A History of English Literature

published two years later. Meanwhile in 1764 appeared Goldsmith's
descriptive poem, 'The Traveler,' based on his own experiences in Europe.
Six years later it was followed by 'The Deserted Village,' which was
received with the great enthusiasm that it merited.
Such high achievement in two of the main divisions of literature was in
itself remarkable, especially as Goldsmith was obliged to the end of his
life to spend much of his time in hack writing, but in the later years of
his short life he turned also with almost as good results to the drama
(comedy). We must stop here for the few words of general summary which are
all that the eighteenth century drama need receive in a brief survey like
the present one. During the first half of the century, as we have seen, an
occasional pseudo-classical tragedy was written, none of them of any
greater excellence than Addison's 'Cato' and Johnson's 'Irene' (above,
pages 205 and 217). The second quarter of the century was largely given
over to farces and burlesques, which absorbed the early literary activity
of the novelist Henry Fielding, until their attacks on Walpole's government
led to a severe licensing act, which suppressed them. But the most
distinctive and predominant forms of the middle and latter half of the
century were, first, the Sentimental Comedy, whose origin may be roughly
assigned to Steele, and, second, the domestic melodrama, which grew out of
it. In the Sentimental Comedy the elements of mirth and romance which are
the legitimate bases of comedy were largely subordinated to exaggerated
pathos, and in the domestic melodrama the experiences of insignificant
persons of the middle class were presented for sympathetic consideration in
the same falsetto fashion. Both forms (indeed, they were one in spirit)
were extreme products of the romantic return to sentiment and democratic
feeling. Both were enormously popular and, crossing the Channel, like
Thomson's poetic innovation, exerted a great influence on the drama of
France and Germany (especially in the work of Lessing), and in general on
the German Romantic Movement. Goldsmith was inferior to no one in genuine
sentiment, but he was disgusted at the sentimental excesses of these plays.
His 'Good Natured Man,' written with the express purpose of opposing them,
and brought out in 1768, was reasonably successful, and in 1771 his far
superior 'She Stoops to Conquer' virtually put an end to Sentimental
Comedy. This is one of the very few English comedies of a former generation
which are still occasionally revived on the stage to-day. Goldsmith's
comedies, we may add here for completeness, were shortly followed by the
more brilliant ones of another Irish-Englishman, Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
who displayed Congreve's wit without his cynicism. These were 'The Rivals,'
produced in 1775, when Sheridan was only twenty-four, and 'The School for
Scandal,' 1777. Sheridan, a reckless man of fashion, continued most of his
life to be owner of Drury Lane Theater, but he soon abandoned playwriting
to become one of the leaders of the Whig party. With Burke and Fox, as we
have seen, he conducted the impeachment of Hastings.
'She Stoops to Conquer' was Goldsmith's last triumph. A few months later,
in 1774, he died at the age of only forty-five, half submerged, as usual,
in foolish debts, but passionately mourned not only by his acquaintances in
the literary and social worlds, but by a great army of the poor and needy
to whom he had been a benefactor. In the face of this testimony to his
human worth his childish vanities and other weaknesses may well be
pardoned. All Goldsmith's literary work is characterized by one main
quality, a charming atmosphere of optimistic happiness which is the
expression of the best side of his own nature. The scene of all his most
important productions, very appropriately, is the country--the idealized
English country. Very much, to be sure, in all his works has to be conceded
to the spirit of romance. Both in 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and in 'She
Stoops to Conquer' characterization is mostly conventional, and events are