SOURCE: "An Essay on the Theatre; or, a Comparison Between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy," reprinted in The Bee and Other Essays by Oliver Goldsmith, Oxford University Press, 1914, pp. 264-68.

The following piece was first published in the 1 January 1773 issue of Westminster Magazine. Here Goldsmith censures the "new species of dramatic composition," sentimental comedy. He finds it a "species of bastard tragedy which only is applauded because it is new."

The theatre, like all other amusements, has its fashions and its prejudices; and when satiated with its excellence, mankind begin to mistake change for improvement. For some years tragedy was the reigning entertainment; but of late it has entirely given way to comedy, and our best efforts are now exerted in these lighter kinds of composition. The pompous train, the swelling phrase, and the unnatural rant are displaced for that natural portrait of human folly and frailty, of which...