Chapter XVIII: Epilogue: To ‘the Good Natur’d Man.’

Goldsmith’s comedy of _The Good Natur’d Man_ was produced by
Colman, at Covent Garden, on Friday, January 29, 1768. The following note
was appended to the Epilogue when printed:—‘The Author, in
expectation of an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one
himself till the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its
success to the graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it.’ It was spoken
by Mrs. Bulkley, the ‘Miss Richland’ of the piece. In its first form it is
to be
found in _The Public Advertiser_ for February 3. Two days later
the play was published, with the version here followed.

As puffing quacks. Goldsmith had devoted a Chinese
letter to this subject. See _Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii.
10 (Letter lxv).

No, no: I’ve other contests, etc. This couplet is
not in the first version. The old building of the College of Physicians
was in Warwick Lane; and the reference is to the long-pending dispute,
occasionally enlivened by personal collision, between the Fellows and
Licentiates respecting the exclusion of certain of the latter from
Fellowships. On this theme Bonnell Thornton, himself an M.B. like
Goldsmith, wrote a satiric additional canto to Garth’s _ Dispensary_,
entitled _The Battle of the Wigs_, long extracts from which are
printed in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ for March, 1768, p. 132.
The same number also reviews _The Siege of the Castle of Æsculapius,
an heroic Comedy, as it is acted in Warwick-Lane_. Goldsmith’s
couplet is, however, best illustrated by the title of one of Sayer’s
caricatures, _The March of the Medical Militants to the Siege of
Warwick-Lane-Castle in the Year_ 1767. The quarrel was finally
settled in favour of the college in June, 1771.

Go, ask your manager. Colman, the manager of Covent
Garden, was not a prolific, although he was a happy writer of prologues
and epilogues.

The quotation is from _King Lear_, Act
iii, Sc. 4.

In the first version the last line runs:—

And view with favour, the ‘Good-natur’d Man.’