THE

GOOD-NATURED MAN,

A COMEDY.

This admirable comedy was represented, for the first time, at Covent Garden, January 29, 1768. It kept possession of the stage for nine nights, but was considered by the author's friends not to have met with all the success it deserved. Dr Johnson spoke of it as the best comedy which had appeared since " The Provoked Husband," and Burke estimated its merits still higher. The scene where the bailiffs are introduced was struck out after the first representation, at the desire of the manager, Mr Colman, but was afterwards restored when the comedy was printed.-B.

PREFACE.

WHEN I undertook to write a comedy, I confess I was strongly prepossessed in favour of the poets of the last age, and strove to imitate them. The term genteel comedy was then unknown amongst us, and little more was desired by an audience than nature and humour, in whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous. The author of the following scenes never imagined that more would be expected of him, and therefore to delineate character has been his principal aim. Those who know any thing of composition, are sensible, that in pursuing humour, it will sometimes lead us into the recesses of the mean I was even tempted to look for it in the master of a spunging-house; but, in deference to the public tastegrown of late, perhaps, too delicate-the scene of the bailiffs was retrenched in the representation. In deference also to the judgment of a few friends, who think in a particular way, the scene is here restored. The author submits it to the reader in his closet; and hopes that too much refinement will not banish humour and character from ours, as it has already

done from the French theatre. Indeed, the French comedy is now become so very elevated and sentimental, that it has not only banished humour and Moliere from the stage, but it has banished all spectators too.

Upon the whole, the author returns his thanks to the public, for the favourable reception which the Good-Natured Man has met with; and to Mr Colman in particular, for his kindness to it. It may not also be improper to assure any who shall hereafter write for the theatre, that merit, or supposed merit, will ever be a sufficient passport to his protection.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

THE CAST OF THE PLAY, AS IT WAS FIRST ACTED AT COVENT GARDEN.

THE

GOOD-NATURED MAN.

PROLOGUE,

WRITTEN BY DR JOHNSON, SPOKEN BY MR Hensley.

PRESS'D by the load of life, the

weary mind
Surveys the general toil of human kind,
With cool submission joins the lab'ring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain:

Our anxious bard, without complaint, may share
This bustling season's epidemic care,
Like Cæsar's pilot, dignified by fate,

Toss'd in one common storm with all the great;
Distress'd alike, the statesmen and the wit,
When one a Borough courts, and one the Pit.
The busy candidates for power and fame

Have hopes, and fears, and wishes, just the same: Disabled both to combat or to fly,

Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply;
Uncheck'd, on both loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage.

Th' offended burgess hoards his angry tale,
For that blest year when all that vote may rail;
Their schemes of spite the poet's foes dismiss,
Till that glad night, when all that hate may hiss.
"This day, the powder'd curls and golden coat,
Says swelling Crispin, "begg'd a cobbler's vote."
This night, our wit," the pert apprentice cries,
"Lies at my feet- I hiss him, and he dies."

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The great, 'tis true, can charm the electing tribe:
The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe.
Yet, judged by those whose voices ne'er were sold,
He feels no want of ill-persuading gold;
But confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts without fear to merit and to you.

ACT FIRST.

SCENE AN APARTMENT IN YOUNG HONEYWOOD'S HOUSE.

Enter Sir William Honeywood and Jarvis.

Sir William. GOOD Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness. Fidelity, like yours, is the best excuse for every freedom.

Jarvis. I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my master. All the world

loves him.

Sir William. Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

Jarvis. I am sure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are, though he has not seen you since he was a child.

Sir William. What signifies his affection to me? or how can I be proud of a place in a heart, where every sharper and coxcomb find an easy entrance?

Jarvis. I grant you that he is rather too good-natured; that he's too much every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another: but whose instructions may he thank for all this?

Sir William. Not mine, sure. My letters to him during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend his errors.

Jarvis. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm sorry they taught him any philosophy at all: it has only served to spoil him. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on 't, I'm always sure he's going to play the fool.

Sir William. Don't let us ascribe his faults to his philosopuy, I entreat you. No, Jarvis, his good-nature arises rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy.

Jarvis. What it arises from, I don't know; but, to be sure, every body has it that asks it.

Sir William. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a concealed spectator of his follies, anu find them as boundless as his dissipation.

Jarvis. And yet, faith, he has some fine name or other for them all. He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting every body, universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was the name he gave it.

Sir William. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, though with very little hopes, to reclaim him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity: to arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.

Jarvis. Well, if I could but any way see him thoroughly vexed, every groan of his would be music to me; yet, faith, I believe it impossible. I have tried to fret him myself every morning these three years; but instead of being angry, he sits as calmly to hear me scold, as he does to his hair-dresser.

Sir William. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant to put my scheme into execution: and I don't despair of succeeding, as, by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good-will to others should produce so much neglect of himself, as to require correction! Yet we must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. [Exit.

Jarvis. Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reason, that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes his hopeful nephew-the strange, good-natured, foolish, open-hearted—And yet, all his faults are such, that one loves him still the better for them.