[92] Should be December 1765. Her name is in the bill for the last time on 13th December 1765. [Illustration: DAVID GARRICK] CHAPTER XVII. REAPPEARANCE OF SPRANGER BARRY--RETIREMENT OF MRS. PRITCHARD. After playing some nights at the Opera House, in 1766, and with Foote at the little house in the Haymarket, where Thalia and Melpomene reigned on alternate nights, in 1767, Barry and Mrs. Dancer,--the former after an absence of ten years,--appeared at Drury Lane, in October of the last-named year. Direct rivalry with Garrick there was none: for the latter and Mrs. Pritchard acted together on one night; Barry and Mrs. Dancer played their favourite characters the next; while King, Dodd, Palmer, Parsons, Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, and Miss Pope, led in comedy. The two great tragedians acted in the same company till 1774, when Barry passed to Covent Garden, where he remained till his death, in 1777,--a few months only before that of Woodward, and about half a year subsequent to the retirement of Garrick, from Drury Lane and the stage. "I hear the stage in England is worse and worse," wrote Fox to Fitzpatrick, from Nice in 1768. I do not know what foundation there was for such a report, save that the school of sentimental comedy had then come in and established itself,--the founder being Kelly, an honest, clever, Irish ex-staymaker, and his essay being made with "False Delicacy" (Cecil, King; Lady Betty Lambton, Mrs. Abington). Mrs. Pritchard, too, had then just retired, leaving the tragic throne to be contended for by Mrs. Yates and Mrs. Dancer, who subsequently reigned as Mrs. Barry, and who, as Mrs. Crawford, was finally superseded by Mrs. Siddons. So firmly as well as suddenly had sentimental comedy come into fashion, that when Goldsmith's "Good-Natured Man" (Croaker, Shuter; Honeywood, Powell--who disliked his part; Miss Richland, Mrs. Bulkley) was produced in 1768, at Covent Garden, it nearly failed, through the scene of the bailiffs, which was considered too farcical for genteel comedy! The age was rapidly becoming almost too fastidious. The reaction was carrying it too far; and the moral Mrs. Sheridan's first comedy, "The Dupe," was condemned,[93] for offences which it was said to contain against decorum. Even Johnson disapproved of the bailiffs, in Goldsmith's comedy, though he was the first to enjoy the rich humour of the lower characters in "She Stoops to Conquer." The sage did not spare sarcasm. "Are you going to make a scholar of him?" asked Goldsmith, in reference to the petted boy who waited on Johnson. "Aye, sir," was the reply, "scholar enough to write a bailiff scene in a comedy!"