orest, made him
not so poor but that Irishmen poorer still could live on him; that
aspect of the glorious "idiot in affairs" which could make to the Earl
of Northumberland, willing to be kind, no other suggestion of his wants
than that he had a _brother_ in Ireland, "poor, a clergyman, and much in
need of help." Similarly might those rare creations Croaker and Jack
Lofty be traced to their predecessors in the field of drama, even though
remote. That they had their analogies in the life of Goldsmith, and have
them in the lives of others, it is unnecessary to prove. But graphic as
these characters are, they cannot make of 'The Good-natured Man' more
than a passable second to 'She Stoops to Conquer.' For the premises of
the plot are absurd, if not impossible; the complication is not much
more natural than that of a Punch-and-Judy show, and the denouement but
one shade less improbable than that of 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' The
value of the play is principally historical, not aesthetic.

Congreve's 'Love for Love,' Vanbrugh's 'Relapse, Farquhar's 'Beaux'
Stratagem,' Goldsmith's 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and Sheridan's 'School
for Scandal,' are the best comedies written since Jonson, Fletcher, and
Massinger held the stage. In plot and diction 'She Stoops to Conquer' is
equaled by Congreve; in character-drawing by Vanbrugh; in dramatic ease
by Farquhar, in observation and wit by Sheridan: but by none is it
equaled in humor, and in naturalness of dialogue it is _facile
princeps_. Here again the characterization presents the twofold charm of
universality and reality. Young Marlow is the traditional lover of the
type of Young Bellair, Mirabell, and Aimwell, suggesting each in turn
but different from all; he is also, in his combination of embarrassment
and impudence, not altogether unlike the lad Oliver who, years ago, on a
journey back to school, had mistaken Squire Featherstone's house in
Ardagh for an inn.

A similar adjustment of dramatic type and historic individual
contributes to the durability of Tony Lumpkin. In his _dramatis persona_
he is a practical joker of the family of Diccon and Truewit, and first
cousin on the Blenkinsop side to that horse-flesh Sir Harry Beagle. But
Anthony is more than the practical joker or the squire booby: he is a
near relative of Captain O'Blunder and that whole countryside of
generous, touch-and-go Irishmen; while in reality, _in propria persona_,
he is that aspect of Noll Goldsmith that "li