Chapter -IV

'LAUGHING COMEDYy & STOOPS TO CONQ

SHE UER

3-

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To move on from The Good-Natured Man (January, 1768) to She Stoops

to Conquer (March, 1 773), which are separated from each other by five years, is

to go from an interesting and necessary experiment, an apprentice piece and a

partial success to an accomplished success, an acknowledged masterpiece, and

a classic of English comedy. Goldsmith's first comedy was theatrically a moderate

success, and its printed copies sold very well. However its success and popularity

were nothing compared with the tremendous box-office popularity and success of

Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy which had been staged in competition with it and

which ran continuously for four weeks without the need for an afterpiece.

Goidsmith naturally felt envious, and rather hurt that t he bailiff scene from his play

had been hissed off as 'low' by the audience in Covent Garden and therefore had

to be expunged from the acting text. During the interim, there was no change in

his opposition to sentimental comedy. If anything, it had become stronger and

more determined. However he took his own time to renew his attack on

sentimental comedy and return to the lists with a new comedy of his own. It was

in March 1773 that he was able to stage She Stoops to Conquer at Covent

Garden. A couple of months before it he published anonymously an essay entitled,

"An Essay On the Theatre; or A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental

Comedy" in The Westminister Magazine for January 1773. It was to be of course

a pad of his campaign against the 'reigning mode of sentimental comedy'. It was

atso intended to serve as a preparation for his forthcoming play and to tell his

prospective audience what kind of play to expect, though the play itself was not

mentioned. Bevis has called it 'a preliminary bombardment' '. More importantly,

Goldsmith states in clear terms in this 'Essay' his conception of 'laughing comedy'

as opposed to 'sentimental' or 'weeping comedy', terms which he had not used

in his 'preface' to The Good-Natured Man. He must have felt it necessary to

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provide such a statement as there was not sufficient clarity in the current theories

of comedy. The 'Essay' also reveals how far his conception of comedy had

developed since he wrote his first comedy.

It is quite possible that Goldsmith had in mind specific sentimental plays and

playwrights while writing the 'Essay'. Richard Cumberland assumed that it was

primarily directed against him and his play The Fashionable Lover (January

1772), which is a sentimental melodrama. "Yet", as John Loftis has pointed out,

"if what Gotdsmith wrote is closely and circumstantially applicable to The

Fashionable Lover, he phrased the essay as a generalized criticism of 'the

Weeping Sentimental Comedy, so much in fashion at present''. Goldsmith's attack

is frank and forthright despite its being couched in general terms, in contrast to the

manner in his earlier "preface" to The Good-Natured Man. He has an axe to grind

and his 'Essay' is very much a polemical exercise, apart from providing a

statement of his artistic intent. Further, his remarks are aimed at the particular

variety of sentimental drama that was being written in the 1760s and 1770s on the

basis of which he generatises. Therefore Goldsmith's essay would disappoint one

if he expected it to be an objective, impartial and comprehensive analysis and

assessment of the issue in question.

To present his case in favour of 'laughing comedy' and against 'genteel'

comedy or 'sentimental comedy', Goldsmith invokes the authority of Aristotle and

the 'Comic Writers of antiquity' and tradition. Such an approach to a literary issue

is characteristic of the neo-classical period to which Goldsmith among several

others belonged. Incidentally, it may also be noted that Cumberland, and long

before him Steele, had both appealed to classical precedents and antiquity in

Support of their use of grave subjects in comedy. 'Comedy is defined by Aristotle',

says Goldsmith, 'to be a picture of the frailties of the lower part of mankind, to

distinguish it from Tragedy, which is an exhibition of the Misfortunes of the

Great ... Low life and Middle Life are entirely its (i.e comedy's) object ... All the

Great Masters in the Dramatic Art have but one opinion. Their rule is, that as

Tragedy displays the calamities of the great; so comedy should excite our laughter

by ridiculously exhibiting the follies of the lower part of mankind'. Next Goldsmith

refers to what was believed to be the ancient practice of keeping literary genres

distinct respecting their essential properties and which was turned into a 'rule'

during the neo-ciassical period : 'Since the first origin of the stage, Tragedy and

Comedy have run in distinct channels, and never till of late encroached upon the

provinces of each other. (But for Terence) ... All the other Comic Writers of

antiquity aim only at rendering folly and vice ridiculous'

After building the scaffolding of ancient precedents for comedy, Goldsmith

makes his frontal assault on sentimental comedy :

Yet notwithstanding this weight of authority, and the

universal practice of former ages, a new species of

dramatic composition has been introduced under the

name of Sentimental Comedy, in which the virtues of

private life are exhibited, rather than the vices exposed;

and distresses, rather than the faults of mankind, make

our interest in the piece. These comedies have had of

late great success, perhaps from their novelty, and also

from their flattering every man in his favourite foible. In

these plays almost all the characters are good, and

exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on the stage, and they want humour, have

abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to

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have faults and foibles, the spectator is taught not only to

pardon, but to applaud them, in consideration of the

goodness of their hearts; so that folly, instead of being

ridiculed, is commended, and the comedy aims at

touching our passions without the power of being truly

pathetic.

Goldsmith even insinuates that the comic poet has been invading the province of

the 'Tragic Muse' because of the 'profits' he can make. He somewhat grudgingly

admits that 'sentimental pieces do often amuse us', but goes on to ask rhetorically,

'Whether a character supported throughout a piece with its ridicule still attending,

would not give us more delight than the species of Bastard Tragedy...'. The answer

to this question is obvious. Goldsmith concludes his essay with a warning to the

theatrical audience : 'Humour at present seems to be departing from the stage,

and it will soon happen fhat our comic players will have nothing left for it but a fine

coat and song. It depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive those

poor merry creatures, from the stage, or sit at play as gloomy as at the

Tabernacle. If humour is 'banished ... from the stage, we should ourselves be

deprived of the art of ~aughing'~.

Thus Goldsmith makes out a strong case for 'laughing comedy' and

expresses himself against mixing up and confounding genres. His chief contention

against sentimental comedy is that it lacks humour and laughter and fhat it has

moved away from the mainstream of classical authority and tradition. The

'Laughing Comedy' of his conception, written according to the precept and pracfice

of the ancient masters, seeks laughter rather than tears, ridicules follies and does

not syrnpathise with distresses, is open to all kinds of people and moves among

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the lower classes too, not just the 'genteel'. Goldsmith's particular mention of 'the

lower part of mankind' and 'low life and middle life' as the entire object of comedy

in the 'Essay', according to Bevis 4, was probably due to his fear that She Stoops

fo Conquer, which was d u e to open shorfly, "might be condemned on the same

grounds" as the bailiff scene in The Good-Natured Man which was hissed off as

'low'. Perhaps he did have such fears, because the play makes fun of the vogue

of that word. However, by insisting on 'the lower part of mankind', Goldsmith was

certainly extending the social range of comic drama. It seems rather strange that

he should have mentioned Cibber as the last exponent of 'Laughing and t o w

Comedy' in England, since the origins of sentimental comedy are traced back to

him. Which particular play of Cibber's he had in mind to make that statement is not

clear from the 'Essay'.

Goldsmith's view of comedy as expressed in this 'Essay' is rather limited,

and has only a limited application. So are the generalizat~ons he makes. Had he

not been making out a special case for 'laughing comedy' as against sentimental

comedy, it is likely that he would have taken a more objective and comprehensive

view of the issue. An important limitation of the essay is that he completely ignores

the countless afterpieces written during the preceding four decades by Fielding,

Foote, Murphy and others which were indeed 'low' and laughing comedies.

Actually in these afterpieces the comic spirit was kept vigorously alive during the

century. Goldsmith fails to take note of a few full-length anti-sentimental comedies

of the times which were both 'genteel' and 'laughing', such as Dr. Benjamin

Hoadley's The Suspicious Husband and Murphy's The Way to Keep Him. He

does not grant that weeping comedies are not all weeping and tears and that they

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do accommodate some humour. By insisting that genres should be kept distinctly

apart and not mixed up, he closes his eyes probably for tactical reasons to the

many tragi-comedies of the 'last age'. One wonders how he would have reacted

to the 'horror' comedies of the present century or to Christopher Fry's view of

comedy that it is a 'narrow escape' from despair into faith. These limitations apart,

Goldsmith's 'Essay on the Theatre' serves eminently the purpose for which it was

intended : to challenge the apparent supremacy of the sentimental comedy of his

times and to emphasize the importance of laughter in comedy.

She Stoops to Conquer is a signal triumph of laughing comedy. it is one

of the jolliest plays and has remained one among the handful of comedies in

English known for their continuous popularity. The fact that Goldsmith's polemical

"Essay on the Theatre" was intended to serve as a preparation for this play may

suggest that it was written to illustrate his theory of laughing comedy as opposed

to sentimental comedy and that it too might be polemical in content and spirit. But

the finished play is actually much more than that, a claim which cannot be made

in the case of The Good-Natured Man. Without a doubt, it is anti-sentimental, but

it is important to note that it is not overtiy anti-sentimental. To view it merely as an

anti-sentimentai play is to miss much oi its complexity and spontaneous and

boisterous fun. Bevis has asserted that She Stoops to Conquer "is not reducible

to another attack on sentimental comedy, though the context of controversy, the

Dedication, and Garrick's prologue all encourage that view".5 However in the

present study, in view of its theme, the anti-sentimental elements which are an

important component of the play are mainly drawn attention to.

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hlhen She Stoops fo Conquer opened in March 1773, it was an instant

success. On the opening night-15th March 1773-the audience, we are told, was

kept in a constant roar and when the play appeared in print five days later it had

a spectacular sale. But for its author to get it accepted by one of the patented

houses and subsequently staged, entailed more trials and tribulations than The

Good-Natured Man. The play seems to have been finished even by the summer

of 1771. in hopes of an early performance he turned b ~ o l m a n who had produced

his earlier play. Colman, however, would not commit himself for a long time. Once

again it was Dr.Johnson, according to Boswell, that could prevail upon him 'by

much solicitation, nay, a kind of force, to bring it on'. Apart from the problems

created by actors and actresses, Colrnan himself "was persistently gloomy about

the play's chances of success". It was even rumoured "that the piece was

exceedingly low""hat this play might be hissed off as 'low' seems to have been

Goldsmith's fear too, as he had already such an experience in the case of the

bailiff scene in his earlier play. This is a clear indication of the nature of popular

taste. Most reviews of 1773 of the play were highly commendatory. The London

Magazine applauded it as a stroke aimed at 'that monster sentimental comedy',

in addition to praising it as a laughing comedy. However, The Monthly Review did

not approve it and maintained that 'w'hat is called Sentimental Comedy (was)

better suited to the principles of and manners of the age'. Individual views varied.

Dr. Johnson gave it his unqualified approval as he had done in the case of The

Good-Natured Man : 'I know of no comedy for many years that has so much

exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the greater end of comedy-

making an audience merry'. Bul how strong was the prejudice against the kjnd of

play Goldsmith wrote may be known from florace Walpole's response 10 the play-

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He grudgingly admitted that the situation in the play made one laugh. 'But', he

wrote to William Mason (March 27, 17731, 'what disgusts me most is, that the

characters are very low and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence

that is natural or makes any character at all. It is set up in opposition to

sentimental comedy, and is as bad as the worst of them'.'

The success of She Stoops to Conquer is not a little due to its being

carefully designed and constructed. There is such remarkable ease and assurance

about this neatly built play that it is difficult to believe that it is Goldsmith's second

play only. While writing The Good-Natured Man, he must have learnt most of the

things he required to learn about dramatic art. The achievement of She Stoops

to Conquer is that it fuses diverse modes in harmonious synthesis with seeming

effortlessness, while entertaining the audience : farce, Restoration and sentimental

comedies (though only to reject or transcend them), Romantic comedy, gentle

satire of contemporary foibles and of sentimental absurdities, all these mingle

harmoniously in the play. Under its simple surface the play blends various strains.

Goldsmith's dedication of the play to Dr.Johnson indirectly refers to its

opposition to sentiment by drawing attention to the danger of 'undertaking a

comedy not merely sentimental' and Colrnan's hesitation to produce it. The

prologue composed by Garrick and spoken by Woodward, who had played Lofty

in The Good-Natured Man and strangely refused the role of Tony Lumpkin, the

kingpin of this play, directly and contemptuously refers to sentimental drama as 'a

mawkish drab of spurious breedlwho deals in sentimentals' responsible for the

impending death of the 'Comic Muse'. He speaks in artificially pathetic tones the

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prologue, which is a mock monody on the imminent death of comedy, alludes to

the pompous moralising in sentimental plays, and says that 'To make you, I must

play tragedy' (probably an indirect reference to Goldsmith's characterizing

sentimental comedy as 'bastard tragedy' in his 'Essay'). Thus the 'dedication' and

the 'prologue' set the anti-sentimental theme in motion which is taken up by the

play at appropriate places.

She Stoops to Conquer is about the fortunes of the Hardcasfle family

which lives in the countryside. It consists of Mr and Mrs. Hardcastle, their daughter

Kate, Tony Lumpkin Mrs Hardcastle's son by her first marriage, and Miss Neville

her niece and ward, It is the wish of Mrs. Hardcastle that her son should marry her

niece so that her niece's fortunes, consisting mainly of jewels of which she is the

custodian, could be retained by the family, Tony has other ideas, and he is

interested in Bet Bouncer a country girl, and Miss Neville is in love with Hastings,

a young man from London. It is Mr. Hardcastle's wish that his daughter Kate

should marry the son of his friend Sir Charles Marlow, and has arranged for the

young man to visit them. The plot, as can be seen, is a typical one, involving the

affairs of two youthful couples. The action of the play is set in motion by Tony

Lumpkin who plays a practical joke upon young Marlow, who comes along with his

friend Hastings to visit the Hardcastles Yo court" their daughter Kate. Having lost

their way, being total strangers to the area, the young men from London chance

to meet Tony at the ale-house, the Three Pigeons, Tony finds an opportunity to

avenge himself on Mr. Hardcastle, his step-father who has been calling him 'whelp

and hound, this half year' (Act I, sc.2). And Hardcastle has found Tony to be 'a

mere composition of tricks and mischief' (Act I, sc.1). When the visiting young men

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unwittingly let him know that he has the reputation of being 'an awkward booby,

reared up and spoiled at his mother's apron string' (Act I, sc.2), his self esteem is

wounded. It is then that he hits upon the trick of directing them to his father's own

house ("that looks for all the world like an inn") as an inn where they could rest for

the night. The joke also lies in his in misdirecting them to their destination without

their knowing it. This practical joke gives rise to a series of strong dramatic

situations, amusing and humorous twists and turns of action in quick succession,

which sustain the interest of the play till the end. The plot is immensely contrived

as befits a farce, and the play is partly farce, and it is one of its important

structural principles, and makes for tightness and speed. Therefore Goldsmith does

not admit anything into the play that does not work on the farcical level. Tony

Lurnpkin makes sure that even the secondary lovers' plot - that of Hastings and

Miss Constance - leads into explosions of comic confusion. R is not at all

surprising, therefore, that during the first performance of the play the theatre was

filled with explosive laughter from first to last.

She Stoops to Conquer has been found fault with because of the

improbability of the fable on which it is built. The improbability of mistaking the

house of Hardcastle for an inn, however, has been defended on the ground that

Goldsmith himself had a similar experience when he was still a student. When he

was riding back to school after the holidays, he was overtaken by night, when he

was still at Ardagh, some miles away from his destination. Having decided to

spend the night in an inn - he had a golden guinea in his pocket - he asked a

passer by about the best house of entertainment in the town. That mischievous

person directed Goldsmith to the house of one Mr,Featherstone as the best inn.

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The mistake was discovered only the next morning. Whether Goldsmith was

building his play on the basis of this incident or not, the essential improbability of

the fable remains. If improbability or otherwise of the fable is the sole criterion to

accept or reject a play, then it may have to be said that She Stoops to Conquer

is no more improbable than many sentimental comedies, Hugh Kelly's False

Delicacy for a random example. Moreover a comedy in its very nature can and

does accommodate a great deal of the improbable. A quick glance at the many

well-known comedies, past and present, would bear out the truth of the statement.

Improbable characters as well as situations abound in them. However it is

necessary for the reader or spectator of comedy to 'suspend his disbelief' for the

time being in its improbability, if the work should make sense to him. In She

Stoops to Conquer one has to accept that it is quite probable that a country

mansion is mistaken for an inn, and its master for its land-lord. Once this is

accepted, the rest would follow. But Goldsmith does not take his spectators for

granted. He takes every care to make the improbable fable acceptable, by deftly

manoeuvring with ease and assurance the characters and situations. Every one

of the improbabilities is prepared for well in advance. The situations arising out of

the initial improbability are made easily intelligible and contribute to the main

design of this laughing comedy. It is through them that Goldsmith pokes fun at

sentimental comedy with seeming effortlessness.

The play abounds in clues from the very start so that whatever appears

improbable outside the context falls in its place in the play. It may be noted that

there is very little of explanatory exposition in the play, as in The Good-Natured

Man. Almost at once Mrs.Hardcastte, who is tired of the monotonous life spent in

1 03

the country, and who wouid have very much liked to 'take a trip now and then to

the town to rub off the rust' of the country and acquire 'polish', protests to her

husband who is passionately fond of all old things, that the 'old rumbling mansion'

in which they live 'looks for all the world like an inn' (Act 1, sc.1). The old couple

cannot but discuss their enfant terrible, Tony Lumpkin, who has been exasperating

his step-father by his mischief and .tricks, and whose best schools are 'the

alehouse and the stable'. Mr-Hardcastle would rather allow this horsy country

bumpkin horse-pond than 'humour'. In the last act of the play Tony liberally avails

himself of the horse-pond in their backyard when he drives his mother and cousin

round and round their house, from the conversation that follows between

Mr.Hardcastle and his daughter Kate, and thereafter between Kate and Miss

Neville some more essential clues are given. According to the understanding

between the father and daughter, Kate is free to dress herself in her 'own manner'

in the morning but put on her 'housewife's' dress in the evening. This important

factor makes probable Marfow's mistaking her for a barmaid and the liberties he

takes with her, and further it enables her to 'stoop to conquer' him later in the

evening. Equally important is the revelation that Marlow is expected that day to

visit them.The essentials of what may be called his split personality too are

revealed by Mr.Hardcastle and Miss Neville. He is said to be according to the

father 'a man of excellent understanding', 'very generous', 'brave', 'handsome',

and above all 'bashful' and 'reserved'. The other side of his personality is revealed

by Miss Neville, who knows Martow as 'the most intimate friend' of Hastings 'her

admirer : 'He is a very singular character .,... Among women of reputation and

virtue he is the modestest man alive; but his acquaintance give him a very different

character among creatures of another stamp'. Miss Neville testifies that her cousin

1 04

Tony is 'a good-natured creature at bottom' and contrary to his mother's plans,

would wish to see her married 'to anybody but himself'. Thus the stage is set in

the opening scene of the play itself for 'the mistakes of the night'. By meticulously

adhering to the classical unities of time, place and action, confining the entire

action to a single place, restricting the duration of action to the hours between

evening and the next morning, and keeping up the tempo of action without any let

up Goldsmith manages the mistakes of the night briskly to move towards a

convincing happy denouement.

The second scene of Act 1 is set in the 'Three Pigeons' patronised by Tony

and his companions. In this scene in which there is boisterous rustic singing and

flow of natural spirits, Tony announces to his companions his desire for

independence - though he has already come of age his mother has intentionally

suppressed it from him'for her own selfish reasons-, his love of horses and Bet

Bouncer. His companions, already sufficiently inebriated, admire his song on the

alehouse, and aping the refinement of their social betters condemn all that is 'low'

: '0 damn anything that's low, t cannot bear it' says one of them, while another

approvingly says, 'The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time' (Act 1 sc.2).

These dramatic statements are a direct jibe at the 'genteel' taste of the upper-

class and its sense of its superior status. Later on the play in Act V scene 2, Tony

even rebukes the sophisticated Hastings on a point of manners. The ridicule,

obviously, is directed against the taste of those who made sentirnentaf comedy

possible and popular, and also against the earlier manners comedy, which could

not brook anything that was regarded as 'low'. Tony may not be a wit but he has

i%sourcefulness enough to picture Mr. Hardcastie, to the visiting young men

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Marlow and Hastings, as an eccentric landlord, who inflicts his company on his

guests because he is 'going to leave off business' and 'wants to be thought a

gentleman', so that the trick he has played on them may not be detected at once.

In the Three Pigeons scene Tony Lumpkin who is full of animal spirits delights his

company with a hearty song of his own making which dismisses everything he

finds oppressive, from dassical learning to Methodist preachers who denounce

drink. His companions praise Rim and his song because 'he never gives us

nothing that's low'. It is as if 'low' life claims its place in the entire scheme of things

in the person of Tony whose song expresses his rural, anti-sentimental view of life.

And Goldsmith has his revenge on the genteel audience of his first play who

refused to accept his low bailiffs.

From Act I1 onwards one sees the practical joke becoming effective and

taking shape. Before the young men arrive at 'the Buck's Head', the Hardcastle

residence, there is a brief but very amusing scene in which Mr. Hardcastle is at

great pains to instruct his domestic servants how they should conduct themselves

in the presence of the visiting company. Apart from the humour of the situation, it

reveals the warm relationship between the master and the servants who are hardly

conscious of the difference in their statuses. In fact, as Bevis has remarked, "The

domestic warmth of the Hardcastles and their servants corrects the anti-rnarriage

and anti-family bias of much post-Restoration ~ornedy".~ In other words She

Stoops to Conquer does not restrict its attack to sentimental comedy only. Bevis

has also drawn attention to another interesting aspect of this comedy. "Liberated

from the urban drawingrooms, we are set in the country more firmly than any

comedy since The Recruifing Officer (of Farquhar). Nor is this just a way to gain

1 06

perspective on London (although it affords that); ... Goldsmith draws strength from

the earth, finding in the country a source of values by which to guide his art".g "The

confusion in which the training scene breaks up, with the servants already

forgetting their orders and running about, as if frighted", serves "as a paradigm of

the farcical chaos that will engulf master, mistress and guests later in the piay."l0

In Act 11, Marlow and Hastings arrive at the Hardcastles' to find the image

of the place as well as of its owner created by Tony confirmed. In the brief but

revealing conversation between them before Mr.Hardcastle joins them, Marlow

explains to his friend his lack of assurance particularly in the polite and refined

society of women. He blames it on the kind of education he has had : 'My life has

been chiefly spent in a college or inn, in seclusion from that lovely part of the

creation that chiefly teach men confidence. I don't know that I was ever familiarly

acquainted with a single modest woman - except my mother'. But among females

of another class ---' he can be 'impudent'. He freezes and becomes petrified in the

presence of 'a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery', who fills him with

awe. The prospect of a formal courtship fills him with 'terror' (Act I[, sc.1). This

conversation is actually a preamble to and a preparation for the first 'sober

sentimental interview' between Marlow and Kate which follows shortly. It is

something that Marlow is able to analyse his troubles, his contradictory behaviour

in the presence women of different social ievels.

Hastings and Miss Neville, who are pleasantly surprised to meet each other

at Hardcastle's place, decide to keep Marlow 'in the deception' that he is in an inn,

for their own selfish advantage. They have little thought of the embarrassment they

would cause Rim or of the other likely consequences. Marlow who is already

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greatly annoyed by the excessive attention shown by the Hardcasties, is forced to

meet Miss Hardcastle, who has just then returned from an evening walk. There is

no escape for him from it. This "sober sentimental interview takes off sentimental

comedy from Steele to Kelly " remarks R.W.Bevis.'l In a different context Bevis

also points out that their first interview is "conducive to sentimental conversation.

Not only The Conscious Lovers but such recent sentimental comedies as The

School for Lovers ( I 762), The Double Mistake (1 765), and The Sister (1 769),

by Charlotte Lennox had used such a meeting for an exchange of aphoristic

sentiments. Instead, Goldsmith gives us a parody of the convention, inept and

faltering on one side, ironic and amused on the other".ll" Kate is the very opposite

of the sentimental heroine. It may be said that Goldsmith's criticism of sentimental

comedy in this play is obliquely and covertly achieved through two remarkable

characters of his invention, Tony Lumpkin and Miss Hardcas?le. He does not

deliberately contrive situations to make fun of such drama. As Katherine Worth

remarks, "Despite the preposterousness of its initiating situation, She Stoops to

Conquer convinces us that everything happens as it has to, given the nature of

the characters and their drive to be thernse~ves."'~ From the moment Kate meets

Marlow, she conducts herself with complete self assurance and ease, and she is

least surprised to meet such a man as Marlow about whom she has already

essential information. In contrast to her he stutters and stammers and speaks

incoherently in incomplete sentences which she completes to her amusement. Like

Miss Richland in The Good-Natured Man, she too derives some fun from her

lover's agonies of embarrassments, She "makes him writhe, finishing off his

tortuous phrases for him and interpreting his mumbled attempts at sentimental

truism^."'^ At the end of the sober sentimental interview, she has a hearty laugh

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over it. She is able to assess him and understand his essential virtue. And without

feeling superior she understands that he needs someone like her to help him to

acquire confidence and overcome his ambiguous 'modesty': 'He has good sense,

but then so buried in fears, it fatigues one more than ignorance. If I muld teach

him a little confidence, it would be doing somebody that f know of a piece of

sewice.' (Act 11, sc.1).

At the beginning of Act Ill both father and daughter compare notes about

Marlow, whom they have met separately under different situations without each

other's knowledge, though under the same roof. Mr. Hardcastle finds Marlow to be

'one of the most brazen' of young men, 'a bouncing swaggering puppy', and a

worse ruffian than 'Bully Dawson'. Kate gives her father a clear-cut account of her

impressions of the young man, and while she perceives 'his mauvaise honte, his

timidity', she still thinks that 'there rnay be many good qualities under that first

appearance'. She has of course her tongue in her cheek when she says that

Martow 'censured the manners 'of the age; admired the prudence of girls that

never laughed; tired me with apologies, for being tiresome; then left the room with

a bow ..: ( I t i ) As Katherine Worth has aptly remarked. "The rhetoric of

sentimentalism is dealt a hard blow in her sharp account of the 'sober sentimental

in ter~ iew" ' .~~ It is agreed between the father and daughter that they should 'make

further discoveries' before coming to a conclusion about him. As yet, Kate does

not know about the deception practiced on the visiting young men by Tony.

The looked-for opportunity to 'discover' more about Marlow comes to Kate,

when her maid reveals to her that because of Tony's trick he has taken their house

for an inn and her for the bar-maid, as she has now put on her 'housewife's

109

dress'. Having seen her earlier in her fashionable dress, her bonnet covering her

face, there is no possibility of Marlow's recognising her now. Having made sure of

that, she resolves upon 'keeping him in his mistake' for some more time to test

him 'my chief aim is, to take my gentleman off his guard, and, like an invisible

champion of romance, examine the giant's force before 1 offer combat' (Act 111,

sc.1). Thus their second interview begins in which Goldsmith has another

opportunity to ridicule the 'genteel'. She enters into the spirit of the role of bar-

maid whole-heatedly. And as far as Marlow is concerned, she is a barmaid for a11

practical purposes, so successful is her playing of the part. She is vivacious,

resourceful, intelligent and has a lively sense of humour. She places herself

deliberately before him in such a way that he cannot but take note of her good

looks, of the charm of her 'malicious eye'. Thus she elicits from him the expected

amorous response and makes him reveal himself uninhibitedly. While playing the

role of a 'low' character, not only does her teasing side come into full play but she

finds opportunities for self-expression which she would not have found as "Miss

Hardcastle". She makes him look absurd. One who suffered genteel

embarrassment in the presence of 'Miss Hardcastle' now in the presence of the

(supposed) barmaid becomes all self-assurance and aggressiveness. It is amusing

to find him commenting to himself in the presence of Kate whom he has not yet

noticed, that Miss Hardcastle 'is too grave and sentimental for me'. But from the

moment he declares, 'I vow, child, you are vastly handsome', he dances to her

tune, and tries to take liberties with her. But by a witty remark she prevents him,

and leads him on to talk about 'Miss Hardcastle' reminding him of his

embarrassment and confusion during their interview : I....# before her you looked

dashed, and kept bowing to the ground, and talked, for all the world, as if you was

110

before a justice of peace'. His vanity is so much hurt that he derogator~ly remarks

that 'Miss Hardcasfle was 'a mere awkward squinting thing' and he 'laughed and

rallied her a little .... unwilling to be too severe'. He becomes boastful and

describes himself as a 'great favourite .... among the ladies'. Kate cannot help

laughing a little too heartily at this account, but allows him to indulge his vanity. But

when the truth comes out in the last Act, she does not hesitate to rub salt in the

wound by reminding him of his boasts. Cruel though it may seen, Marlow requires

this therapy. He has to reveal all his shortcomings and vanities, his ego has to be

punctured - the ego of 'sentimental' character - before he can be fully himself with

Miss Hardcastle with whom he really falls in love a short while later.

Mr. Hardcastle, who happens to be a witness to Marlow's impudent

behaviour with his daughter, is taken aback, and is angry with his daughter for

speaking in his defence. But Kate by now knows her own mind, and despite his

failings she is sure that he is the man for her. Therefore she tells her father

confidently : I . . . he has only the faults which pass off with time, and the virtues that

will improve with age' (Act I l l , sc. I ) . It is agreed between them that she will have

an hour's time and not more to prove that her assessment of Marlow is correct.

Marlow's courting of Kate as barmaid resembles a device used by Cibber in his

Love's Lasf Shift. Loveless in Gibber's sentimental play woos his own wife

Amanda who disguises herself to conceal her identity and win back her wayward

husband. Loveless Iusts for her as long as she is vizarded. Only when she takes

off her mask he repents, begs her forgiveness and vows fidelity. He offers to

'labour, dig, beg, or starve' to prove his love for Amanda. In his play Goldsmith

teltingly reverses the characteristic sentimental situation by showing Marlolw

111

develop honourable intentions before the full revelation of the barmaid's (or poor

relation's) identity, as it happens in the middle of Act IV. This significant change

comes about him because he perceives and loves her natural qualities, her true

good nature.

It is important to note that Kate responds to Marlow's amorous overtures

with sophistication but without compromising her virtue at any point. She remains

unquestjonably virtuous. Once Marlow believed in her virtue, he would not think of

seducing her however strong the temptation for it be. To prove to her father the

essential modesty of Marlow, she thinks it necessary not to undeceive him and

reveal her identity for some more time. Seeing that Marlow, on hearing an

exasperated comment of her father, has begun to realise his mistake, she tells him

that he is in Mr. Hardcastle's house and not in an inn, and that she is a poor

relation of the family. The effect of this revelation on Marlow is immediate. As he

spontaneously admits to her, he does not blame anyone in particular to have made

a gull of him, but himself : '0 confound my stupid head ...... to mistake this house

of all others for an inn, and my father's old friend for an innkeeper! ... what a silly

puppy do I find myself! There again, may 1 be hanged ... but 1 mistook you for a

bar-maid.' (Act iV, sc.1). A little later he makes a more meaningful confession to

her : 'To be plain with you, the difference of our birth, fortune, and education,

make an honourable connection impossible, and I can never harbour a thought of

seducing simplicity that trusted in my honour, of bringing ruin upon one whose only

fault was being too lovely'. Even Kate is surprised by the sincerity and frankness

of his admission. But she decides to 'presewe the cha.mcter in which (she) r ;'

stooped to conquer' until she is able to convince her father of his essential

goodness.

To convince her father and Sir Charles Marlow, who has since arrived, of

Marlow's declaration of love for her, she effortlessly arranges a scene (Act V,

sc.3), like a skilled stage-manager and resourceful director of a play in which

Marlow and she are involved, and thus enables them to overhear their

conversation from behind a screen. Marlow, who had made up his mind to leave

the place, now is determined to stay hopeful of obtaining his father's 'approbation'.

Now there is further evidence of his regard for her whom he still views as the 'poor

relation' :

Your beauty at first caught my eye; for who could see that

without emotion ? But every moment that I converse with

you steals in some new grace, heightens the picture, and

gives it stronger expression. What at first seemed rustic

plainness, now appears refined simplicity. What seemed

forward assurance, now strikes me as the result of

courageous innocence and conscious virtue.

To convince her further and to ward off her fears and apprehension, he

kneels before her : 'Every moment that shows me your merit, only serves to

increase my diffidence and confusion'. When the hiding fathers show themselves

and the identity of the 'poor relation' is revealed to his utter astonishment, she

rather cruelly but necessarily torments him 'to the back scene'. Throughout the

play Kate is "fully aware of her own identity and also of the pretentions of others

deficient in self-kno~ledge*.'~ On the scene of Marlow's final confession of love,

Bevis makes the remark that ''As soon as Marlow begins to fall in love with Kate,

he drops into sentimental jargon : 'conscious virtue' etc."'%~yt the context in which

he uses such conventional expressions should make it plain that he does not

speak as a sentimental character. And Goldsmith certainly does not lapse into the

vein of sentimental comedy.

113

Marlow's is neither sudden conversion nor unexpected reform. Compared

with the exaggerated and over-emphasised language used by his counterparts in

sentimental drama, his language, in spite of being conventional, is moderate. He

has learnt from his encounter with Kate a number of lessons which he had missed

till then : that women who are humbly born deserve much more respect than he

has shown them so far; that they do not deserve to be treated with condescension;

that he need not be diffident in the presence of great ones; and that above all,

character rather than rank should be the standard of discrimination. It is the genius

of Kate, who is both witty and virtuous, to understand the peculiar difficulties of

Marlow, evoke a happy and middle ground of his manner, striking a balance

between ardour and the reserve of his previous extremes. She exposes the

hollowness and artificiality of those sententious exchanges between lovers

popularised by many a sentimental dramatist, from Steele onwards. She is not the

first heroine to disguise herself for better access to a young man. Romantic

comedy provides several examples. "In the lively character of Kate", observes

Katherine Worth," Goldsmith (has) created the one theatre heroine of the century

capable of joining the company of spirited girls - Rosalind, Viola, Millamant - who

have charmed audiences with their witiy resourcefulness in shaping their own

marriage fortunes. Like Rosalind, she puts on a disguise which allows her to teach

her man how best to woo her.17

Constance Neville and Hastings are dramatically less interesting than Kate

and Marlow, but they are much more engaging than the gloomy and moralising

lovers of sentimental comedy, Constance's is the standard situation of a

sentimental heroine. Her guardian Mrs. Hardcastle has in her possession all of her

niece's valuable jewels and has her own designs for her marriage with her son

114

Tony. Therefore she is not quite free to choose her own man, Hastings, with whom

she is deeply in love. Given the nature of Mrs. Hardcastle and her determination

to have her way, Constance's situation is certainly discouraging, if not desperate.

But she is too much of an individual with a will of her own to be a weeping, tearful

sentimental heroine. When their plan to run away along with her jewels and marry

fails because of an inadvertent mistake of Marlow, Hastings, somewhat of a

romantic lover, suggests that they should 'fly' without her jewels : 'Perish fortune

! Love and content will increase what we possess beyond a monarch's revenue'.

Quietly but firmly she rejects the idea : 'In the moment of passion fortune may be

despised, but it will ever produce a lasting repentance'. She would rather appeal

to "Mr. Hardcastle's compassion and justice for redressal" than go without what is

rightfully hers. As Goldsmith portrays her, she is "a cool-headed worldly and witty

individual, who adds considerably to the comedy with her lively talk and powers of

improvisation, as in the scene when she invents for Mrs. Hardcastle's benefit a

letter 'all about cocks and fighting'."'a Of the three sets of lovers (including Bet

Bouncer who is off-stage and Tony), Constance and Hastings come closest to

being the conventional lovers of sentimental comedy but Goldsmith makes real

people of them. Despite the confident, dashing appearance Hastings presents, he

has his moments of nervousness and is constantly aware of the uncertainities

surrounding his love affair. Constance has the upper hand. They owe their success

in the end to the benign and benevolent atmosphere engendered by the resolution

of Marlow's perplexities by Kate and Tony's eagerness to free himself of marriage

obligations to his cousin once it is known that he has already come of age.

A character like Tony Lumpkin is wholly unknown to sentimental comedy.

He is the heartbeat of the play. She Stoops to Conquer is a laughing comedy

115

largely because of what he is and what he does. He is an aggressively comic

character. He is given to playing mischievous tricks and pranks on others not out

of malice or vicious nature as much as love of fun and animal spirits, which he

possesses in abundance. He derives iconoclastic enjoyment in playing tricks, and

plays practical jokes because he feels that he has been unfairly dealt with by

others, wounding his self-esteem. The series of mistakes could not have occurred,

if he had not chosen to play his pranks on the two travellers, Marlow and Hastings.

He succeeds on them because he understands the character of his victims and

accurately gauges their likely reaction to the disconcerting situations devised for

them. "He knows just what traits of Mr. Hardcastle will fit in with the idea of an

innkeeper who 'wants to be thought a gentleman'and can deduce the effect their

host's apparent pushiness will have on Marlow and Hastings from observing their

haughty ways and Marlow's deep reserve".'' I t is his trick that provides the means

to Kate and her lively intelligence to help Marlow overcome his ambiguous

modesty.

Tony is not just boisterous and reckless with an irresistible love of fun and

frolic, but he is also good-natured, and benevolent. In fact he is an 'enviable

humorist' and 'eccentric benevolist'. His is not the kind of benevolence seen in a

sentimental comedy. His eccentric benevolence is seen in the way he helps the

lovers even though like Shakespeare's Puck he finds their antics deliciousIy

nonsensical. His comment on the love-lorn Martow is, 'we shall have old Bedlam

broke loose presently' (1V.i). But he is hurt by their critical comment on him for his

'cunning and malice' and 'tricks and mischief'. He certainly does not deserve to

be blamed thus. Roused to anger and indignation he of ers to fight the young men

one after another. But he does not allow that mood to continue for long. When his

116

mother decides to take Constance at once to her Aunt Pedigree, who lives several

miles away, as a punishment for defying her authority and wishes, Tony hits upon

the fantastic nocturnal journey 'round and round' their house to do a good turn to

Constance and Hastings. In his characteristic challenging vein of a country squire

he declares : '...if you don't find Tony Lumpkin a more good-natured fellow than

you thought for, I'll give you leave to take my best horse, and Bet Bouncer into the

bargain'. (Act IV, sc.1). More than any one else he uses his inventive powers, and

uses them successfully, for altruistic ends. The only reward he expects from them

in return is acceptance by them as 'more good-natured' than they thought. As

Robert Herring says, 'what Tony says he will do, he does.'20 His language,

colourful and homespun, and his sound practical sense, often make him appear

the most life-like person in the play. In different ways the youngsters in this play

revolt against the authority of their elders, a thing unheard of in sentimental

comedy. As Katherine Worth points out, Tony's "is the most tumultous - and

radical-of the three revolts of the younger generation : all the others ... depend in

some way on his mischievous energy. Goldsmith's clever blending of artifice and

naturalness is at its most subtle with this ~haracter".~' Good-natured, eccentrically

benevolent, active, boisterous and reckless in his love of fun and frolic, Tbny

reminds one strongly of the world of Elizabethan comedy.

Despite the utterly improbable and even preposterous initial situation which

sets in motion the action of the play, She Stoops to Conquer convinces both

reader and spectator that everything happens as it has to, given the nature of the

characters and their urge to be themselves. It remains from first to last a laughing

comedy of Goldsmith's conception, avery character in the play without exception

contributing to it humour and laughter. Laughter in the play is hilarious and hearty.

117

And as Thorndike has pointed out it "shifts from one person l o another like the box

of Miss Neville's jewels, which is ever being won and lost."22 There is good-

humoured exposure of contemporary frailties, follies and foibles, the satire never

becoming really pungent at any point. Strong feelings and emotions are stirred but

kept under control by pervasive humour and laughter. There is no deliberate

appeal to emotions or dwelling upon them as in a sentimental comedy. The play

is not didactic, anxious to drive home a moral, but it is not indifferent to moral

issues. The benevolence and good nature it upholds, most notably seen in Tony,

are very different from those presented in a sentimental comedy. The attack

mounted against sentimental comedy succeeds, primarily because the play is "a qeneris not sentimental and not overtly anti-sentimenta~."~~ The title chosen for it

itself indicates its opposition to sentimental comedy. Among sentimental comedies

there are jealous wives, devoted wives who are ever willing to forgive their erring

husbands and wait patiently for their return, and there are occasionally those who

resort to disguises anxious to reclaim their husbands risking their virtue. But a

heroine like Kate who is very sure of herself and what she wants, boldly contriving,

'stooping' to teach her young man to discover himself, is something new. Attempts

of course have been made to detect sentimentalism in this play, and much is made

of the appeal of Hastings and Miss. Neville to Mr. Hardcastle for forgiveness, Mrs.

Hardcastle's reaction to it answers the point : 'Pshaw! this is all but the whining

end of a modern novel' (Act.V). Sherbo has answered all those who try to fink this

play with sentimental comedy : "When modern critics claim this play for the

sentimental canon, it is time to call a halt to sane inquiry, for further discussion is

118

The two comedies of Goldsmith are actually woven out of eighteenth

century fabric. This fact is clearly seen in the way they repeat the comic

characters, devices and concerns of the age. Family resemblances can be seen

between his characters and those created by other playwrights of the times.

Goldsmith appears to have drawn on the works of Samuel Foote (whose Piety in

Pattens anticipated his own assault on sentiment) and of Arthur Murphy, who, it

is said, had attempted singlehanded to recapitulate laughing comedy. Just a few

examples may be mentioned. Lofty in The Good-Natured Man resembles Luke

Limp in Foote's Lame Lover. Governor Cape and Young Cape in Foote's The

Author anticipate the relationship between Sir Charles and Young Honeywood.

The Young Honeywood's imprudent and excessive benevolence is a case of what

has been called the 'false delicacy syndrome' affecting many a Georgian comedy.

The bashfu! Marlow's first meeting with Miss Hardcastle in She Stoops to

Conquer is foreshadowed by Clerimont and Miss Harlow in Arthur Murphy's The

Old Maid. Horse-loving country squires like Tony Lumpkin are found everywhere

in the country's prose fiction and dramatic comedy.

With She Stoops to Conquer Goldsmith's career as a dramatist virtually

ended. His one and only attempt at an afterpiece was a failure. The year after he

wrote this 'hasty trifle', he died. His loss was a great blow to the comic theatre,

which sorely needed him just then. Though he had won reputation as an essayist,

a novelist and a considerable poet, he was not indispensable to those genres, for

which there were much better practitioners. One could not say the same thing

about drama, where there was none more promising than him. Summing up

Goldsmith's achievement as a comic dramatist, Bevis says :

119

She Stoops to Conquer h a s as much merit as any

single comedy of t h e century. The Good-Natured Man

was at least an interesting fai lure, and his essay "On the

Theatre" is still the indispensable brief analysis of the

sentimentai challenge to the laughing tradition. His early death deprived that tradition of one of its mainstays at a

critical

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Richard W. Bevis, The Laughing Tradition : Stage Comedy in Garrick's Day (London : The Prior Publishers, 19811, p.205.

John Loftis, Sheridan and the Drama of Georgian England (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, f976), p. 17.

01 iver Goldsmith, "An Essay on the Theatre", Eighteenth Century English Literature, ed. Geoffrey Tillotsan et at. (19691, pp. 1258-59.

Bevis, p.82.

Richard W. Bevis, English Drama : Restoration and Eighteenth Century : 1660-1 789 (London : Longman Group, 1988), p. 226.

Ricardo Quintana, Oliver Goldsmith : A Georgian Study (London :

Weidenfeld and N~colson, 1969), p. 153.

C~ted by Quintana, p. 156.

R.W. Bevis, p.227

Ibid., pp. 226-27

Katherine Worth, Goldsmith and Sheridan (London : Mackmillan, f992), p.93.

R.W. Bevis, p. 228.

R.W. Bevis, p.206.

Katherine Worth, p. 108.

Ibid., p. 102.

14. Ibid,

15. Joseph W. Donohue Jr., The Dramatic Character in the English Romantic Age (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1970), p.121.

17. Katherine Worth, p.101.

18. Ibid., p.104.

19. Ibid., p.97.

20. Robert Herring, "Introduction" She Stoops to Conquer {London :

Macrnillan, 1936), p. xviii.

21. Katherine Worth, p.106.

22. A.H. Thorndike, English Comedy (New York; 1929), p.427.

23. A.C. Baugh, A Literary History of England (New Yori : Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1 948), p. 1044.

24. Arthur Sherbo, English Sentimental Drama (East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, 1957), P.152.

25. R.W. Bevis, pp. 213-14.