Man," a piece which had a worse fate than it deserved. Garrick
refused to produce it at Drury Lane. It was acted at Covent
Garden in 1768, but was coldly received. The author, however,
cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright,
no less than 500 pounds, five times as much as he had made by the
"Traveller" and the "Vicar of Wakefield" together. The plot of
the "Goodnatured Man" is, like almost all Goldsmith's plots, very
ill constructed. But some passages are exquisitely ludicrous;
much more ludicrous, indeed, than suited the taste of the town at
that time. A canting, mawkish play, entitled "False Delicacy,"
had just had an immense run. Sentimentality was all the mode.
During some years, more tears were shed at comedies than at
tragedies; and a pleasantry which moved the audience to anything
more than a grave smile was reprobated as low. It is not
strange, therefore, that the very best scene in the "Goodnatured
Man," that in which Miss Richland finds her lover attended by the
bailiff and the bailiff's follower in full court dresses, should
have been mercilessly hissed, and should have been omitted after
the first night.

In 1770 appeared the "Deserted Village." In mere diction and
versification this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps
superior, to the "Traveller;" and it is generally preferred to
the "Traveller" by that large class of readers who think, with
Bayes in the "Rehearsal," that the only use of a plan is to bring
in fine things. More discerning judges, however, while they
admire the beauty of the details, are shocked by one unpardonable
fault which pervades the whole. The fault we mean is not that
theory about wealth and luxury which has so often been censured
by political economists. The theory is indeed false: but the