It depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive
those poor merry creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at
the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost; and it
will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too fastidious, we have
banished humor from the stage, we should ourselves be deprived of the art
of laughing."
Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. The comedy of the
Clandestine Marriage, the joint production of Colman and Garrick, and
suggested by Hogarth's inimitable pictures of "Marriage a la mode," had
taken the town by storm, crowded the theaters with fashionable audiences,
and formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Goldsmith's
emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was in what he considered
the legitimate line, totally different from the sentimental school; it
presented pictures of real life, delineations of character and touches of
humor, in which he felt himself calculated to excel. The consequence was
that in the course of this year (1766), he commenced a comedy of the same
class, to be entitled the Good Natured Man, at which he diligently wrought
whenever the hurried occupation of "book building" allowed him leisure.
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