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OR,

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT.

A

COMEDY,

BY DR. GOLDSMITH.

ADAPTED FOR

THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION,

AS PERFORMED AT THE

THEATRES-ROYAL,

DRURY-LANE AND COVENT-GARDEN.

REGULATED FROM THE PROMPT-BOOKS,
By Permission of the Managers.

"The lines distinguished by inverted Commas, are omitted in the Representation."

LONDON:

Printed for the Proprietors, under the Direction of JOHN BELL, British Library, STRAND, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,

MDCC XCI.

ΤΟ

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

It

BY inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. may do me some honour to inform the public, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety.

I have, particularly, reason to thank you for your partiality to this performance. The undertaking a Comedy, not merely sentimental, was very dangerous; and Mr. Colman, who saw this piece in its various stages, always thought it so. However I ventur ed to trust it to the public; and, though it was necessarily delayed till late in the season, I have every reason to be grateful.

I am, dear Sir,

Your most sincere friend
and admirer,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

THIS play is a paradox: its characters are all as natural as were ever drawn, and yet they do nothing probable nor possible from the beginning of the play to the end. No house of a gentleman was ever thus mistaken for an inn; nor did any change of dress ever disguise the acquaintance of the morning into a stranger in the evening. A man must part with two of his senses to be deceived by a young lady, he knows, in the plain dress of a chambermaid, neither features nor tones changing with the habit.

The HARDCASTLE family exists in every county in England; but the first praise must be conferred upon the design of MARLOW: it is so common that no circle of company ever wanted a hero of the sort, bold and insulting among the loose and dissolute of the sex, confounded and abashed in the presence of the elegant and the virtuous; a kind of mean mischiefs that could never soar to tempt an angelic

nature.

The dialogue is written with little ambition o wit humour there is in abundance; much in the diction, more in the situations, most improbable.

:

PROLOGUE.

By DAVID GARRICK, Esq.

Enter Mr. WOODWARD, dressed in Black, and holding a Handkerchief to his Eyes.

EXCUSE me, Sirs, I pray-I can't yet speak-
I'm crying now—and have been all the week!
'Tis not alone this mourning suit, good masters;
I've that within-for which there are no plasters!
Pray wou'd you know the reason why I'm crying?
The Comic muse, long sick, is now a dying!
And if she goes, my tears will never stop:
For, as a play'r, I can't squeeze out one drop:
I am undone, that's all-shall lose my bread-
I'd rather, but that's nothing-lose my head.
When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier,
Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here.
To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,
Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed!
Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents,
We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!
Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up,
We now and then take down a hearty cup.
What shall we do?-If Comedy forsake us!

They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us.

But why can't I be moral?-Let me try—

My heart thus pressing-fix'd my face and eye

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