SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER ; OR, THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT. A Comedy. London: Printed for F. Newbery, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1773. 8vo. Price 1s. 6d. "She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes of a Night: a Comedy," was acted for the first time at Covent Garden Theatre (then under the management of the elder Colman) on the 15th of March, 1773, and ran twelve nights-the theatre closing for the season with it on the 31st of May. The leading incident of the piece, the mistaking a gentleman's house for an inn, is said to have been borrowed from a blunder of the author himself while travelling to school at Edgeworthstown. Its first MS. title was "The Old House a New Inn," but this was soon rejected. The title, it is suggested (Forster ii. 374), may have originated in one of Dryden's well-known couplets: "The prostrate loon, when he lowest lies, But kneels to conquer, and but stoops to rise." |