Note D — OLIVER GOLDSMITH[D]

The Life of Goldsmith, by John Forster, may be found in Volume IX of the World's Greatest Books (see also Vol. IV, p. 275). "The Mistakes of a Night, or She Stoops to Conquer," appeared at Covent Garden, in March, 1773. So convinced was George Colman that the public would endure nothing but sentiment, that he could hardly be induced to accept the play, and was extremely nervous about its success, almost until the fall of the curtain on the first night. Nevertheless, its success was immediate and decisive, and it became established as a stock piece. The play loses nothing by the suppression of sentimental passages between Hastings and Miss Neville, without which Colman would certainly have declined it altogether. Apart from the main argument—the wooing of Kate Hardcastle—the plot turns on the points that Tony Lumpkin is the son of Mrs. Hardcastle by her first marriage, and that Constance Neville is her niece and ward, not her husband's.