Goldsmith was delighted to find that the Jessamy Bride seemed free from care. He had gone to Reynolds' in fear and trembling lest he should hear that she was unable to join the party; but now he found her in as merry a mood as he had ever known her to be in. He was seated by her side at dinner, and he was glad to find that there was upon her no trace of the mysterious mood that had spoiled his pleasure at the Pantheon.
She had, of course, heard of the troubles at the playhouse, and she told him that nothing would induce her ever to speak to Colman, though she said that she and Little Comedy, when they had first heard of the intention of the manager to withdraw the piece, had resolved to go together to the theatre and demand its immediate production on the finest scale possible.
“There's still great need for some one who will be able to influence Colman in that respect,” said Goldsmith. “Only to-day, when I ventured to talk of a fresh scene being painted, He told me that it was not his intention to proceed to such expense for a piece that would not be played for longer than a small portion of one evening.”
“The monster!” cried the girl. “I should like to talk to him as I feel about this. What, is he mad enough to expect that playgoers will tolerate his wretched old scenery in a new comedy? Oh, clearly he needs some one to be near him who will speak plainly to him and tell him how contemptible he is. Your friend Dr. Johnson should go to him. The occasion is one that demands the powers of a man who has a whole dictionary at his back—yes, Dr. Johnson should go to him and threaten that if he does not behave handsomely he will, in his next edition of the Dictionary, define a scoundrel as a playhouse manager who keeps an author in suspense for months, and then produces his comedy so ungenerously as to make its failure a certainty. But, no, your play will be the greater success on account of its having to overcome all the obstacles which Mr. Colman has placed in its way.”
“I know, dear child, that if it depended on your good will it would be the greatest success of the century,” said he.
“And so it will be—oh, it must be! Little Comedy and I will—oh, we shall insist on the playgoers liking it! We will sit in front of a box and lead all the applause, and we will, besides, keep stern eyes fixed upon any one who may have the bad taste to decline to follow us.”
“You are kindness itself, my dear; and meanwhile, if you would come to the remaining rehearsals, and spend all your spare time thinking out a suitable name for the play you would be conferring an additional favour upon an ill-treated author.”
“I will do both, and it will be strange if I do not succeed in at least one of the two enterprises—the first being the changing of the mistakes of a manager into the success of a night, and the second the changing of the 'Mistakes of a Night' into the success of a manager—ay, and of an author as well.”
“Admirably spoke!” cried the author. “I have a mind to let the name 'The Mistakes of a Night' stand, you have made such a pretty play upon it.”
“No, no; that is not the kind of play to fill the theatre,” said she. “Oh, do not be afraid; it will be very strange if between us we cannot hit upon a title that will deserve, if not a coronet, at least a wreath of laurel.” Sir Joshua, who was sitting at the head of the table, not far away, had put up his ear-trumpet between the courses, and caught a word or two of the girl's sentence.
“I presume that you are still discussing the great title question,” said he. “You need not do so. Have I not given you my assurance that 'The Belle's Stratagem' is the best name that the play could receive?”
“Nay, that title Dr. Goldsmith holds to be one of the 'mistakes of a Knight!'” said Mr. Bunbury in a low tone. He delighted in a pun, but did not like too many people to hear him make one.
“'The Belle's Stratagem' I hold to be a good enough title until we get a better,” said Goldsmith. “I have confidence in the ingenuity of Miss Horneck to discover the better one.”
“Nay, I protest if you do not take my title I shall go to the playhouse and damn the play,” said Reynolds. “I have given it its proper name, and if it appears in public under any other it will have earned the reprobation of all honest folk who detest analias.”
“Then that name shall stand,” said Goldsmith. “I give you my word, Sir Joshua, I would rather see my play succeed under your title than have it damned under a title given to it by the next best man to you in England.”
“That is very well said, indeed,” remarked Sir Joshua. “It gives evidence of a certain generosity of feeling on your part which all should respect.”
Miss Kauffman, who sat at Sir Joshua's right, smiled a trifle vaguely, for she had not quite understood the drift of Goldsmith's phrase, but from the other end of the table there came quite an outburst of laughter. Garrick sat there with Mrs. Bunbury and Baretti, to whom he was telling an imaginary story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room.
Dr. Burney, who sat at the other side of the table, had ventured to question the likelihood of an audience's apprehending the humour of the story at which Diggory had only hinted. He wondered if the story should not be told for the benefit of the playgoers.
A gentleman whom Bunbury had brought to dinner—his name was Colonel Gwyn, and it was known that he was a great admirer of Mary Horneck—took up the question quite seriously.
“For my part,” he said, “I admit frankly that I have never heard the story of Grouse in the gun-room.”
“Is it possible, sir?” cried Garrick. “What, you mean to say that you are not familiar with the reply of Ould Grouse to the young woman who asked him how he found his way into the gun-room when the door was locked—that about every gun having a lock, and so forth?”
“No, sir,” cried Colonel Gwyn. “I had no idea that the story was a familiar one. It seems interesting, too.”
“Oh, 't is amazingly interesting,” said Garrick. “But you are an army man, Colonel Gwyn; you have heard it frequently told over the mess-table.”
“I protest, sir,” said Colonel Gwyn, “I know so little about it that I fancied Ould Grouse was the name of a dog—I have myself known of sporting dogs called Grouse.”
“Oh, Colonel, you surprise me,” cried Garrick. “Ould Grouse a dog! Pray do not hint so much to Dr. Goldsmith. He is a very sensitive man, and would feel greatly hurt by such a suggestion. I believe that Dr. Goldsmith was an intimate friend of Ould Grouse and felt his death severely.”
“Then he is dead?” said Gwyn. “That, sir, gives a melancholy interest to the narrative.”
“A particularly pathetic interest, sir,” said Garrick, shaking his head. “I was not among his intimates, Colonel Gwyn, but when I reflect that that dear simple-minded old soul is gone from us—that the gunroom door is now open, but that within there is silence—no sound of the dear old feet that were wont to patter and potter—you will pardon my emotion, madam”—He turned with streaming eyes to Miss Reynolds, who forthwith became sympathetically affected, her voice breaking as she endeavoured to assure Garrick that his emotion, so far from requiring an apology, did him honour. Bunbury, who was ready to roar, could not do so now without seeming to laugh at the feeling of his hostess, and his wife had too high an appreciation of comedy not to be able to keep her face perfectly grave, while a sob or two that he seemed quite unable to suppress came from the napkin which Garrick held up to his face. Baretti said something in Italian to Dr. Burney across the table, about the melancholy nature of the party, and then Garrick dropped his napkin, saying—
“'T is selfish to repine, and he himself—dear old soul!—would be the last to countenance a show of melancholy; for, as his remarks in the gun-room testify, Colonel Gwyn, he had a fine sense of humour. I fancy I see him, the broad smile lighting up his homely features, as he delivered that sly thrust at his questioner, for it is perfectly well known, Colonel, that so far as poaching was concerned the other man had no particular character in the neighbourhood.”
“Oh, Grouse was a poacher, then,” said the Colonel.
“Well, if the truth must be told—but no, the man is dead and gone now,” cried Garrick, “and it is more generous only to remember, as we all do, the nimbleness of his wit—the genial mirth which ran through the gun-room after that famous sally of his. It seems that honest homely fun is dying out in England; the country stands in need of an Ould Grouse or two just now, and let us hope that when the story of that quiet, yet thoroughly jovial, remark of his in the gun-room comes to be told in the comedy, there will be a revival of the good old days when men were not afraid to joke, sir, and——”
“But so far as I can gather from what Mrs. Bunbury, who heard the comedy read, has told me, the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room is never actually narrated, but only hinted at,” said Gwyn.
“That makes little matter, sir,” said Garrick. “The untold story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room will be more heartily laughed at during the next year or two than the best story of which every detail is given.”
“At any rate, Colonel Gwyn,” said Mrs. Bunbury, “after the pains which Mr. Garrick has taken to acquaint you with the amplest particulars of the story you cannot in future profess to be unacquainted with it.” Colonel Gwyn looked puzzled.
“I protest, madam,” said he, “that up to the present—ah! I fear that the very familiarity of Mr. Garrick with the story has caused him to be led to take too much for granted. I do not question the humour, mind you—I fancy that I am as quick as most men to see a joke, but——”
This was too much for Bunbury and Burney. They both roared with laughter, which increased in volume as the puzzled look upon Colonel Gwyn's face was taken up by Garrick, as he glanced first at Burney and then at Little Comedy's husband. Poor Miss Reynolds, who could never quite make out what was going on around her in that strange household where she had been thrown by an ironical fate, looked gravely at the ultra-grave Garrick, and then smiled artificially at Dr. Burney with a view of assuring him that she understood perfectly how he came to be merry.
“Colonel Gwyn,” said Garrick, “these gentlemen seem to have their own reasons for merriment, but I think you and I can better discriminate when to laugh and when to refrain from laughter. And yet—ah, I perceive they are recalling the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room, and that, sure enough, would convulse an Egyptian mummy or a statue of Nestor; and the funny part of the business is yet to come, for up to the present I don't believe that I told you that the man had actually been married for some years.”
He laughed so heartily that Colonel Gwyn could not refrain from joining in, though his laughter was a good deal less hearty than that of any of the others who had enjoyed Garrick's whimsical fun.
When the men were left alone at the table, there was some little embarrassment owing to the deficiency of glass, for Sir Joshua, who was hospitable to a fault, keeping an open house and dining his friends every evening, could never be persuaded to replace the glass which chanced to be broken. Garrick made an excuse of the shortness of port-glasses at his end of the table to move up beside Goldsmith, whom he cheered by telling him that he had already given a lesson to Woodward regarding the speaking of the prologue which he, Garrick, had written for the comedy. He said he believed Woodward would repeat the lines very effectively. When Goldsmith mentioned that Colman declined to have a single scene painted for the production, both Sir Joshua and Garrick were indignant.
“You would have done well to leave the piece in my hands, Noll,” said the latter, alluding to the circumstance of Goldsmith's having sent the play to him on Colman's first refusal to produce it.
“Ah, Davy, my friend,” Goldsmith replied, “I feel more at my ease in reflecting that in another week I shall know the worst—or the best. If the play had remained with you I should feel like a condemned criminal for the next year or two.”
In the drawing-room that evening Garrick and Goldsmith got up the entertainment, which was possibly the most diverting one ever seen in a room.
Goldsmith sat on Garrick's knees with a table-cloth drawn over his head and body, leaving his arms only exposed. Garrick then began reciting long sentimental soliloquies from certain plays, which Goldsmith was supposed to illustrate by his gestures. The form of the entertainment has survived, and sometimes by chance it becomes humourous. But with Garrick repeating the lines and thrilling his audience by his marvellous change of expression as no audience has since been thrilled, and with Goldsmith burlesquing with inappropriately extravagant and wholly amusing gestures the passionate deliverances, it can easily be believed that Sir Joshua's guests were convulsed.
After some time of this division of labour, the position of the two playmates was reversed. It was Garrick who sat on Goldsmith's knees and did the gesticulating, while the poet attempted to deliver his lines after the manner of the player. The effect was even more ludicrous than that of the previous combination; and then, in the middle of an affecting passage from Addison's “Cato,” Goldsmith began to sing the song which he had been compelled to omit from the part of Miss Hardcastle, owing to Mrs. Bulkley's not being a singer. Of course Garrick's gestures during the delivery of the song were marvellously ingenious, and an additional element of attraction was introduced by Dr. Burney, who hastily seated himself at the pianoforte and interwove a medley accompaniment, introducing all the airs then popular, but without prejudice to the harmonies of the accompaniment.
Reynolds stood by the side of his friend, Miss Kauffman, and when this marvellous fooling had come to an end, except for the extra diversion caused by Garrick's declining to leave Goldsmith's knees—he begged the lady to favour the company with an Italian song which she was accustomed to sing to the accompaniment of a guitar. But Miss Angelica shook her head.
“Pray add your entreaties to mine, Miss Horneck,” said Sir Joshua to the Jessamy Bride. “Entreat our Angel of Art to give us the pleasure of hearing her sing.”
Miss Horneck rose, and made an elaborate curtsey before the smiling Angelica.
“Oh, Madame Angel, live forever!” she cried. “Will your Majesty condescend to let us hear your angelic voice? You have already deigned to captivate our souls by the exercise of one art; will you now stoop to conquer our savage hearts by the exercise of another?”
A sudden cry startled the company, and at the same instant Garrick was thrown on his hands and knees on the floor by the act of Goldsmith's springing to his feet.
“By the Lord, I've got it!” shouted Goldsmith. “The Jessamy Bride has given it to me, as I knew she would—the title of my comedy—she has just said it: 'She Stoops to Conquer.'”
As a matter of course, Colman objected to the new title when Goldsmith communicated it to him the next day; but the latter was firm on this particular point. He had given the play its name, he said, and he would not alter it now on any consideration.
Colman once again shrugged his shoulders. The production of the play gave him so much practice at shrugging, Goldsmith expressed his regret at not being able to introduce the part of a Frenchman, which he said he believed the manager would play to perfection.
But when Johnson, who attended the rehearsal with Miss Reynolds, the whole Horneck family, Cradock and Murphy, asserted, as he did with his customary emphasis, that no better title than “She Stoops to Conquer” could be found for the comedy, Colman made no further objections, and the rehearsal was proceeded with.
“Nay, sir,” cried Johnson, when Goldsmith was leaving his party in a box in order to go upon the stage, “Nay, sir, you shall not desert us. You must stay by us to let us know when the jests are spoken, so that we may be fully qualified to laugh at the right moments when the theatre is filled. Why, Goldy, you would not leave us to our own resources?”
“I will be the Lieutenant Cook of the comedy, Dr. Johnson,” said Miss Horneck—Lieutenant Cook and his discoveries constituted the chief topics of the hour. “I believe that I know so much of the dialogue as will enable me to pilot you, not merely to the Otaheite of a jest, but to a whole archipelago of wit.”
“Otaheite is a name of good omen,” said Cradock. “It is suggestive of palms, and 'palmam qui meruit ferat.'”
“Sir,” said Johnson, “you should know better than to quote Latin in the presence of ladies. Though your remark is not quite so bad as I expected it would be, yet let me tell you, sir, that unless the wit in the comedy is a good deal livelier than yours, it will have a poor chance with the playgoers.”
“Oh, sir, Dr. Goldsmith's wit is greatly superior to mine,” laughed Cradock. “Otherwise it would be my comedy that would be in rehearsal, and Dr. Goldsmith would be merely on a level with us who constitute his critics.”
Goldsmith had gone on the stage and the rehearsal had begun, so that Johnson was enabled, by pretending to give all his attention to the opening dialogue, to hide his lack of an effective reply to Cradock for his insolence in suggesting that they were both on the same level as critics.
Before Shuter, as Old Hardcastle, had more than begun to drill his servants, the mighty laughter of Dr. Johnson was shaking the box. Every outburst was like the exploding of a bomb, or, as Cradock put it, the broadside coming from the carronade of a three-decker. He had laughed and applauded during the scene at the Three Pigeons—especially the satirical sallies directed against the sentimentalists—but it was the drilling of the servants that excited him most, and he inquired of Miss Horneck—
“Pray what is the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room, my dear?”
When the members of the company learned that it was the great Dr. Samuel Johnson who was roaring with laughter in the box, they were as much amazed as they were encouraged. Colman, who had come upon the stage out of compliment to Johnson, feeling that his position as an authority regarding the elements of diversion in a play was being undermined in the estimation of his company, remarked—
“Your friend Dr. Johnson will be a friend indeed if he comes in as generous a mood to the first representation. I only hope that the playgoers will not resent his attempt to instruct them on the subject of your wit.”
“I don't think that there is any one alive who will venture to resent the instruction of Dr. Johnson,” said Goldsmith quietly.
The result of this rehearsal and of the three rehearsals that followed it during the week, was more than encouraging to the actors, and it became understood that Woodward and Gentleman Smith were ready to admit their regret at having relinquished the parts for which they had been originally cast. The former had asked to be permitted to speak the prologue, which Garrick had written, and, upon which, as he had told Goldsmith, he had already given a hint or two to Woodward.
The difficulty of the epilogue, however, still remained. The one which Murphy had written for Mrs. Bulkley was objected to by Miss Catley, who threatened to leave the company if Mrs. Bulkley, who had been merely thrust forward to take Mrs. Abington's place, were entrusted with the epilogue; and, when Cradock wrote another for Miss Catley, Mrs. Bulkley declared that if Miss Catley were allowed the distinction which she herself had a right to claim, she would leave the theatre. Goldsmith's ingenuity suggested the writing of an epilogue in which both the ladies were presented in their true characters as quarreling on the subject; but Colman placed his veto upon this idea and also upon another simple epilogue which the author had written. Only on the day preceding the first performance did Goldsmith produce the epilogue which was eventually spoken by Mrs. Bulkley.
“It seems to me to be a pity to waste so much time discussing an epilogue which will never be spoke,” sneered Colman when the last difficulties had been smoothed over.
Goldsmith walked away without another word, and joined his party, consisting of Johnson, Reynolds, Miss Reynolds, the Bunburys and Mary Horneck. Now that he had done all his work connected with the production of the play—when he had not allowed himself to be overcome by the niggardly behaviour of the manager in declining to spend a single penny either upon the dresses or the scenery, that parting sneer of Colman's almost caused him to break down.
Mary Horneck perceived this, and hastened to say something kind to him. She knew so well what would be truly encouraging to him that she did not hesitate for a moment.
“I am glad I am not going to the theatre to-night,” she said; “my dress would be ruined.”
He tried to smile as he asked her for an explanation.
“Why, surely you heard the way the cleaners were laughing at the humour of the play,” she cried. “Oh, yes, all the cleaners dropped their dusters, and stood around the boxes in fits of laughter. I overheard one of the candle-snuffers say that no play he had seen rehearsed for years contained such wit as yours. I also overheard another man cursing Mr. Col-man for a curmudgeon.”
“You did? Thank God for that; 't is a great responsibility off my mind,” said Goldsmith. “Oh, my dear Jessamy Bride, I know how kind you are, and I only hope that your god-child will turn out a credit to me.”
“It is not merely your credit that is involved in the success of this play, sir,” said Johnson. “The credit of your friends, who insisted on Colman's taking the play, is also at stake.”
“And above all,” said Reynolds pleasantly, “the play must be a success in order to put Colman in the wrong.”
“That is the best reason that could be advanced why its success is important to us all,” said Mary. “It would never do for Colman to be in the right. Oh, we need live in no trepidation; all our credits will be saved by Monday night.”
“I wonder if any unworthy man ever had so many worthy friends,” said Goldsmith. “I am overcome by their kindness, and overwhelmed with a sense of my own unworthiness.”
“You will have another thousand friends by Monday night, sir,” cried Johnson. “Your true friend, sir, is the friend who pays for his seat to hear your play.”
“I always held that the best definition of a true friend is the man who, when you are in the hands of bailiffs, comes to see you, but takes care to send a guinea in advance,” said Goldsmith, and every one present knew that he alluded to the occasion upon which he had been befriended by Johnson on the day that “The Vicar of Wakefield” was sold.
“And now,” said Reynolds, “I have to prove how certain we are of the future of your piece by asking you to join us at dinner on Monday previous to the performance.”
“Commonplace people would invite you to supper, sir, to celebrate the success of the play,” said Johnson. “To proffer such an invitation would be to admit that we were only convinced of your worth after the public had attested to it in the most practical way. But we, Dr. Goldsmith, who know your worth, and have known it all these years, wish to show that our esteem remains independent of the verdict of the public. On Monday night, sir, you will find a thousand people who will esteem it an honour to have you to sup with them; but on Monday afternoon you will dine with us.”
“You not only mean better than any other man, sir, you express what you mean better,” said Goldsmith. “A compliment is doubly a compliment coming from Dr. Johnson.”
He was quite overcome, and, observing this, Reynolds and Mary Horneck walked away together, leaving him to compose himself under the shelter of a somewhat protracted analysis by Dr. Johnson of the character of Young Marlow. In the course of a quarter of an hour Goldsmith had sufficiently recovered to be able to perceive for the first time how remarkable a character he had created.
On Monday George Steevens called for Goldsmith to accompany him to the St. James's coffee-house, where the dinner was to take place. He found the author giving the finishing touches to his toilet, his coat being a salmon-pink in tint, and his waistcoat a pale yellow, embroidered with silver. Filby's bills (unpaid, alas!) prevent one from making any mistake on this point.
“Heavens!” cried the visitor. “Have you forgot that you cannot wear colours?”
“Why not?” asked Goldsmith. “Because Woodward is to appear in mourning to speak the prologue, is that any reason why the author of the comedy should also be in black?”
“Nay,” said Steevens, “that is not the reason. How is it possible that you forget the Court is in mourning for the King of Sardinia? That coat of yours is a splendid one, I allow, but if you were to appear in it in front of your box a very bad impression would be produced. I suppose you hope that the King will command a performance.”
Goldsmith's face fell. He looked at the reflection of the gorgeous garments in a mirror and sighed. He had a great weakness for colour in dress. At last he took off the coat and gave another fond look at it before throwing it over the back of a chair.
“It was an inspiration on your part to come for me, my dear friend,” said he. “I would not for a good deal have made such a mistake.”
He reappeared in a few moments in a suit of sober grey, and drove with his friend to the coffee-house, where the party, consisting of Johnson, Reynolds, Edmund and Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord, had already assembled.
It soon became plain that Goldsmith was extremely nervous. He shook hands twice with Richard Burke and asked him if he had heard that the King of Sardinia was dead, adding that it was a constant matter for regret with him that he had not visited Sardinia when on his travels. He expressed a hope that the death of the King of Sardinia would not have so depressing an effect upon playgoers generally as to prejudice their enjoyment of his comedy.
Edmund Burke, understanding his mood, assured him gravely that he did not think one should be apprehensive on this score, adding that it would be quite possible to overestimate the poignancy of the grief which the frequenters of the pit were likely to feel at so melancholy but, after all, so inevitable an occurrence as the decease of a potentate whose name they had probably never heard.
Goldsmith shook his head doubtfully, and said he would try and hope for the best, but still....
Then he hastened to Steevens, who was laughing heartily at a pun of Whitefoord's, and said he was certain that neither of them could have heard that the King of Sardinia was dead, or they would moderate their merriment.
The dinner was a dismal failure, so far as the guest of the party was concerned. He was unable to swallow a morsel, so parched had his throat become through sheer nervousness, and he could not be induced to partake of more than a single glass of wine. He was evermore glancing at the clock and expressing a hope that the dinner would be over in good time to allow of their driving comfortably to the theatre.
Dr. Johnson was at first greatly concerned on learning from Reynolds that Goldsmith was eating nothing; but when Goldsmith, in his nervousness, began to boast of the fine dinners of which he had partaken at Lord Clare's house, and of the splendour of the banquets which took place daily in the common hall of Trinity College, Dublin, Johnson gave all his attention to his own plate, and addressed no further word to him—not even to remind him, as he described the glories of Trinity College to his friend Burke, that Burke had been at the college with him.
While there was still plenty of time to spare even for walking to the theatre, Goldsmith left the room hastily, explaining elaborately that he had forgotten to brush his hat before leaving his chambers, and he meant to have the omission repaired without delay.
He never returned.
The party remained in the room for some time, and when at last a waiter from the bar was sent for and requested to tell Dr. Goldsmith, who was having his hat brushed, that his party were ready to leave the house, the man stated that Dr. Goldsmith had left some time ago, hurrying in the direction of Pall Mall.
“Psha! sir,” said Johnson to Burke, “Dr. Goldsmith is little better than a fool.” Johnson did not know what such nervousness as Goldsmith's was.
“Yes,” said Burke, “Dr. Goldsmith is, I suppose, the greatest fool that ever wrote the best poem of a century, the best novel of a century, and let us hope that, after the lapse of a few hours, I may be able to say the best comedy of a century.”
“I suppose we may take it for granted that he has gone to the playhouse?” said Richard Burke.
“It is not wise to take anything for granted so far as Goldsmith is concerned,” said Steevens. “I think that the best course we can adopt is for some of us to go to the playhouse without delay. The play must be looked after; but for myself I mean to look after the author. Gentlemen, Oliver Goldsmith needs to be looked after carefully. No one knows what a burden he has been forced to bear during the past month.”
“You think it is actually possible that he has not preceded us to the playhouse, sir,” said Johnson.
“If I know anything of him, sir,” said Steevens, “the playhouse is just the place which he would most persistently avoid.” There was a long pause before Johnson said in his weightiest manner:
“Sir, we are all his friends; we hold you responsible for his safety.”
“That is very kind of you, sir,” replied Steevens. “But you may rest assured that I will do my best to find him, wherever he may be.”
While the rest of the party set out for Covent Garden Theatre, Steevens hurried off in the opposite direction. He felt that he understood Goldsmith's mood. He believed that he would come upon him sitting alone in some little-frequented coffee house brooding over the probable failure of his play. The cheerful optimism of the man, which enabled him to hold out against Colman and his sneers, would, he was convinced, suffer a relapse when there was no urgent reason for its exercise, and his naturally sanguine temperament would at this critical hour of his life give place to a brooding melancholy, making it impossible for him to put in an appearance at the theatre, and driving him far from his friends. Steevens actually made up his mind that if he failed to find Goldsmith during the next hour or two, he would seek him at his cottage on the Edgware road.
He went on foot from coffee house to coffee house—from Jack's, in Dean street, to the Old Bell, in Westminster—but he failed to discover his friend in one of them. An hour and a half he spent in this way; and all this time roars of laughter from every part of the playhouse—except the one box that held Cumberland and his friends—were greeting the brilliant dialogue, the natural characterisation, and the admirably contrived situations in the best comedy that a century of brilliant authors had witnessed.
The scene comes before one with all the vividness that many able pens have imparted to a description of its details. We see the enormous figure of Dr. Johnson leaning far out of the box nearest the stage, with a hand behind his ear, so as to lose no word spoken on the stage; and as phrase after phrase, sparkling with wit, quivering with humour and vivified with numbers of allusions to the events of the hour, is spoken, he seems to shake the theatre with his laughter.
Reynolds is in the opposite corner, his ear-trumpet resting on the ledge of the box, his face smiling thoughtfully; and between these two notable figures Miss Reynolds is seated bolt upright, and looking rather frightened as the people in the pit look up now and again at the box.
Baretti is in the next box with Angelica Kauffman, Dr. Burney and little Miss Fanny Burney, destined in a year or two to become for a time the most notable woman in England. On the other side of the house Lord Clare occupies a box with his charming tom-boy daughter, who is convulsed with laughter as she hears reference made in the dialogue to the trick which she once played upon the wig of her dear friend the author. General Oglethorpe, who is beside her, holds up his finger in mock reproof, and Lord Camden, standing behind his chair, looks as if he regretted having lost the opportunity of continuing his acquaintance with an author whom every one is so highly honouring at the moment.
Cumberland and his friends are in a lower box, “looking glum,” as one witness asserts, though a good many years later Cumberland boasted of having contributed in so marked a way to the applause as to call forth the resentment of the pit.
In the next box Hugh Kelly, whose most noted success at Drury Lane a few years previously eclipsed Goldsmith's “Good-Natured Man” at “the other house,” sits by the side of Macpherson, the rhapsodist who invented “Ossian.” He glares at Dr. Johnson, who had no hesitation in calling him an impostor.
The Burkes, Edmund and Richard, are in a box with Mrs. Horneck and her younger daughter, who follows breathlessly the words with which she has for long been familiar, and at every shout of laughter that comes from the pit she is moved almost to tears. She is quite unaware of the fact that Colonel Gwyn, sitting alone in another part of the house, has his eyes fixed upon her—earnestly, affectionately. Her brother and hisfiancéeare in a box with the Bunburys; and in the most important box in the house Mrs. Thrale sits well forward, so that all eyes may be gratified by beholding her. It does not so much matter about her husband, who once thought that the fact of his being the proprietor of a concern whose operations represented the potentialities of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice entitled him to play upon the mother of the Gunnings when she first came to London the most contemptible hoax ever recorded to the eternal discredit of a man. The Duchess of Argyll, mindful of that trick which the cleverness of her mother turned to so good account, does not condescend to notice from her box, where she sits with Lady Betty Hamilton, either the brewer or his pushing wife, though she is acquainted with old General Paoli, whom the latter is patronising between the acts.
What a play! What spectators!
We listen to the one year by year with the same delight that it brought to those who heard it this night for the first time; and we look with delight at the faces of the notable spectators which the brush of the little man with the ear-trumpet in Johnson's box has made immortal.
Those two men in that box were the means of conferring immortality upon their century. Incomparable Johnson, who chose Boswell to be his biographer! Incomparable Reynolds, who, on innumerable canvases, handed down to the next century all the grace and distinction of his own!
And all this time Oliver Goldsmith is pacing with bent head and hands nervously clasped behind him, backward and forward, the broad walk in St. James's Park.
Steevens came upon him there after spending nearly two hours searching for him.
“Don't speak, man, for God's sake,” cried Oliver. “'Tis not so dark but that I can see disaster imprinted on your face. You come to tell me that the comedy is ended—that the curtain was obliged to be rung down in the middle of an act. You come to tell me that my comedy of life is ended.”
“Not I,” said Steevens. “I have not been at the playhouse yet. Why, man, what can be the matter with you? Why did you leave us in the lurch at the coffee house?”
“I don't know what you speak of,” said Goldsmith. “But I beg of you to hasten to the playhouse and carry me the news of the play—don't fear to tell me the worst; I have been in the world of letters for nearly twenty years; I am not easily dismayed.”
“My dear friend,” said Steevens, “I have no intention of going to the playhouse unless you are in my company—I promised so much to Dr. Johnson. What, man, have you no consideration for your friends, leaving yourself out of the question? Have you no consideration for your art, sir?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that perhaps while you are walking here some question may arise on the stage that you, and you only, can decide—are you willing to allow the future of your comedy to depend upon the decision of Colman, who is not the man to let pass a chance of proving himself to be a true prophet? Come, sir, you have shown yourself to be a man, and a great man, too, before to-night. Why should your courage fail you now when I am convinced you are on the eve of achieving a splendid success?”
“It shall not—it shall not!” cried Goldsmith after a short pause. “I'll not give in should the worst come to the worst. I feel that I have something of a man in me still. The years that I have spent in this battle have not crushed me into the earth. I'll go with you, my friend—I'll go with you. Heaven grant that I may yet be in time to avert disaster.”
They hurried together to Charing Cross, where a hackney coach was obtainable. All the time it was lumbering along the uneven streets to Covent Garden, Goldsmith was talking excitedly about the likelihood of the play being wrecked through Colman's taking advantage of his absence to insist on a scene being omitted—or, perhaps, a whole act; and nothing that Steevens could say to comfort him had any effect.
When the vehicle turned the corner into Covent Garden he craned his head out of the window and declared that the people were leaving the playhouse—that his worst fears were realized.
“Nonsense!” cried Steevens, who had put his head out of the other window. “The people you see are only the footmen and linkmen incidental to any performance. What, man, would the coachmen beside us be dozing on their boxes if they were waiting to be called? No, my friend, the comedy has yet to be damned.”
When they got out of the coach Goldsmith hastened round to the stage door, looking into the faces of the people who were lounging around, as if to see in each of them the fate of his play written. He reached the back of the stage and made for where Colman was standing, just as Quick, in the part of Tony Lumpkin, was telling Mrs. Hardcastle that he had driven her forty miles from her own house, when all the time she was within twenty yards of it. In a moment he perceived that the lights were far too strong; unless Mrs. Hardcastle was blind she could not have failed to recognise the familiar features of the scene. The next moment there came a hiss—a solitary hiss from the boxes.
“What's that, Mr. Colman?” whispered the excited author.
“Psha! sir,” said Colman brutally. “Why trouble yourself about a squib when we have all been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder these two hours?”
“That's a lie,” said Shuter, who was in the act of going on the stage as Mr. Hardcastle. “'Tis a lie, Dr. Goldsmith. The success of your play was assured from the first.”
“By God! Mr. Colman, if it is a lie I'll never look on you as a friend while I live!” said Goldsmith.