Goldsmith, in the present instance, had not dared, as on a former occasion, to be present at the first performance. He had been so overcome by his apprehensions that, at the preparatory dinner he could hardly utter a word, and was so choked that he could not swallow a mouthful. When his friends trooped to the theater, he stole away to St. James' Park: there he was found by a friend between seven and eight o'clock, wandering up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit. With difficulty he was persuaded to go to the theater, where his presence might be important should any alteration be necessary. He arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and made his way behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was a slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on his mother, in persuading her she was forty miles off, on Crackskull Common, though she had been trundled about on her own grounds. "What's that? what's that!" cried Goldsmith to the manager, in great agitation. "Pshaw! doctor," replied Colman, sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, when we've been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder!" Though of a most forgiving nature Goldsmith did not easily forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally. If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives ascribed to him in his treatment of this play, he was most amply punished by its success, and by the taunts, epigrams, and censures leveled at him through the press, in which his false prophecies were jeered at; his critical judgment called in question; and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So galling and unremitting was the fire, that he at length wrote to Goldsmith, entreating him "to take him off the rack of the newspapers"; in the meantime, to escape the laugh that was raised about him in the theatrical world of London, he took refuge in Bath during the triumphant career of the comedy. The following is one of the many squibs which assailed the ears of the manager: TO GEORGE COLMAN, ESQ. ON THE SUCCESS OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY "Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd; Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, His next may still be damn'd. "As this has 'scaped without a fall, To sink his next prepare; New actors hire from Wapping Wall, And dresses from Rag Fair. "For scenes let tatter'd blankets fly, The prologue Kelly write; Then swear again the piece must die Before the author's night. "Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf, To bring to lasting shame, E'en write _the best you can yourself_, And print it in _his name_." The solitary hiss, which had startled Goldsmith, was ascribed by some of the newspaper scribblers to Cumberland himself, who was "manifestly miserable" at the delight of the audience, or to Ossian Macpherson, who was hostile to the whole Johnson clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly. The following is one of the epigrams which appeared: