OLIVES GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. LBOOK m.
1759. " Our poet's performance must undergo a process truly
Jit. 31. " chemical, before it is presented to the public. It must be
" tried in the manager's fire, strained through a licenser,
" suffer from repeated corrections till it may be a mere caput
" morfuum when it arrives before the public. It may be
" said that we have a sufficient number of plays upon our
" theatres already, and therefore there is no need of new
" ones. But are they sufficiently good ? And is the credit
" of our age nothing ? Must our present times pass away
" unnoticed by posterity ? If these are matters of indiffer-
" ence, it then signifies nothing, whether we are to be
" entertained with the actor or the poet, with fine sentiments
" or painted canvas; or whether the dancer or the carpenter
" be constituted master of the ceremonies. How is it at
" present ? Old pieces are revived, and scarcely any new
" ones admitted. The actor is ever in our eye, the poet
" seldom, permitted to appear; and the stage, instead of
" serving the people, is made subservient to the interests of
" avarice. Getting a play on even in three or four years,
" is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have
" the arts of courting the Manager as well as the Muse :
" who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons
" to support their merit, or money to indemnify disappoint-
" ment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit
" and a witch. I will not dispute the propriety of uniting
" those characters then: but the man who, under the present
" discouragements, ventures to write for the stage, whatever
" claim he may have to the appellation of a wit, at least has
" no right to be called a conjuror."
It is impossible to think Goldsmith wholly justified in
this, and there are passages of sneering and silly objection
to Shakspeare in immediate connection with it which very