Chapter 38

A NEWSPAPER ATTACK--THE EVANS AFFRAY--JOHNSON'S COMMENT

The triumphant success of She Stoops to Conquer brought forth, of course, those carpings and cavilings of underling scribblers which are the thorns and briers in the path of successful authors.

Goldsmith, though easily nettled by attacks of the kind, was at present too well satisfied with the reception of his comedy to heed them; but the following anonymous letter, which appeared in a public paper, was not to be taken with equal equanimity:

[FOR THE LONDON PACKET.]

"TO DR. GOLDSMITH.

"Vous vous noyez par vanité.

"SIR,

The happy knack which you have learned of puffing your own compositions, provokes me to come forth. You have not been the editor of newspapers and magazines not to discover the trick of literary humbug; but the gauze is so thin that the very foolish part of the world see through it, and discover the doctor's monkey face and cloven foot. Your poetic vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man believe it, and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours the great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque orang-outang's figure in a pier-glass? Was but the lovely H--k as much enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same bard of Bedlam ring the changes in the praise of Goldy! But what has he to be either proud or vain of? The Traveler is a flimsy poem, built upon false principles--principles diametrically opposite to liberty. What is The Good-Natured Man but a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose? What is The Deserted Village but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without fancy, dignity, genius, or fire? And, pray, what may be the last speaking pantomime, so praised by the doctor himself, but an incoherent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made to laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for wit, and grimace for humor; wherein every scene is unnatural and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature and of the drama; viz., two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, eat, drink, etc., and take it for an inn. The one is intended as a lover for the daughter; he talks with her for some hours; and, when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. The squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the most sensible being of the piece; and he makes out a whole act by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and that he has come to cut their throats; and, to give his cousin an opportunity to go off, he drives his mother over hedges, ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole