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Temple, Garden Court;
July 19th

Dear Sir,

I am very much obliged to you, both for your kindspartiality in my favour, and your tenderness in shortening

the interval

of my expres tation. That the play is bable many objectious

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will complete your

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into fuck a state be acted, or of directing how to do it I shall ever retani a feuse of your good ness to

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Having taken this decisive step, Goldsmith wrote on the following day to the now rival manager, who had left town for Litchfield; and, though his letter shows the coolness which had arisen between them, it is a curious proof of his deference to the sensitiveness of Garrick that he should use only the name of the old Covent Garden patentee, and put forth what he had recently done with his play under cover of

his original intention in respect to it.

6

London, July 20, 1767, and runs thus.

His letter is dated

'Sir, A few days ago Mr. Beard renewed his claim to the piece which I

' had written for his stage, and had as a friend submitted 'to your perusal. As I found you had very great diffi'culties about that piece, I complied with his desire; thinking it wrong to take up the attention of my friends 'with such petty concerns as mine, or to load your good 'nature by a compliance rather with their requests than 'my merits. I am extremely sorry that you should think me warm at our last meeting; your judgment certainly 'ought to be free, especially in a matter which must in some measure concern your own credit and interest. I assure you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this or any other account, but am with an high 'opinion of your abilities and a very real esteem, sir, your 'most obedient humble servant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH.' To this Garrick answered by a letter dated five days later from Litchfield, in these terms. 'Sir, I was at Bir'mingham when your letter came to this place, or I should 'have answered and thanked you for it immediately. I

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was indeed much hurt that your warmth at our last 'meeting mistook my sincere and friendly attention to 'your play, for the remains of a former misunderstanding 'which I had as much forgot as if it had never existed. 'What I said to you at my own house I now repeat, that 'I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you pos

sibly would in receiving them. It has been the business,

' and ever will be, of my life, to live on the best terms 'with men of genius; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith 'will have no reason to change his previous friendly dis'position towards me, as I shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how much I am his obedient 'servant and well-wisher, D. GARRICK.'

Thus fairly launched was this great theatrical rivalry ; which received even additional zest from the spirit with which Foote now began his first regular campaign in the Haymarket, by right of the summer patent the Duke of York had obtained for him (compensation for the accident at Lord Mexborough's the preceding summer, when a practical joke of the Duke's cost Foote his leg), and with help of the two great reinforcements already secured for Drury Lane, of Barry and his betrothed Mrs. Dancer, afterward his wife. They played in a poor and somewhat absurd tragedy called the Countess of Salisbury, which had made a vast sensation in Dublin; and it is related of Goldsmith, as an instance of the zeal with which he had embarked against the Drury Lane party, that he took whimsical occasion during its performance of suddenly turning a crowded, and, till then, favourable audience, against the Countess and her representative, by ludicrous allusion to another sort of actress then figuring on a wider stage. He had sat out four foolish acts with great calmness and apparent temper; but as the plot thickened in the fifth, and blood and slaughter came crowding on the scene, he rose from his seat in a great hurry, cried out very audibly,

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