line,

"Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe,"

or

"On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side."

In his "Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning" (1759)
Goldsmith pronounces the age one of literary decay; he deplores the vogue
of blank verse--which he calls an "erroneous innovation"--and the
"disgusting solemnity of manner" that it has brought into fashion. He
complains of the revival of old plays upon the stage. "Old pieces are
revived, and scarcely any new ones admitted. . . The public are again
obliged to ruminate over those ashes of absurdity which were disgusting
to our ancestors even in an age of ignorance. . . What must be done?
Only sit down contented, cry up all that comes before us and advance even
the absurdities of Shakspere. Let the reader suspend his censure; I
admire the beauties of this great father of our stage as much as they
deserve, but could wish, for the honor of our country, and for his own
too, that many of his scenes were forgotten. A man blind of one eye
should always be painted in profile. Let the spectator who assists at
any of these new revived pieces only ask himself whether he would approve
such a performance, if written by a modern poet. I fear he will find
that much of his applause proceeds merely from the sound of a name and an
empty veneration for antiquity. In fact, the revival of those _pieces of
forced humor, far-fetched conceit and unnatural hyperbole which have been
ascribed to Shakspere_, is rather gibbeting than raising a statue to his
memory."

The words that I have italicized make it evident that what Goldsmith was
really finding fault with was the restoration of the original text of
Shakspere's plays, in place of the garbled versions that had hitherto
been acted. This restoration was largely due to Garrick, but Goldsmith's
language implies that the reform was demanded by public opinion and by
the increasing "veneration for antiquity." The next passage shows that
the new school had its _claque_, which rallied to the support of the old
British drama as the French romanticists did, nearly a century later, to
the support of Victor Hugo's _melodrames_.[13]

"What strange vamped comedies, farcical tragedies, or what shall I call
them--speaking pantomimes have we not of late seen?. . . The piece
pleases our critics because it talks Old English; and it pleases the
galleries because it has ribaldry. . . A prologue generally precedes the
piece, to