INTRODUCTION.

THE

HE comedy of "The Good-natured Man" was the first dramatic effort of Goldsmith. After many discouragements and delays, he succeeded in putting it on the stage of Covent Garden on the 29th of January, 1768. As an acting play, it never was permanently successful; nevertheless, its merits, as a dramatic composition, are far beyond those of many that retain their hold of the public favour. The plot is excellent : full of ingenious complications, well-contrived situations, and agreeable surprises that keep the interest ever alive. The dialogue, though it occasionally flags, is for the most part lively and pointed; sometimes felicitous in the extreme. There are fine strokes of wit, and much humour; sometimes broad, but never offensive, with a good deal of genuine sentiment. The character of Croaker is unique. It would be entirely original, did not the "Suspirius" of Dr. Johnson ("Rambler,” No. 59) furnish Goldsmith with the crude idea, which he has so happily amplified and finished. Mrs. Croaker, whose sprightliness "could spread a horse-laugh through the pews of a tabernacle," contrasts charmingly with her husband. The by-plot between Leontine and Olivia gives rise to the happiest misapprehensions, and the letter of the lady's maid, which Croaker mistakes for that of an incendiary, is the most ingenious contrivance, as it was the greatest hit of the piece. One scene-that in which the bailiffs are introduced as friends of young Honeywood-met with most unmerited disapproval, and well-nigh turned the tide against the piece. The scene was "retrenched in representation," but retained entire in the printed copies, and ultimately restored upon the stage as one of the most attractive parts of the play. "Now-a-days," as Mr. Forster justly observes, "it is difficult to understand the objection which condemned it."

THE GOOD NATURED MAN

ACT X.

SCENE I.—An apartment in YOUNG HONEYWOOD'S House.

Enter SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD, and JARVIS.

Sir Will. Good Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness. Fidelity like yours is the best excuse for every freedom.

Farvis. I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my master. All the world loves him.

Sir Will. Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

Farvis. I'm sure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are, though he has not seen you since he was a child.

Sir Will. What signifies his affection to me? or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb finds an easy entrance?

Farvis. I grant that he's rather too good-natured; that he's too much. every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another but whose instructions may he thank for all this?

Sir Will. Not mine, sure! My letters to him during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend, his

errors.

Farvis. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm sorry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only served to spoil him. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an errant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't, I'm always sure he's going to play the fool.

Sir Will

Don't let us ascribe his faults to his philosophy, I entreat you. No, Jarvis, his good nature arises rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy.

Farvis. What it rises from, I don't know. But, to be sure, everybody has it that asks it.

Sir Will. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a concealed spectator of his follies, and find them as boundless as his dissipation. Farvis. And yet, he has some fine name or other for them all. He calls

his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting everybody, universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was 'the name he gave it.

Sir Will. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, though with very little hopes, to reclaim him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is, to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity; to arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.

Jarvis. Well, if I could but any way see him thoroughly vexed, every groan of his would be music to me; yet, I believe it is impossible. I have tried to fret him myself every morning these three years; but, instead of being angry, he sits as calmly to hear me scold, as he does to his hairdresser.

Sir Will. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant to put my scheme into execution; and I don't despair of succeeding, as by your means I can have frequent opportunities of being about him, without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good-will to others should produce so much neglect of himself, as to require correction! Yet, we must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. (Exit.) Jarvis. Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reason that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes his hopeful nephew; the strange, good-natured, foolish, open-hearted. And yet, all his faults are such that one loves him still the better for them.

Enter HONEYWOOD.

Honeywood. Well, Jarvis, what messages from my friends this morning? Jarvis. You have no friends.

Honeywood. Well, from my acquaintance then?

Jarvis. (Pulling out bills.) A few of our usual cards of compliment, that's all. This bill from your tailor; this from your mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed.

Honeywood. That I don't know; but I'm more sure we were at a great deal of trouble in getting him to lend it.

Jarvis. He has lost all patience.

Honeywood. Then he has lost a very good thing.

Jarvis. There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would stop his mouth, for a while at least.

Honeywood. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the meantime?