For the next two days Goldsmith was fully occupied making such changes
in his play as were suggested to him in the course of the rehearsals.
The alterations were not radical, but he felt that they would be
improvements, and his judgment was rarely at fault. Moreover, he was
quick to perceive in what direction the strong points and the weak
points of the various members of the company lay, and he had no
hesitation in altering the dialogue so as to give them a better chance
of displaying their gifts. But not a line of what Colman called the
“pot-house scene” would he change, not a word of the scene where the
farm servants are being trained to wait at table would he allow to be
omitted.
Colman declined to appear upon the stage during the rehearsals. He seems
to have spent all his spare time walking from coffee house to coffee
house talking about the play, its vulgarity, and the certainty of the
fate that was in store for it. It would have been impossible, had he
not adopted this remarkable course, for the people of the town to become
aware, as they certainly did, what were his ideas regarding the comedy.
When it was produced with extraordinary success, the papers held the
manager up to ridicule daily for his false predictions, and every day a
new set of lampoons came from the coffee-house wits on the same subject.
But though the members of the company rehearsed the play loyally, some
of them were doubtful about the scene at the Three Pigeons, and did not
hesitate to express their fears to Goldsmith. They wondered if he
might not see his way to substitute for that scene one which could not
possibly be thought offensive by any section of playgoers. Was it not a
pity, one of them asked him, to run a chance of failure when it might be
so easily avoided?
To all of these remonstrances he had but one answer: the play must stand
or fall by the scenes which were regarded as ungenteel. He had written
it, he said, for the sake of expressing his convictions through the
medium of these particular scenes, and he was content to accept the
verdict of the playgoers on the point in question. Why he had brought on
those scenes so early in the play was that the playgoers might know not
to expect a sentimental piece, but one that was meant to introduce a
natural school of comedy, with no pretence to be anything but a copy of
the manners of the day, with no fine writing in the dialogue, but only
the broadest and heartiest fun.
“If the scenes are ungenteel,” said he, “it is because nature is made
up of ungenteel things. Your modern gentleman is, to my mind, much less
interesting than your ungenteel person; and I believe that Tony Lumpkin
when admirably represented, as he will be by Mr. Quick, will be a
greater favourite with all who come to the playhouse than the finest
gentleman who ever uttered an artificial sentiment to fall exquisitely
on the ear of a boarding-school miss. So, by my faith! I'll not
interfere with his romping.”
He was fluent and decisive on this point, as he was on every other point
on which he had made up his mind. He only stammered and stuttered when
he did not know what he was about to say, and this frequently arose from
his over-sensitiveness in regard to the feelings of others--a disability
which could never be laid to the charge of Dr. Johnson, who was, in
consequence, delightfully fluent.
On the evening of the third rehearsal of the play with the amended cast,
he went to Reynolds's house in Leicester Square to dine. He knew that
the Horneck family would be there, and he looked forward with some
degree of apprehension to his meeting with Mary. He felt that she might
think he looked for some explanation of her strange words spoken when he
was by her side at the Pantheon. But he wanted no explanation from her.
The words still lay as a burden upon his heart, but he felt that it
would pain her to attempt an explanation of them, and he was quite
content that matters should remain as they were. Whatever the words
might have meant, it was impossible that they could mean anything that
might cause him to think of her with less reverence and affection.
He arrived early at Reynolds's house, but it did not take him long to
find out that he was not the first arrival. From the large drawingroom
there came to his ears the sound of laughter--such laughter as caused
him to remark to the servant--
“I perceive that Mr. Garrick is already in the house, Ralph.”
“Mr. Garrick has been here with the young ladies for the past half-hour,
sir,” replied Ralph.
“I shouldn't wonder if, on inquiry, it were found that he has been
entertaining them,” said Goldsmith.
Ralph, who knew perfectly well what was the exact form that the
entertainment assumed, busied himself hanging up the visitor's hat.
The fact was that, for the previous quarter of an hour, Garrick had been
keeping Mary Horneck and her sister, and even Miss Reynolds, in fits
of laughter by his burlesque account of Goldsmith's interview with an
amanuensis who had been recommended to him with a view of saving him
much manual labour. Goldsmith had told him the story originally, and the
imagination of Garrick was quite equal to the duty of supplying all the
details necessary for the burlesque. He pretended to be the amanuensis
entering the room in which Goldsmith was supposed to be seated working
laboriously at his “Animated Nature.”
“Good morning, sir, good morning,” he cried, pretending to take off
his gloves and shake the dust off them with the most perfect
self-possession, previous to laying them in his hat on a chair. “Now
mind you don't sit there, Dr. Goldsmith,” he continued, raising a
warning finger. A little motion of his body, and the pert amanuensis,
with his mincing ways, was transformed into the awkward Goldsmith, shy
and self-conscious in the presence of a stranger, hastening with clumsy
politeness to get him a chair, and, of course, dragging forward the very
one on which the man had placed his hat. “Now, now, now, what are you
about?”--once more Garrick was the amanuensis. “Did not I warn you to
be careful about that chair, sir? Eh? I only told you not to sit in it?
Sir, that excuse is a mere quibble--a mere quibble. This must not occur
again, or I shall be forced to dismiss you, and where will you be then,
my good sir? Now to business, Doctor; but first you will tell your man
to make me a cup of chocolate--with milk, sir--plenty of milk, and two
lumps of sugar--plantation sugar, sir; I flatter myself that I am a
patriot--none of your foreign manufactures for me. And now that I think
on't, your laundress would do well to wash and iron my ruffles for
me; and mind you tell her to be careful of the one with the tear in
it”--this shouted half-way out of the door through which he had shown
Goldsmith hurrying with the ruffles and the order for the chocolate.
Then came the monologue of the amanuensis strolling about the room,
passing his sneering remarks at the furniture--opening a letter which
had just come by post, and reading it _sotto voce_. It was supposed to
be from Filby, the tailor, and to state that the field-marshal's uniform
in which Dr. Goldsmith meant to appear at the next masked ball at the
Haymarket would be ready in a few days, and to inquire if Dr. Goldsmith
had made up his mind as to the exact orders which he meant to
wear, ending with a compliment upon Dr. Goldsmith's good taste and
discrimination in choosing a costume which was so well adapted to
his physique, and a humble suggestion that it should be worn upon the
occasion of the first performance of the new comedy, when the writer
hoped no objection would be raised to the hanging of a board in front of
the author's box with “Made by Filby” printed on it.
Garrick's reading of the imaginary letter, stumbling over certain
words--giving an odd turn and a ludicrous misreading to a phrase here
and there, and finally his turning over the letter and mumbling a
postscript alluding to the length of time that had passed since the
writer had received a payment on account, could not have been surpassed.
The effect of the comedy upon the people in the room was immeasurably
heightened by the entrance of Goldsmith in the flesh, when Garrick,
as the amanuensis, immediately walked to him gravely with the scrap of
paper which had done duty as the letter, in his hand, asking him if what
was written there in black and white about the field-marshal's uniform
was correct, and if he meant to agree to Filby's request to wear it on
the first night of the comedy.
Goldsmith perceived that Garrick was giving an example of the impromptu
entertainment in which he delighted, and at once entered into the spirit
of the scene, saying-“Why, yes, sir; I have come to the conclusion that
more credit should be given to a man who has brought to a successful
issue a campaign against the prejudices and stupidities of the manager
of a playhouse than to the generalissimo of an army in the field, so why
should not I wear a field-marshal's uniform, sir?”
The laugh was against Garrick, which pleased him greatly, for he knew
that Goldsmith would feel that he was sharing in the entertainment,
and would not regard it as a burlesque upon himself personally. In
an instant, however, the actor had ceased to be the supercilious
amanuensis, and became David Garrick, crying--
“Nay, sir, you are out of the play altogether. You are presuming to
reply to the amanuensis, which, I need scarcely tell a gentleman of
your experience, is a preposterous idea, and out of all consistency with
nature.”
Goldsmith had shaken hands with all his friends, and being quite elated
at the success of his reply to the brilliant Garrick, did not mind much
what might follow.
At what did actually follow Goldsmith laughed as heartily as any one in
the room.
“Come, sir,” said the amanuensis, “we have no time to waste over empty
civilities. We have our 'Animated Nature' to proceed with; we
cannot keep the world waiting any longer; it matters not about the
booksellers, 'tis the world we think of. What is this?”--picking up an
imaginary paper--“'The derivation of the name of the elephant has taxed
the ingeniousness of many able writers, but there can be no doubt in
the mind of any one who has seen that noble creature, as I have, in
its native woods, careering nimbly from branch to branch of the largest
trees in search of the butterflies, which form its sole food, that
the name elephant is but a corruption of elegant, the movements of the
animal being as singularly graceful as its shape is in accordance with
all accepted ideas of symmetry.' Sir, this is mighty fine, but your
style lacks animation. A writer on 'Animated Nature' should be himself
both animated and natural, as one who translates Buffon should himself
be a buffoon.”
In this strain of nonsense Garrick went on for the next ten minutes,
leading up to a simulated dispute between Goldsmith and his amanuensis
as to whether a dog lived on land or water. The dispute waxed warmer
and warmer, until at last blows were exchanged and the amanuensis kicked
Goldsmith through the door and down the stairs. The bumping of the
imaginary man from step to step was heard in the drawing-room, and then
the amanuensis entered, smiling and rubbing his hands as he remarked--
“The impertinent fellow! To presume to dictate to his amanuensis!
Lord! what's the world coming to when a common literary man presumes to
dictate to his amanuensis?”
Such buffoonery was what Garrick loved. At Dr. Burney's new house,
around the corner in St. Martin's street, he used to keep the household
in roars of laughter--as one delightful member of the household has
recorded--over his burlesque auctions of books, and his imitations of
Dr. Johnson.
“And all this,” said Goldsmith, “came out of the paltry story which I
told him of how I hired an amanuensis, but found myself dumb the moment
he sat down to work, so that, after making a number of excuses which I
knew he saw through, I found it to my advantage to give the man a guinea
and send him away.”