The Project Gutenberg EBook of She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith

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Title: She Stoops to Conquer
or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy.

Author: Oliver Goldsmith

Posting Date: July 11, 2008 [EBook #383]
Release Date: December, 1995

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER ***

Produced by G. R. Young

"SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER"

by Oliver Goldsmith

She Stoops To Conquer; Or, The Mistakes Of A Night.

A Comedy.

To Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Dear Sir,--By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean
so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to
inform the public, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you.
It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the
greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most
unaffected piety.

I have, particularly, reason to thank you for your partiality to this
performance. The undertaking a comedy not merely sentimental was very
dangerous; and Mr. Colman, who saw this piece in its various stages,
always thought it so. However, I ventured to trust it to the public;
and, though it was necessarily delayed till late in the season, I have
every reason to be grateful.

I am, dear Sir, your most sincere friend and admirer,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

PROLOGUE,

By David Garrick, Esq.

Enter MR. WOODWARD, dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief
to his eyes.

Excuse me, sirs, I pray--I can't yet speak--
I'm crying now--and have been all the week.
"'Tis not alone this mourning suit," good masters:
"I've that within"--for which there are no plasters!
Pray, would you know the reason why I'm crying?
The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying!
And if she goes, my tears will never stop;
For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop:
I am undone, that's all--shall lose my bread--
I'd rather, but that's nothing--lose my head.
When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier,
Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here.
To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,
Who deals in sentimenta