In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith had given
offense to David Garrick, at that time the autocrat of the Drama, and was
doomed to experience its effect. A clamor had been raised against Garrick
for exercising a despotism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but
old plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined in this
charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as it deserves and likes
to be treated; with scenes, fireworks, and _his own writings_. A good
new play I never expect to see more; nor have seen since the Provoked
Husband, which came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was extremely
fond of the theater, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed in his
treatise against the wrongs experienced by authors at the hands of
managers. "Our poet's performance," said he, "must undergo a process truly
chemical before it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the
manager's fire; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated
corrections, till it may be a mere _caput mortuum_ when it arrives
before the public." Again. "Getting a play on even in three or four years
is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have the arts of
courting the manager as well as the muse; who have adulation to please his
vanity, powerful patrons to support their merit, or money to indemnify
disappointment.
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