In 1771 Goldsmith was full of hope for that capital essay in comedy, She Stoops to Conquer. Two years passed before he could obtain its definite acceptance. He found his manager not in Garrick, as one might have anticipated, but again in Colman. The pretty piece appeared at Covent Garden. Tried as Goldsmith had been ere The Good-natured Man was produced, the negotiations and delays about She Stoops to Conquer were not less torturing. Colman kept the manuscript in his hands for months and months without coming to any decision. The playwright's letters to the manager are absolute supplications. Humiliation appears the very discipline of genius. At one time the manuscript was actually recalled by its author and despatched to Garrick. Before it had really come under his consideration, which very likely might have been just as obtuse, Johnson intervened. To send it to Garrick, in his opinion, would be tantamount to an acknowledgment of its refusal by Colman. This had not taken place. The manager would neither accept the piece nor produce it. He said he would keep his faith, but whatever that might mean in his mind, he did nothing. Johnson finally and very firmly brought the man to book. When Colman had accepted the piece, through his gloomy forebodings he biassed the actors against the play before they had even seen it, but no sooner had the rehearsals begun in earnest than they warmed to their assigned parts, and in due time admired and revelled in the comedy. Colman, niggard, would risk nothing in the production of the piece, neither in new costumes nor theatrical fittings. He actually held forth disparagingly in his own box-office to those who sent to purchase tickets for the play.

In the Republic of Letters rumours of wrong run like riot through the realm. Indignant at Goldsmith's sufferings through Colman's insults, and still more from their love of the playwright, his friends determined that if popular support and applause on the first night could make his comedy succeed, then no effort in this direction should be spared upon his behalf. An illustrious and a memorable house greeted the rising curtain. This assemblage of celebrities and the men and women who loved and admired and were resolved to stand by and support Oliver Goldsmith was moving in itself, and one of the greatest possible evidences of the honour and popularity in which the man was held. The people rallied to the rescue of their favourite—the best beloved of all the authors. This is one of the finest demonstrations of public sympathy and regard the history of literature affords. It was enough for Oliver Goldsmith to have lived for that night, and, if need be, for that alone. The whole affair proved an unequivocal success. Those friends, bent on conquest, applauded everything, and led the streams of welcoming mirth and merriment. The fact that the comedy did not require this protection could not make the personal kindliness less pleasing. Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Stevens, Fitzherbert, and a rallying host, dined together before proceeding to the theatre. Johnson led them like a commander-in-chief. The hearty meal at the Shakespeare Tavern was one of the most jovial imaginable. The party mustered on the battle-field. It was Goldsmith's Waterloo. That great victory, like the triumph of She Stoops to Conquer, was assured ere it was fought. Goldsmith, very nervous at the dinner, did not go at once to the theatre, but strolled away, and rambled alone in St. James's Park. He crept back, or, rather, was persuaded by Stevens to come, and arrived at the opening of the fifth act. Strangely enough, as he entered he caught the only sign of disapproval heard that night.

She Stoops to Conquer, owing much to its capital central motive, is as graceful as it is diverting. Its humour is unfailing. The delightful force of Goldsmith's dialogue lies in entire naturalness. The author of "The School for Scandal" creates for his comedies an atmosphere of superheated wit and intellectualism, which, whilst inevitably pleasing, is beyond probability. Certain novelists vaunt and revel in the creation of impossibly vivacious wits. Nature has a finer grace; its faithful reflection is purer art. Those true to natural humour and the spontaneous rather than the fabricated repartee represent a small minority. Amongst the novelists Goldsmith and Jane Austen have few to follow them, and with the dramatists MoliÈre and Pinero are almost his solitary associates. Perfectly natural are the arguments, 'mid trips and assaults, between Mr. Burchell and Mrs. Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield, and Hastings and Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer. This play achieved a revolution in dramatic presentation. It changed the course of comedy, heightened humour, and rang like laughter round the town. It was performed as long as there were nights to spare. In book-form it proved a great success. In this we have the beautiful words of the dedication to Dr. Johnson. The town was disgusted to the depths with Colman. No one will ever pity him for the private contempt and the public derision he brought upon himself through his mean discernment and his want of appreciation of the very best play of the period. The press so teemed with caustic and sarcastic epigrams at his expense that he fled for refuge to Bath during the run of the piece, and at last begged Goldsmith to intercede and rescue him from the scorn of the critics. After all the worries and vexations, it is not surprising that poor Noll should write: "I am sick of the stage!"

When it was known that the King would visit the theatre to see She Stoops to Conquer, he said: "I wish he would;" and then added, carried away by the undercurrent of pressing trials: "Not that it would do me the least good." "Then," said Johnson, "let us hope that it will do him good."

The interval in time was not wide that divided the last triumph from the last day of Goldsmith's life. He was still toiling amid many monetary perplexities, that he had not bettered by accepting payment for works before they were completed. It was now all pouring out and nothing coming in, and there was no hope. He projected a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences upon a comprehensive system, at once practical and ambitious. Failing health had made him sadly dilatory. The booksellers, who had lost confidence in his schemes, did not hold him the man for this encyclopÆdic labour or suited for long and strenuous strain. Friends ineffectually tried to procure him a pension. He had made many notes and written sundry essays, intended for a treatise in two volumes, to be entitled A Survey of Experimental Philosophy. In the midst of vain strivings he died. The knack of hoping could not do all. The heart was broken and the soul passing. It is a tragedy to remember that his one chance lay now in writing another comedy. In these distressed days Garrick came to his aid, helping him over one stile, at least, by paying liberally, and probably from charity, for the promise of a play. The poet's physical strength was poorer even than his empty purse. In this sad state he pursued his labours, toiling like a slave almost to the last, looking back and recovering nothing, forward and seeing nothing, pressing on with all the poor power he had left, and making no headway. He gave one last extravagant dinner to his old friends, which in his poverty, and for very shame and pity, and a little even in rebuke, they would not take at his expense. Then for a time he sought once again the fresh, sweet country air. He returned to town. The old talent was not yet fled. He wrote that fine Retaliation at this time. It is pathetically possible that the weakening appearance of the poet induced his lively friends to pen epitaphs upon the little man. Many jests have their serious motives, not wholly known to those who perpetrate the jokes. If unconscious of the forces really leading to the episode, little did they dream that its results would live till now, and to all intents for ever. Each wrote an epitaph on Noll, and he in turn an epitaph on all. The Retaliation shows his power in compressed expression, and his fine discernment of men and character. The little poem lives, a veritable, and, in its way, a wholesale contribution to national biography. It is a candid commentary upon some of the best men of that day. Garrick is treated more elaborately than the rest. He had been the prime offender, and naturally came foremost for the fire of the reply. The poem was never finished. The kind words about Sir Joshua were practically the last the poet penned. Reynolds, to the very end trying to cheer Goldsmith and be with him whenever he could, proved now, as he had ever been, the sweetest of friends—a true and loving, tender man.

Home at the Temple, and in the dear London he loved, Goldsmith grew ill very rapidly, and in his illness fell into a deep sleep. He slept to wake; he stooped to conquer. This, instead of being the sleep of restoring strength, was that in which disease takes its last, firm grasp. One struggle with the feeble frame, and the wrestle for life was over for ever. His biographers write of this sleep, that was watched with so much anxiety by his physicians: "It was hoped that a favourable crisis had arrived." It had. It marked the advent of the last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds have passed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all sorrow. Heaven had sent its last call and its greatest message to the heart. In all, only forty-seven years had been given, and all that may have been ill in the time is forgotten and forgiven, and the fairest part of all that was well and high and true is with us even now, and the radiance must last for long, cheering many hearts, brightening souls that are failing, and blessing homes that are and will be. The night of passing death has led on to the day of unpassing life.

On April 4, 1774, the spirit of Oliver Goldsmith conquered that which men call death. Burke burst into tears at the news of the passing of the man and the friend he cherished and revered. Reynolds laid his work aside and rose, shaken in his great sorrow, and trembling with the sense of an untold loss. Looking back upon the fading figure, so dear to so many, and a light for years to come, shining still in many homes and many hearts and many lands, Johnson, in his sacred solemnity, said: "Poor Goldsmith! He was a very great man."

The body of Oliver Goldsmith was buried in the quiet Temple churchyard. There is a tablet to his memory in the church itself, but no one now knows exactly where the mortal remnant was laid, for no memorial marked that last resting-place. The epitaph on Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey runs: "He left no spheres of writing untouched or unadorned by his pen. Noble, pure, and delicate, his memory will last as long as society retains affection, friendship is not devoid of honour, and reading wants not her admirers." Intimately we are guided most of all by those whom most we love. The eyes may close, but not the life. There is the knowledge of loving power wielded on the heart by those whom men call dead. There is a soul in men rising beyond visible activities; its story is not told in the recognised deeds of a career and their outward record. Beyond the acknowledged actions and admitted attainments, there stays the prevailing essence. The glory of Christianity is seen in its illuminating stars, living everlastingly. Through grace and gentleness, Goldsmith was one in that long train in which shine Sister Dora and St. Francis of Assisi.

Oliver Goldsmith was the most pure and suasive spirit of his age. To this day his gentle touch and soothing spell, by that magnetic power that flows through purity of sympathy, still sway the heart. His charming radiance and pure, divine delight move and master those who admire and honour this all-loving soul and most graceful writer. In reading his works, there is for all, and there must ever be, that sense of compassion and that absolving perception which must have moved the finer feelings of those who lived in his own time, and actually knew the man himself. Not less does his purifying power, with its elevating inspiration, survive. It is a silent and unseen, but still a lofty, a lasting, and an impressive influence. Lovers of Goldsmith feel friendship and affection for the moving and immortal spirit of the man. His works need no learned commentary. The common heart is their sufficing commentary.