For lack of space we can only refer to the romantic quality of his ballad 'Edwin and Angelina' (1765), the spontaneous humor of 'The Haunch of Venison,' and the exquisite satire of 'Retaliation' (1774). To appreciate the historical position of Goldsmith's comedies, one must regard them as a reaction against the school that had held the stage since the beginning of the century—a "genteel" and "sentimental" school, fearing to expose vice or ridicule absurdity. But Goldsmith felt that absurdity was the comic poet's game. Reverting therefore to Farquhar and the Comedy of Manners, he revived that species, at the same time infusing a strain of the "humors" of the [Pg 6506] tribe of Ben. Hence the approbation that welcomed his first comedy, and the applause that greeted the second. For 'The Good-natured Man' (1768) and 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1773) did by example what Hugh Kelly's 'Piety in Pattens' aimed to do by ridicule,—ousted the hybrid comedy (tradesman's tragedy, Voltaire called it) of which 'The Conscious Lovers' had been the most tolerable specimen, and 'The School for Lovers' the most decorous and dull. But "Goldy" had not only the gift of weighing the times, he had the gift of the popular dramatist. His dramatis personæ are on the one hand nearly all legitimate descendants of the national comedy, though none is a copy from dramatic predecessors; on the other hand, they are in every instance "imitations" of real life, more than once of some aspect of his own life; but none is so close an imitation as to detract from the pleasure which fiction should afford. The former quality makes his characters look familiar; the latter, true. So he accomplishes the feat most difficult for the dramatist: while idealizing the individual in order to realize the type, he does not for a moment lose the sympathy of his audience.