he brushed off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables followed behind."

We need not follow the vanished venison--which did not make its
appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke--further
than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did
not deserve to have his name associated with such a clever and
careless _jeu d'esprit_.

CHAPTER XVI.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

But the writing of smart verses could not keep Dr. Goldsmith alive,
more especially as dinner-parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar
diversions pressed heavily on his finances. When his _History of
England_ appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day accused him of
having been bribed by the Government to betray the liberties of the
people:[3] a foolish charge. What Goldsmith got for the _English
History_ was the sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all
spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an abridgment of the
work. Then, by this time, he had persuaded Griffin to advance him the
whole of the eight hundred guineas for the _Animated Nature_, though
he had only done about a third part of the book. At the instigation of
Newbery he had begun a story after the manner of the _Vicar of
Wakefield_; but it appears that such chapters as he had written were
not deemed to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned. The
fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another method of replenishing
his purse. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ had brought him little but
reputation; the _Good-natured Man_ had brought him L500. It was to the
stage that he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough in
which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a comedy; and that
comedy was _She Stoops to Conquer_.

[Footnote 3: "God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my
head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as
Squire Richard says, 'would do no harm to nobody.'"--Goldsmith to
Langton, September, 1771.]

In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to this play on its
appearance in type, Goldsmith hints that the attempt to write a comedy
not of the sentimental order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing;
and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various stages, was of
this opinion too. Colman threw cold water on the undertaking from the
very beginning. It was only extreme pressure on the part of
Goldsmith's friends that induced--or rather compelled--him to a