ce" he described it as "a farce, as it was d--d at
the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." This was a following of Ben Jonson's
example, who, publishing his "New Inn," makes mention of it as a
comedy "never acted, but most negligently played by some of the king's
servants, and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others the
king's subjects, 1629; and now, at last, set at liberty to the
readers, his majesty's servants and subjects, to be judged of, 1631."

There is something pathetic in the way Southerne, the veteran
dramatist, in 1726, bore the condemnation of his comedy of "Money the
Mistress," at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. The audience hissed
unmercifully. Rich, the manager, asked the old man, as he stood in the
wings, "if he heard what they were doing?" "No, sir," said Southerne
calmly, "I'm very deaf." On the first representation of "She Stoops to
Conquer," a solitary hiss was heard during the fifth act at the
improbability of Mrs. Hardcastle, in her own garden, supposing herself
forty miles off on Crackskull Common. "What's that?" cried Goldsmith,
not a little alarmed at the sound. "Psha! doctor," replied Colman,
"don't be afraid of a squib when we have been sitting these two hours
on a barrel of gunpowder." Goldsmith is said never to have forgiven
Colman his ill-timed pleasantry. The hiss seems to have been really a
solitary and exceptional one. It was ascribed by one journal to
Cumberland, by another to Hugh Kelly, and by a third, in a parody on
"Ossian," to Macpherson, who was known to be hostilely inclined
towards Johnson and all his friends. The disapprobation excited by the
capital scene of the bailiffs in Goldsmith's earlier comedy, "The
Good-natured Man," had been of a more general and alarming kind,
however, and was only appeased by the omission of this portion of the
work. Goldsmith suffered exquisite distress. Before his friends, at
the club in Gerrard Street, he exerted him greatly to hide the fact of
his discomfiture; chatted gaily and noisily, and even sang his
favourite comic song with which he was wont to oblige the company only
on special occasions. But alone with Johnson he fairly broke down,
confessed the anguish of his heart, burst into tears, and swore he
would never write more. The condemnation incurred by "The Rivals," on
its first performance, led to its being withdrawn for revision and
amendment. In his preface to the published play Sheridan wrote: "I see
no reason why an author should no