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IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS FOR GOLDSMITH’S “ESSAY ON THE THEATRE”

 PROLOGUE TO SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

Excuse me, sirs, I pray--I can't yet speak--

I'm crying now--and have been all the week.
"'Tis not alone this mourning suit," good masters:
"I've that within"--for which there are no plasters!
Pray, would you know the reason why I'm crying?
The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying!
And if she goes, my tears will never stop;
For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop:
I am undone, that's all--shall lose my bread--
I'd rather, but that's nothing--lose my head.
When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier,
Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here.
To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,
Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed!
Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents;
We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!
Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up.
We now and then take down a hearty cup.
What shall we do? If Comedy forsake us,
They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us.
But why can't I be moral?--Let me try--
My heart thus pressing--fixed my face and eye--
With a sententious look, that nothing means,
(Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes)
Thus I begin: "All is not gold that glitters,
"Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters.
"When Ignorance enters, Folly is at hand:
"Learning is better far than house and land.
"Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble,
"And virtue is not virtue, if she tumble."
I give it up--morals won't do for me;
To make you laugh, I must play tragedy.
One hope remains--hearing the maid was ill,
A Doctor comes this night to show his skill.
To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion,
He, in Five Draughts prepar'd, presents a potion:
A kind of magic charm--for be assur'd,
If you will swallow it, the maid is cur'd:
But desperate the Doctor, and her case is,
If you reject the dose, and make wry faces!
This truth he boasts, will boast it while he lives,
No poisonous drugs are mixed in what he gives.
Should he succeed, you'll give him his degree;
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If not, within he will receive no fee!

The College YOU, must his pretensions back,
Pronounce him Regular, or dub him Quack.×

Footnotes 

1
David Garrick (1717–1779) was one of Samuel Johnson and Goldsmith's closest friends.  He
began his career as an actor and later managed the Drury Lane Theater, one of the most
successful theaters in London during the mid 18th century.  Garrick authored several
successful farces and comedies.  Along with Goldsmith and several others, he was part of a
group now known as Johnson and His Circle, essentially a social and literary club.
— Stephen Holliday
2
Henry Woodward (1714–1777) was a comic actor who specialized in plays similar to She
Stoops to Conquer.
— Stephen Holliday
3
This refers to the Muse of Comedy, Thalia, one of nine goddesses who influenced the arts by
inspiring writers, singers, musicians, actors.
— Stephen Holliday
4
Ned (Edward) Shuter (1728–1776) was considered by the theater community to be one of the
best comic actors of the time. 
— Stephen Holliday
5
The phrase "a mawkish drab of spurious breed" refers to an overly sentimental type of drama.
In this case, it refers to sentimental comedy.
— Stephen Holliday
6
This is the start of an extended metaphor that uses medical imagery and language to describe
Goldsmith’s goal. The maid represents theater and comedy, ill with the epidemic of
sentimentalism. The Doctor is Goldsmith himself, who has come to cure the maid of her
disease. The poisonous drugs are “sentimental humor,” which will further affect the maid in a
negative way. However, the potion, presented in “five draughts,” is She Stoops to Conquer,
which has five acts and was written to cure sentimentalism with the new genre of “laughing
humor.”
— Ian, Owl Eyes Staff
7
Goldsmith was rumored to have practiced medicine without being a doctor, so this is a bit of
humor at his expense.  Before the play's production, Goldsmith preferred to be referred to as
"Doctor Goldsmith."  
— Stephen Holliday
8
In medical terms, this refers to doses of medicine.  Here, it is a metaphor for the acts of the
play.
— Stephen Holliday
9
The “magic charm” is a metaphor for laughter. Laughter is a relatively unusual phenomenon
in 18th-century theater, which is plagued by “sentimental comedy.” As the doctor, Goldsmith
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is administering the medicine, or the “magic charm.” The charm—laughter—is an effect from
the potion. Since the potion is Goldsmith’s play, the ensuing laughter is the effect from the
play’s genre, the newly founded “laughing comedy.”
— Ian, Owl Eyes Staff
10
The audience, represented by the College of Physicians, will decide whether to confer a
degree upon Goldsmith, indicating that the play is a success, or fail to confer a degree, a sign
of the play's failure.

 “Essay on the theatre was published in Jan 1773 before the production of She Stoops
to Conquer in the Westminster Magazine.
 Ricardo Quintana: “We do not ordinarily think of Goldsmith as a critic of much
consequence, and while it is true that his observations about literature have seldom
proved memorable or provocative, they sometimes throw considerable light on his
own work.”
 Goldsmith writes in his review of Murphy’s Orphan of China (Critical Review , May
1759): “...but it was not with the luxury of woe they seemed affected: the nervous
sentiment, the glowing imagery, the well-constructed scenery, seemed the source of
their pleasure...”
 In Monthly Review , August 1757 Goldsmith wrote: “ As humour in writing chiefly
consists in an imitation of the foibles or absurdities of mankind, so our pleasure in this
species of composition [comedy] arises from comparing the picture in description
with the original in nature.”
 Voltaire in Art Dramatique: “The comic was banished from comedy, the pathetic
being substituted.”
 Bishop Hurd in Dissertation on the Provinces of the Drama (1753): “...though mixed
dramas may give pleasure, yet the pleasure, in either kind, will be less in proportion to
the mixture. And the end of each will be then attained most perfectly when its
character, according to the ancient practices, is observed.”