought not, to expect. This is trifling with our judgment, in order to dazzle our imagination.

It is to such inclinations as these we must attribute the following inconsistency among several others:—Hardcastle, in order no doubt to heighten the extravagance of Marlow’s behaviour, informs us, that he had not only taken possession of his great chair, but taken off his boots in the parlour. Now this sounds very well to the ear; but when we appeal to the eye, and find that Marlow had no boots on him to be taken off, how can we excuse the old man for telling lyes?

The characters in this piece have but little of the originality to boast of. With respect to these, the author’s chief merit consists in having carried the humour of them farther than his predecessors. This is more particularly applicable to the ’squire and to Marlow. And yet the character of the latter is extremely similar to that of Young Philpot, in the farce of the Citizen; I mean only in regard to his bashfulness in the company of modest women. The first scene between Marlow and Miss Hardcastle is almost a transcript of a scene of the same nature between Young Philpot and Maria. Marlow faithfully copies the words and behaviour of Philpot, and Miss Hardcastle displays to us not a few of the features of the lively and agreeable Maria.

In this comedy the unity of time is repeatedly violated in the second or third act (I do not remember which) Half an hour is mentioned for the time of an appointment which takes place in very few minutes after; and Tony desires Hastings to meet him “two hours hence” at the back of the garden, tho’ they both take care to meet there very punctually at the end of a short half hour. In these thirty minutes, however, we are desired to suppose that a chaise has been got ready, the horses harnessed, and a company prepared themselves to travel so much road, as appeared to Mrs. Hardcastle to be forty miles. All this business is supposed to be finished in the half hour; for a half hour it actually was, though Tony, on his return, informs us, that he had been absent three hours. To believe this, our conscience must move in as wide a latitude as the author’s who wrote it.

I do not mention, to aggravate these lapses of the judgment, the utter improbability of a timid old lady setting off with a young one, at midnight, upon a journey of forty miles, through imperious roads, impassable ditches, and heaths frequented by robbers; though the journey could have been with greater convenience performed the next day, and all danger removed in the mean time, by securing the lady from the reach of the lover.

I regard these incongruities in comedy as the errors of a man who is either too hasty, or too unequal to the task of writing one. It appears not well, when the poet, instead of bending his fancy to the fable, bends the fable to his fancy. I honour Dr. Goldsmith when he writes a poem; but when he writes a comedy, I lose sight of the man of genius.

BOSSU.

3. St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post Mar. 18-20, 1773

Poets Corner for the St. James’s Chronicle. On Mr. Hugh Kelly’s censure of the new comedy. Addressed to Dr. Goldsmith.

If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse,
And thinks that too loosely it plays;
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse
To make it a new pair of stays.
His lining is small-talk, pick’d up at a dance;
His laces are Tragedy groans;
His tabby’s a novel, his twist a romance,
And sentiments serve for the bones.
At the ledger he work’d, till a bankrupt he prov’d,
When Allen, like Goose, he did roast;
And therefore his shop he has lately remov’d
To the General Evening Post.

To the printer of the S. J. Chronicle.

Sir,

Though Dr. Goldsmith’s brow has been already covered with such laurels as this grateful nation could bestow, perhaps, after all, he may regard a sprig of northern bays, as the greater curiosity.

It is well known that Mr. Macpherson attended the first night’s representation of the new comedy; but the public has not yet been informed that soon after the conclusion of the piece, he was heard to utter the following sentiments, and in that peculiar style with which he has dignified his late translation of Homer.

“Through the sable boxes darkened the bombazeens of women:—But along the mournful veil of artificial grief—quick shot the gay radiance of joy;—and kindled in ev’ry bright eye.”

“Dumb the sullen critic sat:—On his cankered heart, feeding:—Fiercely frowning, deeply glooming.—Till at last, from lungs of poison—burst faintly a timorous hiss.—Turn him out, turn him out, toss him over,—was the voice of the crowd in a rage.

“The manager grumbled within:—the people sat laughing amain:—Through galleries, boxes, and pit—loud rattled the tumult of joy.”

I am, Sir, with the sincerest pleasure in being able to communicate this literary curiosity to your paper,

Your most obedient humble servant,

PHILO-FUSTIAN.

A correspondent says, “For the delay in the publication of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy some apology may be thought necessary. The truth is, that it is now printing from a copy, on the margin of which Mr. Colman has favoured the author with his envious, insipid, and contemptible remarks. The consequence is obvious; one compositor communicates the laugh to another as often as he turns over a fresh page, nor till the little would-be critic’s observations have been treated with all the scorn they so well deserve, will the comedy be dismissed from the press. The play had been advertised for publication this day at Noon.”

The Manager of Covent-Garden Theatre having been much censured, concerning the time of producing Dr. G.’s comedy, it is but just[ice] to declare, that we have been well inform’d, that the copy of the play was not delivered till very late in the season; that other pieces were then actually preparing for representation, and could not, in justice to the several authors, be post-poned, which rendered it particularly inconvenient to produce the comedy this season; which, however, was done at the only period possible, merely because it was supposed to be more agreeable to the author, than to defer it till next winter. As to Mr. Colman’s opinion of the piece, the opinion, which it was his duty to give to the author, was only circulated by the author’s inadvertently [ha]nding his manuscript to some friends, with Mr. C’s observations on the opposite page. The several malicious reports of the box-keeper’s having asserted, that the comedy would be condemned on the first night, are totally false and groundless.

A small fund is collected at the Bedford Coffee House, to be employed in laying wagers of two to one against Mr. Colman’s judgement of the next play, whether he approve or condemn it. N.B. No wager to exceed ten guineas.

4. Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser Mar. 20, 1773

A policy is opened at a well known poetical Stationer’s under the Royal Exchange, who engages, on the receipt of a guinea, between this day and the 25th of March, to pay three guineas on the first of May, if between these days there be not sold six thousand of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy, called, “She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night.” The strictest honour and secrecy may be relied on.

Mr. Colman, who, as Iago observes, is almost damned in the success of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy, it is hoped, will, for the future, deliver his opinion with greater modesty and caution. Mr. Colman pronounced of the piece, that “it dwindled and dwindled, and went out at last like the snuff of a candle.” The audience are inclined to believe, that the state of his own judgment is exactly represented under this figure. The voice of a manager is always the voice of a theatre; and therefore we do not wonder to find his sentiments were adopted by the underlings about him. A manager ought to take example from the procuresses of his neighbourhood. They fill their houses with variety, and leave their customers to chuse out of it: the manager of the other house has dealt only in sentimental misses; and therefore his rival in stature and office, was unwilling to admit a jolly laughing girl as an inmate: or, as we rather believe, wished through envy to smother that performance which he could never expect to equal. It should be remembered, that Mr. Colman’s Hour before Marriage, was damned last winter, on a first hearing.

Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, will be acted (for the third time) this evening, for the benefit of the author.—On account of the intervention of the benefits, the fourth night is obliged to be deferred till Thursday the 25th instant, of which those ladies and gentlemen who have engaged places are requested to take notice.

On Tuesday last the new comedy, called “She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night,” written by Dr. Goldsmith, was performed for the second time. The uncommon applause with which it has been receiv’d is a proof that true taste and sound understanding will prevail at last over prejudice and habit. The merit of this comedy consists not in a labored opposition of characters, each carried perhaps beyond the bounds of nature; nor in a reciprocation of moral sentiments, such as every book of proverbs may supply; but in a disposition of things uncommon and unexpected, but very artfully made credible; in a rapid succession of diverting incidents, from which the attention can never be disengaged, and in a train of lively dialogues, in which, by a perpetual mistake of his own situation, every speaker thinks justly, and yet always thinks wrong.

Another correspondent observes, that the applause given to a new piece on the first evening of its reception is sometimes supposed to be the tribute of partial friendship. The approbation shewn on the second exhibition of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy exceeded that with which its first appearance was attended. Uninterrupted laughter or clamorous plaudits accompanied his Muse to the last line of his play; and when it was given out for the author’s benefit the theatre was filled with the loudest acclamations that ever rung within its walls.

2. St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post Mar. 18–20, 1773

To the printer of the S. J. Chronicle.

Sir,

In this letter, according to my promise, I shall throw out some observations upon Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy.

I have declaimed very warmly, Mr. Baldwin, against sentimental comedy, and I do not now wish to retract. The Goddess of Dullness has almost entirely buried the livelier passions under her leaden wing: her soporific poppies (frequent as sentiments in a modern comedy) have spread their influence every where; and even the actor who repeats, yawns as widely as the audience who sit on the benches. Immortality to every pen that opposes the pestiferous infection!

In this regard, Dr. Goldsmith merits the bosom of the publick; and those few who seem to remember, that Nature once gave laws upon our theatre, felicitate themselves in seeing one man of genius made a proselyte, and forsaking that dull herd of comic writers, who have turned the Holy Bible into scenes and acts.

Allowing then the Doctor’s intention to have been in the highest degree praise-worthy, let us examine how he has executed it. It is the error of human nature that it is seldom moderate. In our eagerness to effect our purpose we forget the advice of Horace—In medio tutissimus ibis; and we rush forward, as Dr. Goldsmith has done, from the one extreme to the other—from the stare of Tragedy to the grin of Farce. In his eagerness to escape from his canting, sermonizing, methodological fellow-dramatists, he scoured past the true Comic Muse, and caught hold of that looser baggage her sister, ycleped Farce. If proofs are required, they are numerous, and as plain and positive as holy writ. In this description I include every improbability, and every exaggerated incident, in the piece.

Perhaps, to quarrel with the foundation, would be to reject the whole superstructure. I am far from intending to be so severe; but I cannot suppress the observation, that the mistake of Marlow’s, upon which all the other Mistakes are founded, is extremely improbable. That a gentleman should arrive at a private house, the master of which knew him, and also the delicate importance of his visit, and his own interest in it—mistake this house for an inn, and continue in this mistake for some hours, without one hint being dropped in any of the scenes between the gentleman and the master of the family, or one expression to alarm him: all this, I say, exceeds even English credulity. We could admit this in a farce, but in a comedy we cannot. But there is one circumstance which completes the improbability of this: Marlow on his arrival calls for a bill of fare! Is it then unusual to call for a bill of fare in a gentleman’s family? Is it possible that Hardcastle should not put this very question to his impudent guest? Is it at least the only natural reply that could be made to so extraordinary a demand.

The Doctor, aware perhaps of these improprieties, has called in the assistance of several circumstances to their support, and even wrested them to his purpose. Among these I place the incident of Miss Hardcastle’s changing her dress. In the morning she is allowed to dress in a gay stile, to make her visits, and to please herself; in the evening she puts on a humbler garb, to please her father. Now, let us be informed what the visits are, which a young lady living in a remote and retired country has to repeat every day. When I heard her talk of paying her morning-visits, my mind recurred to the streets and the inhabitants of the West End of the Town; but when I compared the idea with the circumstances of a young lady’s life, whom we cannot suppose (from what we are told) to be situated in the neighbourhood of any people of fortune or fashion, and who, at any rate, could not have visits to repeat every day. When I reflected upon this, I conceived the affair in its true light, and was convinced that the circumstances of the change of dress was dragged in, on purpose to give the lady a more plausible pretext of passing upon her lover as a bar-maid. But another reflection greatly heightened the inconsistency of the thing. Allowing the motives of the change of dress to be as they are stated; allowing that the lady visited in the morning, and pleased her father in the evening—is it probable that she would assume a mean dress this evening, when she was formally to meet a love, and when the house had strangers in it, and another was still expected? This is a whimsical idea, which, I think, is not accounted for.

I have observed that faults of this nature are too common in the practice or our dramatic writers. Instead of tracing Nature step by step, and following her by the line of their fable, till the last period, they convert it from its natural channel, on purpose to cover their errors, or to surprize us with something which we do not, and which we ought not, to expect. This is trifling with our judgment, in order to dazzle our imagination.

It is to such inclinations as these we must attribute the following inconsistency among several others:—Hardcastle, in order no doubt to heighten the extravagance of Marlow’s behaviour, informs us, that he had not only taken possession of his great chair, but taken off his boots in the parlour. Now this sounds very well to the ear; but when we appeal to the eye, and find that Marlow had no boots on him to be taken off, how can we excuse the old man for telling lyes?

The characters in this piece have but little of the originality to boast of. With respect to these, the author’s chief merit consists in having carried the humour of them farther than his predecessors. This is more particularly applicable to the ’squire and to Marlow. And yet the character of the latter is extremely similar to that of Young Philpot, in the farce of the Citizen; I mean only in regard to his bashfulness in the company of modest women. The first scene between Marlow and Miss Hardcastle is almost a transcript of a scene of the same nature between Young Philpot and Maria. Marlow faithfully copies the words and behaviour of Philpot, and Miss Hardcastle displays to us not a few of the features of the lively and agreeable Maria.

In this comedy the unity of time is repeatedly violated in the second or third act (I do not remember which) Half an hour is mentioned for the time of an appointment which takes place in very few minutes after; and Tony desires Hastings to meet him “two hours hence” at the back of the garden, tho’ they both take care to meet there very punctually at the end of a short half hour. In these thirty minutes, however, we are desired to suppose that a chaise has been got ready, the horses harnessed, and a company prepared themselves to travel so much road, as appeared to Mrs. Hardcastle to be forty miles. All this business is supposed to be finished in the half hour; for a half hour it actually was, though Tony, on his return, informs us, that he had been absent three hours. To believe this, our conscience must move in as wide a latitude as the author’s who wrote it.

I do not mention, to aggravate these lapses of the judgment, the utter improbability of a timid old lady setting off with a young one, at midnight, upon a journey of forty miles, through imperious roads, impassable ditches, and heaths frequented by robbers; though the journey could have been with greater convenience performed the next day, and all danger removed in the mean time, by securing the lady from the reach of the lover.

I regard these incongruities in comedy as the errors of a man who is either too hasty, or too unequal to the task of writing one. It appears not well, when the poet, instead of bending his fancy to the fable, bends the fable to his fancy. I honour Dr. Goldsmith when he writes a poem; but when he writes a comedy, I lose sight of the man of genius.

BOSSU.

3. St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post Mar. 18-20, 1773

Poets Corner for the St. James’s Chronicle. On Mr. Hugh Kelly’s censure of the new comedy. Addressed to Dr. Goldsmith.

If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse,
And thinks that too loosely it plays;
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse
To make it a new pair of stays.
His lining is small-talk, pick’d up at a dance;
His laces are Tragedy groans;
His tabby’s a novel, his twist a romance,
And sentiments serve for the bones.
At the ledger he work’d, till a bankrupt he prov’d,
When Allen, like Goose, he did roast;
And therefore his shop he has lately remov’d
To the General Evening Post.

To the printer of the S. J. Chronicle.

Sir,

Though Dr. Goldsmith’s brow has been already covered with such laurels as this grateful nation could bestow, perhaps, after all, he may regard a sprig of northern bays, as the greater curiosity.

It is well known that Mr. Macpherson attended the first night’s representation of the new comedy; but the public has not yet been informed that soon after the conclusion of the piece, he was heard to utter the following sentiments, and in that peculiar style with which he has dignified his late translation of Homer.

“Through the sable boxes darkened the bombazeens of women:—But along the mournful veil of artificial grief—quick shot the gay radiance of joy;—and kindled in ev’ry bright eye.”

“Dumb the sullen critic sat:—On his cankered heart, feeding:—Fiercely frowning, deeply glooming.—Till at last, from lungs of poison—burst faintly a timorous hiss.—Turn him out, turn him out, toss him over,—was the voice of the crowd in a rage.

“The manager grumbled within:—the people sat laughing amain:—Through galleries, boxes, and pit—loud rattled the tumult of joy.”

I am, Sir, with the sincerest pleasure in being able to communicate this literary curiosity to your paper,

Your most obedient humble servant,

PHILO-FUSTIAN.

A correspondent says, “For the delay in the publication of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy some apology may be thought necessary. The truth is, that it is now printing from a copy, on the margin of which Mr. Colman has favoured the author with his envious, insipid, and contemptible remarks. The consequence is obvious; one compositor communicates the laugh to another as often as he turns over a fresh page, nor till the little would-be critic’s observations have been treated with all the scorn they so well deserve, will the comedy be dismissed from the press. The play had been advertised for publication this day at Noon.”

The Manager of Covent-Garden Theatre having been much censured, concerning the time of producing Dr. G.’s comedy, it is but just[ice] to declare, that we have been well inform’d, that the copy of the play was not delivered till very late in the season; that other pieces were then actually preparing for representation, and could not, in justice to the several authors, be post-poned, which rendered it particularly inconvenient to produce the comedy this season; which, however, was done at the only period possible, merely because it was supposed to be more agreeable to the author, than to defer it till next winter. As to Mr. Colman’s opinion of the piece, the opinion, which it was his duty to give to the author, was only circulated by the author’s inadvertently [ha]nding his manuscript to some friends, with Mr. C’s observations on the opposite page. The several malicious reports of the box-keeper’s having asserted, that the comedy would be condemned on the first night, are totally false and groundless.

A small fund is collected at the Bedford Coffee House, to be employed in laying wagers of two to one against Mr. Colman’s judgement of the next play, whether he approve or condemn it. N.B. No wager to exceed ten guineas.

4. Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser Mar. 20, 1773

A policy is opened at a well known poetical Stationer’s under the Royal Exchange, who engages, on the receipt of a guinea, between this day and the 25th of March, to pay three guineas on the first of May, if between these days there be not sold six thousand of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy, called, “She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night.” The strictest honour and secrecy may be relied on.

Mr. Colman, who, as Iago observes, is almost damned in the success of Dr. Goldsmith’s new comedy, it is hoped, will, for the future, deliver his opinion with greater modesty and caution. Mr. Colman pronounced of the piece, that “it dwindled and dwindled, and went out at last like the snuff of a candle.” The audience are inclined to believe, that the state of his own judgment is exactly represented under this figure. The voice of a manager is always the voice of a theatre; and therefore we do not wonder to find his sentiments were adopted by the underlings about him. A manager ought to take example from the procuresses of his neighbourhood. They fill their houses with variety, and leave their customers to chuse out of it: the manager of the other house has dealt only in sentimental misses; and therefore his rival in stature and office, was unwilling to admit a jolly laughing girl as an inmate: or, as we rather believe, wished through envy to smother that performance which he could never expect to equal. It should be remembered, that Mr. Colman’s Hour before Marriage, was damned last winter, on a first hearing.

“the middle course is the safest”