The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-12 00:00:00

The Prince and Princess of Wales.

The Princess of Wales, attended by the 1100.
Mrs. F. Stonor, took a carriage drive on Saturday'•
The Prince and Princess of Wales had a dinner
party on Saturday evening.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cam.
bridge and the Princess Mary of Cambridge intend to hon-
our Sir Ralph and Lady Howard with their company at
dinner on Tuesday, 20th inst. A select party are invited
to meet their royal highnesses. _

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge had
a dinner party on Saturday evening at Gloucester house•
Covers were laid for 20.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Bath entertained
the Marquis of Lansdowne, Viscount and Viscountess
Royston, and a select party at dinner on Saturday at their
residence in 13elgrave-square.
The Earl and Countess Granville received a dis-
tinguished circle at dinner on Saturday at their residence in
Bruton-street.

The Earl of Sefton's party at Croxteth Park
separated on Friday. Owing to the recent death of Lis
lordship's aunt, the customary hospitalities at Croxteth,
during the Liverpool race meeting, were considerablY
abridged.

The Earl and Countess of Carnarvon received a
small party on Saturday at their residence in Grosvenor-
street.

PRINCE AL/RED AND THE MERCANTILE MARINE
SERVlCE.—Liverpool is to be honoured in June nest
by a visit from H.R.H. Prince Alfred, who has signified
his willingness to distribute the midsummer prizes on
board the school frigate H.M.S. Conway. The precise day
on which the ceremony is to take place has not yet been
fixed, but it will be towards the end of the ifionth. Our
" Sailor Prince," who has for some time past been an hone-
rary member of the Mercantile Marine Service Association,
has most kindly complied with the earnest wish of the cow-
mittee of management that his royal highness should hon-
our their ship by a visit. It is stated that Mr. S. R.. Gravest
M.P., is to have the honour of entertaining his royal high-
ness during his stay in Liverpool.

Goldsmith's " She Stoops to Conquer."

..---

REVIEWED BY THE " TIMES" IN MARCH, 1866.
Though less talked about than either of She-
ridan's celebrated comedies, 4i She Stoops to Con-
quer," brought out in 1773, two years before the
" Rivals," remains one of the few works of the last
century which no change of taste or fashion can
utterly banish from the stage. At the Haymarket
Theatre it is usually played several times in tho
year during the intervals that separate the arrival
of successive " stars" or the production of impor-
tant novelties, and invariably, we believe, it 1.5
found attractive. Its enduring popularity stands
as a monument to managerial fallibility, for Col-
man, who ruled Covent-garden when it was offered
for acceptance, considered that it had no chance of
success, and reluclantly couseutei to its production
through the mere influence of Goldsmith's stanch
friend, Dr. Johnson. Nor does it seem that Col-
man's opinion widely differed from the standard of
taste acknowledged in his day, far the established
actors Woodward and Smith refused to play the
leading characters of Tony bumpkin and Young
Marlow, making way, by their refusal, for the early
advancement of Quick and Lee Lewis, and, though
there is no doubtthat the play was triumphant on the,
first night, there is on record such a full account 0/
the personal efforts made by Johnson and lila
friends, who went to Covent Garden in a body to
sure its success, that we can scarcely tell whether it
was legitimately admired by the audience, or far
upon the public by a powerful clique. The prelli,
dices that existed nearly a century ago against s
piece which, though it reflects manners totally cii°d
reent from our own, is now universally esteemed
has been ascribed to a transient rage fora grave
sentimental sort of comedy, the chief writer o;
which was Hugh Kelly. This gentleman, great i
his day, is now scarcely remembered even by 01330;
his plays being nether represented on the stage 11,,
studied in the closet. It is, however, just pOSSIbi;
that some of our readers may recollect that in 8;s
old school-book called " Enfield's Speaker" there
a scene from " False Delicacy," extracted as a thin,
proper to be committed to memory by an ingenio7
youth. , The same "False Delicacy" was iltig

Kelly's earliest and most celebrated work.
" She Stoops to Conquer" pleaces neither bY
sparkle of its dialogue, like the " School for Se3ll;
dal," nor by the ingenuity of its combinations a°
the force of its principal situations, like the " 're;
lous Wife." Indeed the plot is at once so sli,gnt
and so improbable as to favour the conjecture ti'"
some primitive farce has been worked up into a
rn;
act comedy. The mistake of a country mansion
an inn, deemed a sufficient foundation for a Piy
a,' •ss
considerable length, the position taken 111-7130
Hardcastle, the very marked contrast between'll
two phases in the character of Young Marl etb;
almost seem to point to some old production 0' bo
Italian stage, and we can fancy that the lady Nvoid
" stoops to conquer" was once a Columbiliet.4 to
Tony Lumpkin an Arlecchino. Of course/ it t,ro,
the plot alone that we refer. The charges
whencesoever their functions have been derived'ich
coloured by Goldsmith with a native hum our 1/11.`00..
is perhaps more telling than wit, and
ders the whole one of the most thoroughly x.'"
lish works to be found on the stage.
firm preei"
This humour in the dialogue and the
sion with which the personages are drawn, clis'it
to
without exaggeration, are, perhaps, sufgeiseiloop3
account for the lasting popularity of "She 0
tho
to Conquer ;" but we may also call attention as
circumstances amid which the action takes pre-
sent
especially appealing to the symimthies of line
lentil
day. Old-fashioned travellers not unfreq's
_yet.
enliven their journeys by rail with lamentatiou v
oriti
of
the joys of the " coaching days," wad the tuaJ
tixaeot
Englishmen have a sort of archaeological 0,3.'0 their
about them which is probably unknown 4.0 re-
American cousins, and which prompts them
e w
kept
gard the time when town and country werti not
wide apart as an idyllic age which they cots,
to,
they
indeed recall, but which, in dreamy momellecies of
fancy must have been productive of asp_ „joie
simple but hearty enjoyment unknown to till:
rural
of the 19th century. Mr. Hardcastle, with 001
predilections, is a country squire whose
prejudices are of the popular sort, and M1.5.1:„,t re'
castle, with her fancy for a London life, ls
_ono
garded as the less abnormal because her 8" rrovy
jump with modern notions of progress. ;hot
Lumpkin is country-bred to the backbones..n of a
the sentimentality that belonged to
always
somewhat later growth, and, thereforeyi
which his
mains a favourite, though the levity wit . treated
undutiful conduct to a doating mother
eynb
thee regardedcircumstances
may
ditlicultl
•es o
lose their way on the road, and the
to J° travel invented by Tony Lumpkin, "Elea" rrepPerle;
sent those peculiar perils that belonged bee rile
as a
thatmer moral
adrleof ewe ta
and htihsef cif
would bee
of the olden time. The whole story
'We were we
f
morally, if not mathematically,
impossible 1
to suppose Mr. Hardcastle's house in the vl
a " station."