With Goldsmith and Sheridan gayety came back to the English stage. In their prefaces and prologues both of them complain that the comic muse is dying and is being succeeded by “a mawkish drab of spurious breed who deals in sentimentals,” genteel comedy, to wit, who comes from France where comedy has now become so very elevated and sentimental that it has not only banished humor and Molière from the stage, but it has banished all spectators too. Goldsmith laments the disgusting solemnity that had lately infected literature and sneers at the moralizing comedies that deal with the virtues and distresses of private life instead of ridiculing its faults. Joseph Surface in “The School for Scandal” is Sheridan’s portrait of the sentimental, moralizing hypocrite, whose catchword is “the man of sentiment”; and whose habit of uttering lofty moralities is so ingrained that he vents them even when no one is present who can be deceived by them. Surface: “The man who does not share in the distresses of a brother—even though merited by his own misconduct—deserves—” “O Lud,” interrupts Lady Sneerwell, “you are going to be moral, and forget that you are among friends.” “Egad, that’s true,” rejoins Joseph, “I’ll keep that sentiment till I see Sir Peter.” “The Critic” has a slap or two at sentimental comedy. A manuscript play has been submitted to Mr. Dangle, who reads this stage direction, “_Bursts into tears and exit_,” and naturally asks, “What is this, a tragedy?” “No,” explains Mr. Sneer, “that’s a genteel comedy, not a translation—only taken from the French: it is written in a style which they have lately tried to run down; the true sentimental and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end. . . . The theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made the school of morality; but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment.” Another of these moral comedies is entitled “‘The Reformed Housebreaker’ where, by the mere force of humour, housebreaking is put in so ridiculous a light, that if the piece has its proper run . . . bolts and bars will be entirely useless by the end of the season.”