SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER:

OR,

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT.

COMEDY.

AS ACTED AT THE

THEATRE-ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN:

FIRST PRINTED IN M, DCC,LXXII.

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ΤΟ

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

DEAR SIR,

BY inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It 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 ventured 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

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, would
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; r
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!

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