Ay, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating,

If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.

'Twas thus that Æsop's stag, a creature blameless, Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless,

Once on the margin of a fountain stood,

And cavill'd at his image in the flood.

"The deuce confound," he cries, "these drumstick shanks, They never have my gratitude nor thanks;

They're perfectly disgraceful! strike me dead!
But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head.

'How piercing is that eye! how sleek that brow!
My horns! I'm told horns are the fashion now."
Whilst thus he spoke, astonish'd, to his view,
Near, and more near, the hounds and huntsmen drew;
"Hoicks! hark forward!" came thund'ring from behind,
He bounds aloft, outstrips the fleeting wind:
He quits the woods, and tries the beaten ways;
He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze.
At length, his silly head, so priz'd before,
Is taught his former folly to deplore;
Whilst his strong limbs conspire to set him free,
And at one bound he saves himself-like me.

[Taking a jump through the stage door.

DRAMAS.

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN;

A COMEDY:

AS PERFORMED AT

THE THEATRE-ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN.

London: Printed for W. Griffin, in Catharine Street, Strand, 1768 8vo. Price 18. 6d.

"The Good-Natured Man " was first performed at Covent Garden Theatre (then under the management of the elder Colman), on the 29th of January, 1768; ran ten nights, and went through at least five editions the same year.

Goldsmith seems to have taken the hint of Mr. Honeywood's character (the Good-natured man of the piece), from "the celebrated Mr. S— who, at that time, went by the name of "The Good-Natured Man," the lover of the unfortunate Miss Braddock, commemorated in his own "Life of Nash." (See Vol. iv.) He owned to Johnson, as Johnson informed Boswell, that he had borrowed the character of Croaker from Suspirius in The Rambler (No. 59). Mr. Forster has pointed out resemblances in the 92nd Letter of "The Citizen of the World." See Forster's Goldsmith, vol. ii., p. 58; ed. 1854.