He arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and made his way
behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was a slight hiss at the
improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on his mother, in persuading her she
was forty miles off, on Crackskull Common, though she had been trundled
about on her own grounds. "What's that? what's that!" cried Goldsmith to
the manager, in great agitation. "Pshaw! doctor," replied Colman,
sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, when we've been sitting
these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder!" Though of a most forgiving
nature Goldsmith did not easily forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally.
If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives ascribed to him in his
treatment of this play, he was most amply punished by its success, and by
the taunts, epigrams, and censures leveled at him through the press, in
which his false prophecies were jeered at; his critical judgment called in
question; and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So galling and
unremitting was the fire, that he at length wrote to Goldsmith, entreating
him "to take him off the rack of the newspapers"; in the meantime, to
escape the laugh that was raised about him in the theatrical world of
London, he took refuge in Bath during the triumphant career of the comedy.
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