medy; which, though evidently written by a scholar and a man of obfervation, did not please equal to its merits. Many parts of it exhibit the ftrongest indications of his comic talents. There is, perhaps, no character on the stage more happily imagined and more highly finished than Croaker's. His reading of the incendiary letter in the fourth act 2) was received with a roar of approbation. Goldfmith himfelf was fo charmed with the performance of fhuter a) in that character, that he thanked him before all the performers, telling him, he had exceeded his own idea of the character, and that the fine comic richness of his colouring made it almoft appear as new to him as to any other perfon in the house." The prologue b) was furnifhed by Dr. Johnfon.

The injuftifiable feverity with which this play was treated by the town, irritated his

ausserdem giebt es noch ein kleines am Haymarket, worauf aber nur im Sommer, wenn die beiden grofsen Schaubühnen geschlossen find (d. h. von den ersten Wochen des Junius an bis in die Mitte des Septembers) viermal wöchentlich gespielt wird.

2) Anspielung auf den Theil diefes Stücks, wo Croaker durch ein Schreiben bedroht: wird, dafs fein Haus angezündet werden foll, wenn er nicht eine gewiffe Summe an einem ihm bezeichneten Orte deponiren würde. a) Shuter, Name des Schauspielers, welcher, bei den erften Vorstellungen diefes Luftfpiels, die Perfon des Croaker machte.

b) prologue. Auf den Englischen Schaubühnen ist es gewohnlich, dafs jedes Drama feinen befondern Prologus hat (d. i. eine Art Vorrede, welche vor dem Anfange des Stücks an die Zuhörer gehalten wird), den insgemein ein Freund des Dichters macht. Die Engländer haben diefes von den Stücken des Plautus und Terenz entlehnt,

feelings much, and what added to the irritation, was the very great fuccefs of Kelly's) ,,Falfe Delicacy, which appeared at the other house d), juft at the fame time.

Such was the taste of the town for fentimental writing, in which this comedy abounds, that it was played every night to crowded audiences; ten thousand copies of the play were fold that season, and the booksellers concerned in the profits of it, not only prefented Kelly with a piece of plate, value 20 I. e), but gave him a public breakfast at the Chapter coffeehouse f).

The fuccefs of Falfe Delicacy" diffolved the intimacy between Kelly and Goldsmith; who, though the type of his own Good-natured Man, in every other refpect, yet in point of authorship and particularly in poetry

"Could bear no rival near his throne g).“ Had Kelly been content to keep in the back ground, Goldfmith would have fhared his laft guinea h) with him, and in doing it would have felt all the fine influences of his good

1

c) Hugh Kelly, ein 1777 gestorbener dramatischer Dichter. Seine Werke find 1779 erschienen. Er war ein Landsmann Goldsmith's.

d) at the other house, d. i. im Drury- Lane Theater. e) Abkürzung für pound.

f) the Chapter coffeehouse, ein Kaffeehaus zwischen der Paulskirche und dem Paternofter- Row, eine Gegend, in der viele Buchhändler wohnen.

g) Verfe von Pope, die in einem Gemälde vorkommen, welches diefer Dichter von Addison, anter dem Namen Atticus, entwirft.

h) guinea, f. Kap. 3. S. 19. des Vicar.

nature; but to contend for the bow of Ulyffes, ,,this was a fault; that way envy lay i

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Goldsmith cannot be acquitted of all manner of blame in his enmity to Kelly, who was a very deferving man, and, by the pu blication of his, Thefpis," "Babbler," fome novels, and ,,Falfe Delicacy," had raised himfelf much into public notice and what juftly increased it, was the confideration of his doing all this from an humble beginning, and a very narrow education. He had a growing family too, which he supported with decency and reputation.

Though the fame of his Good-natured Man did not bear him triumphantly through; yet, by the profits of his nine nights, and the fale of the copy, he cleared five hundred pounds. With this, and the favings made by his compilations of a Roman Hiftory, in 2 vols. 8vo, and a Hiftory of England, in 4 vols. 8vo, which he used to call; buil ding a book he defcended from his attic story k) in the Staircase, Inner-Temple, and purchafed chambers in Brooke - Court, Middle - Temple ), for which he gave four hundred pounds. Thefe he furnished rather in an elegant man

i) Wahrscheinlich eine Anspielung auf die Freier, welche fich um die Hand der Penelope, der Gattin des Ulyffes bewarben, und von diefem Helden bei feiner Rückkehr von einer vieljährigen Irrfahrt aufgefordert wurden, feinen Bogen zu Spannen, welches fie nicht vermochten. k) attic ftory, das höchfte Gefchofs in einem Haufe.

1) Es ift in diefer Stelle ganz eigentlich vom Kaufen einer Wohnung die Rede. In den Inns of Court kanu man mehrere Zimmer, auch ganze Etagen käuflich en fich bringen.

ner, fitted up and enlarged his library, and commenced quite a man of lettered ease and confequence.

About this time he was concerned in a fortnightly publication, called The Gentleman's Journal m), in conjunction with Dr. Kenrick "), Bickerstaff 0) etc., which was foon difcontinued. When a friend was observing what an extraordinary fudden death it had, ,,Not at all, Sir," fays Goldfmith,,,a very common cafe, it died of too many doctors."

His next original publication was The Deferted Village, which came out in the Spring of 1770, and had a very rapid fale. He received a hundred pounds for the copy from Mr. Griffin his bookfeller, which he returned, under an idea of its being too much; and his way of computation was this: „That it was near Tive fhillings a couplet, which was more than any bookfeller could afford or indeed more than any modern poetry was worth." He, however, loft nothing by his generofity, as the bookfeller paid him the hundred pounds, which the rapid fale of the poem foon enabled him to do- He was, by his own confession, four or five years collecting materials in all his

m) Titel einer, übrigens wenig bekannten, periodischen Schrift.

n) Dr. Kenrick, ein zu feiner Zeit ziemlich geehrter Schriftsteller. Man hat von ihm einige dramatische Arbeiten, z. B. Falstaff's marriage, eine Nachahmung Shakespeare's.

Bickerstaff, ein gleichfalls geftorbener Schriftsteller. Man hat von ihm einige, noch jetzt fehr geschätzte Opern, als: Love in a Village, the maid of the Mill etc.

country excurfions for this poem, and was actually engaged in the construction of it above Dr. Johnson furnished the four

two years. laft lines.

The year following, he prefixed a Life of Parnell P), to a new edition of his ,,Poems on Several Occafions," by T. Davies, 8vo; a performance worthy of Parnell's genius and amiable difpofition.

His next orginal work was his comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, or the Miftakes of a Night, which was acted at Covent Garden, in 1772; and notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Colman 9) and fome others, that there were parts in it too farcical, it met with great fuccefs, and restored the public tafte to his good opinion. The first night of its performance, instead of being at the theatre, he was found fauntering between seven and eight o'clock in St. James's Park r), and it was on the remonftrance of a friend, who told him how,,ufeful his prefence might be in making fome fudden alterations which might be found necessary in the piece, that he was prevailed. upon to go to the theatre. He entered the

p) Thomas Parnell wurde 1679 zu Dublin geboren, und Starb 1717. Seine Gedichte, unter denen einige fehr gefchätzt werden, erschienen unter andern zu London 1760, unter dem Titel: Poems on feveral occafions, written by Thomas Parnell, and publifh'd by A. Pope; Zu diefer 1770 wiederum gedruckten Ausgabe fügte Goldfinith das Leben des Dichters hinzu.

q) Colman, ein guter dramatischer Schriftsteller, dessen Werke zu London im Jahre 1777 in 8. erschienen find. Er war Direktor des Haymarket Theaters.

1) f. Kap. 20. S. 152. des Vicar.