ccept
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:--

"_First Fellow._ The squire has got spunk in him.

_Second Fel._ I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never
gives us nothing that's low.

_Third Fel._ O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it.

_Fourth Fel._ The genteel thing is the genteel thing any
time: if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation
accordingly.

_Third Fel._ I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What,
though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a
gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear
ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes; 'Water
Parted,' or the 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'"

Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society, was always
capable of holding his own when he had his pen in his hand. And even
at the outset of this comedy one sees how much he has gained in
literary confidence since the writing of the _Good-natured Man_. Here
there is no anxious stiffness at all; but a brisk, free conversation,
full of point that is not too formal, and yet conveying all the
information that has usually to be crammed into a first scene. In
taking as the groundwork of his plot that old adventure that had
befallen himself--his mistaking a squire's house for an inn--he was
hampering himself with something that was not the less improbable
because it had actually happened; but we begin to forget all the
improbabilities through the naturalness of the people to whom we are
introduced, and the brisk movement and life of the piece.

Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go; but the wholesome
good-natured fun of _She Stoops