No More Learning

With the exception of Garrick's couplet, and the fragment of Whitefoord
referred to at p. 234, none of the original epitaphs upon which
Goldsmith was invited to 'retaliate' have survived. But the unexpected
ability of the retort seems to have prompted a number of 'ex post facto'
performances, some of which the writers would probably have been glad to
pass off as their first essays. Garrick, for example, produced three
short pieces, one of which ('Here, Hermes! says Jove, who with nectar
was mellow') hits off many of Goldsmith's contradictions and foibles
with considerable skill ('v'. Davies's 'Garrick', 2nd ed. , 1780, ii.
157). Cumberland ('v. Gent. Mag'. , Aug. 1778, p. 384) parodied the
poorest part of 'Retaliation', the comparison of the guests to dishes,
by likening them to liquors, and Dean Barnard in return rhymed upon
Cumberland. He wrote also an apology for his first attack, which is said
to have been very severe, and conjured the poet to set his wit at
Garrick, who, having fired his first shot, was keeping out of the way:--

On him let all thy vengeance fall;
On me you but misplace it:
Remember how he called thee 'Poll' --
But, ah! he dares not face it.

For these, and other forgotten pieces arising out of 'Retaliation',
Garrick had apparently prepared the above-mentioned introduction. It may
be added that the statement, prefixed to the first edition, that
'Retaliation', as we now have it, was produced at the 'next meeting' of
the Club, is manifestly incorrect. It was composed and circulated in
detached fragments, and Goldsmith was still working at it when he was
seized with his last illness.

l. 1. -----
"Of old, when Scarron, etc. " Paul Scarron (1610-60), the
author 'inter alia' of the 'Roman Comique', 1651-7, upon a
translation of which Goldsmith was occupied during the last
months of his life. It was published by Griffin in 1776.

l. 2. -----
"Each guest brought his dish". 'Chez Scarron,' -- says
his editor, M. Charles Baumet, when speaking of the poet's
entertainments, -- 'venait d'ailleurs l'elite des dames, des
courtisans & des hommes de lettres. On y dinait joyeusement.
'Chacun apportait son plat'. ' ('Oeuvres de Scarron', 1877, i.
viii. ) Scarron's company must have been as brilliant as
Goldsmith's. Villarceaux, Vivonne, the Marechal d'Albret,
figured in his list of courtiers; while for ladies he had
Mesdames Deshoulieres, de Scudery, de la Sabliere, and de
Sevigne, to say nothing of Ninon de Lenclos and Marion Delorme.
(Cf. also Guizot, 'Corneille et son Temps', 1862, 429-30. )

l. 3. -----
"If our landlord". The 'explanatory note' to the second
edition says -- 'The master of the St. James's coffee-house,
where the Doctor, and the friends he has characterized in this
Poem, held an occasional club. ' This, it should be stated, was
not the famous 'Literary Club,' which met at the Turk's Head
Tavern in Gerrard Street. The St. James's Coffee-house, as
familiar to Swift and Addison at the beginning, as it was to
Goldsmith and his friends at the end of the eighteenth century,
was the last house but one on the south-west corner of St.
James's Street. It now no longer exists. Cradock ('Memoirs',
1826, i. 228-30) speaks of dining 'at the bottom of St. James's
Street' with Goldsmith, Percy, the two Burkes ('v. infra'),
Johnson, Garrick, Dean Barnard, and others. 'We sat very late;'
he adds in conclusion, 'and the conversation that at last
ensued, was the direct cause of my friend Goldsmith's poem,
called "Retaliation. "'

l. 5. -----
"Our Dean". Dr. Thomas Barnard, an Irishman, at this
time Dean of Derry. He died at Wimbledon in 1806. It was Dr.
Barnard who, in reply to a rude sally of Johnson, wrote the
charming verses on improvement after the age of forty-five,
which end --

If I have thoughts, and can't express them,
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress them,
In terms select and terse;
Jones teach me modesty and Greek,
Smith how to think, Burke how to speak,
And Beauclerk to converse.
Let Johnson teach me how to place
In fairest light, each borrow'd grace,
From him I'll learn to write;
Copy his clear, familiar style,
And from the roughness of his file
Grow like himself -- polite.

(Northcote's 'Life of Reynolds', 2nd ed. , 1819, i. 221. )
According to Cumberland ('Memoirs', 1807, i. 370), 'The dean
also gave him [Goldsmith] an epitaph, and Sir Joshua illuminated
the dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in pen and ink
inimitably caricatured. ' What would collectors give for that
sketch and epitaph! Unfortunately in Cumberland's septuagenarian
recollections the 'truth severe' is mingled with an unusual
amount of 'fairy fiction. ' However Sir Joshua 'did' draw
caricatures, for a number of them were exhibited at the
Grosvenor Gallery (by the Duke of Devonshire) in the winter of
1883-4.

l. 6. -----
"Our Burke". The Right Hon. Edmund Burke, 1729-97.

l. 7. -----
"Our Will". 'Mr. William Burke, late Secretary to
General Conway, and member for Bedwin, Wiltshire' (Note to
second edition). He was a kinsman of Edmund Burke, and one of
the supposed authors of Junius's 'Letters'. He died in 1798. 'It
is said that the notices Goldsmith first wrote of the Burkes
were so severe that Hugh Boyd persuaded the poet to alter them,
and entirely rewrite the character of William, for he was sure
that if the Burkes saw what was originally written of them the
peace of the Club would be disturbed. ' (Rev. W. Hunt in 'Dict.
Nat. Biography', Art. 'William Burke. ')

l. 8. -----
"And Dick". Richard Burke, Edmund Burke's younger
brother. He was for some years Collector to the Customs at
Grenada, being on a visit to London when 'Retaliation' was
written (Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 404). He died in 1794,
Recorder of Bristol.

l. 9. -----
"Our Cumberland's sweetbread". Richard Cumberland, the
poet, novelist, and dramatist, 1731-1811, author of 'The West
Indian', 1771, 'The Fashionable Lover', 1772, and many other
more or less sentimental plays. In his 'Memoirs', 1807, i.
369-71, he gives an account of the origin of 'Retaliation',
which adds a few dubious particulars to that of Garrick. But it
was written from memory long after the events it records.

l. 10. -----
"Douglas". 'Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury,'
says Cumberland. He died in 1807 ('v. infra').

l. 14. -----
"Ridge". 'Counsellor John Ridge, a gentleman belonging
to the Irish Bar' (Note to second edition). 'Burke,' says Bolton
Corney, 'in 1771, described him as "one of the honestest and
best-natured men living, and inferior to none of his profession
in ability. "' (See also note to line 125. )

l. 15. -----
"Hickey". The commentator of the second edition of
'Retaliation' calls this gentleman 'honest Tom Hickey'. His
Christian name, however, was 'Joseph' (Letter of Burke, November
8, 1774). He was a jovial, good-natured, over-blunt Irishman,
the legal adviser of both Burke and Reynolds. Indeed it was
Hickey who drew the conveyance of the land on which Reynolds's
house 'next to the Star and Garter' at Richmond (Wick House) was
built by Chambers the architect. Hickey died in 1794. Reynolds
painted his portrait for Burke, and it was exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1772 (No. 208). In 1833 it belonged to Mr. T.
H. Burke. Sir Joshua also painted Miss Hickey in 1769-73. Her
father, not much to Goldsmith's satisfaction, was one of the
Paris party in 1770. See also note to l. 125.

l. 16. -----
"Magnanimous Goldsmith". According to Malone
(Reynolds's 'Works', second edition, 1801, i. xc), Goldsmith
intended to have concluded with his own character.

l. 34. -----
"Tommy Townshend", M. P. for Whitchurch, Hampshire,
afterwards first Viscount Sydney. He died in 1800. Junius says
Bolton Corney, gives a portrait of him as 'still life'. His
presence in 'Retaliation' is accounted for by the fact that he
had commented in Parliament upon Johnson's pension. 'I am well
assured,' says Boswell, 'that Mr. Townshend's attack upon
Johnson was the occasion of his "hitching in a rhyme"; for, that
in the original copy of Goldsmith's character of Mr. Burke, in
his 'Retaliation' another person's name stood in the couplet
where Mr. Townshend is now introduced. ' (Birkbeck Hill's
'Boswell', 1887, iv. 318. )

l. 35. -----
"too deep for his hearers". 'The emotion to which he
commonly appealed was that too rare one, the love of wisdom, and
he combined his thoughts and knowledge in propositions of wisdom
so weighty and strong, that the minds of ordinary hearers were
not on the instant prepared for them. ' (Morley's 'Burke', 1882,
209-10. )

l. 36. -----
"And thought of convincing, while they thought of
dining". For the reason given in the previous note, many of
Burke's hearers often took the opportunity of his rising to
speak, to retire to dinner. Thus he acquired the nickname of the
'Dinner Bell. '

l. 42. -----
"To eat mutton cold". There is a certain resemblance
between this character and Gray's lines on himself written in
1761, beginning 'Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to
importune. ' (See Gosse's 'Gray's Works', 1884, i. 127. ) But both
Gray and Goldsmith may have been thinking of a line in the once
popular song of 'Ally Croaker':--

Too dull for a wit, too grave for a joker.

l. 43. -----
"honest William", i. e. William Burke ('v. supra').

l. 54. -----
"Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb". A note
to the second edition says -- 'The above Gentleman [Richard
Burke, 'v. supra'] having slightly fractured one of his arms and
legs, at different times, the Doctor [i. e. Goldsmith] has
rallied him on those accidents, as a kind of 'retributive'
justice for breaking his jests on other people. '

l. 61. -----
"Here Cumberland lies". According to Boaden's 'Life of
Kemble', 1825, i. 438, Mrs. Piozzi rightly regarded this
portrait as wholly ironical; and Bolton Corney, without much
expenditure of acumen, discovers it to have been written in a
spirit of 'persiflage'. Nevertheless, Cumberland himself
('Memoirs', 1807, i. 369) seems to have accepted it in good
faith. Speaking of Goldsmith he says -- I conclude my account of
him with gratitude for the epitaph he bestowed on me in his poem
called 'Retaliation'. ' From the further details which he gives
of the circumstances, it would appear that his own performance,
of which he could recall but one line --

All mourn the poet, I lament the man --

was conceived in a less malicious spirit than those of the
others, and had predisposed the sensitive bard in his favour.
But no very genuine cordiality could be expected to exist
between the rival authors of 'The West Indian' and 'She Stoops
to Conquer'.

l. 66. -----
"And Comedy wonders at being so fine". It is
instructive here to transcribe Goldsmith's serious opinion of
the kind of work which Cumberland essayed:-- 'A new species of
Dramatic Composition has been introduced, under the name of
'Sentimental' Comedy, in which the virtues of Private Life are
exhibited, rather than the Vices exposed; and the Distresses
rather than the Faults of Mankind, make our interest in the
piece. . . .
In these Plays almost all the Characters are good, and
exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their 'Tin'
Money on the Stage, and though they want Humour, have abundance
of Sentiment and Feeling. If they happen to have Faults or
Foibles, the Spectator is taught not only to pardon, but to
applaud them, in consideration of the goodness of their hearts;
so that Folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the
Comedy aims at touching our Passions without the power of being
truly pathetic. ' ('Westminster Magazine', 1772, i. 5. ) Cf. also
the 'Preface to The Good Natur'd Man', where he 'hopes that too
much refinement will not banish humour and character from our's,
as it has already done from the French theatre. Indeed the
French comedy is now become so very elevated and sentimental,
that it has not only banished humour and 'Moliere' from the
stage, but it has banished all spectators too. '

l. 80. -----
"The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks". Dr.
John Douglas ('v. supra') distinguished himself by his exposure
of two of his countrymen, Archibald Bower, 1686-1766, who, being
secretly a member of the Catholic Church, wrote a 'History of
the Popes'; and William Lauder 1710-1771, who attempted to prove
Milton a plagiarist. Cf. Churchill's 'Ghost', Bk. ii:--

By TRUTH inspir'd when 'Lauder's' spight
O'er MILTON cast the Veil of Night,
DOUGLAS arose, and thro' the maze
Of intricate and winding ways,
Came where the subtle Traitor lay,
And dragg'd him trembling to the day.

'Lauder on Milton' is one of the books bound to the
trunk-maker's in Hogarth's 'Beer Street', 1751. He imposed on
Johnson, who wrote him a 'Preface' and was consequently trounced
by Churchill ('ut supra') as 'our Letter'd POLYPHEME. '

l. 86. -----
"Our Dodds shall be pious". The reference is to the
Rev. Dr. William Dodd, who three years after the publication of
'Retaliation' (i. e. June 27, 1777) was hanged at Tyburn for
forging the signature of the fifth Earl of Chesterfield, to whom
he had been tutor. His life previously had long been scandalous
enough to justify Goldsmith's words. Johnson made strenuous and
humane exertions to save Dodd's life, but without avail. (See
Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, iii. 139-48. ) There is an
account of Dodd's execution at the end of vol. i of Angelo's
'Reminiscences', 1830.

"our Kenricks". Dr. William Kenrick -- say the earlier
annotators -- who 'read lectures at the Devil Tavern, under the
Title of "The School of Shakespeare. "' The lectures began
January 19, 1774, and help to fix the date of the poem.
Goldsmith had little reason for liking this versatile and
unprincipled Ishmaelite of letters, who, only a year before, had
penned a scurrilous attack upon him in 'The London Packet'.
Kenrick died in 1779.

l. 87. -----
"Macpherson". 'David [James] Macpherson, Esq. ; who
lately, from the mere 'force of his style', wrote down the first
poet of all antiquity. ' (Note to second edition. ) This was
'Ossian' Macpherson, 1738-96, who, in 1773, had followed up his
Erse epics by a prose translation of Homer, which brought him
little but opprobrium. 'Your abilities, since your Homer, are
not so formidable,' says Johnson in the knockdown letter which
he addressed to him in 1775. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887,
ii. 298. )

l. 88. -----
"Our Townshend". See note to line 34.

l. 89. -----
"New Lauders and Bowers". See note to l. 80.

l. 92. -----
"And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark".
Mitford compares Farquhar's 'Love and a Bottle', 1699, Act iii--

But gods meet gods and jostle in the dark.

But Farquhar was quoting from Dryden and Lee's 'Oedipus', 1679,
Act iv (at end).

l. 93. -----
"Here lies David Garrick". 'The sum of all that can be
said for and against Mr. Garrick, some people think, may be
found in these lines of Goldsmith,' writes Davies in his 'Life
of Garrick', 2nd ed. , 1780, ii. 159. Posterity has been less
hesitating in its verdict. 'The lines on Garrick,' says Forster,
'Life of Goldsmith', 1871, ii. 409, 'are quite perfect writing.
Without anger, the satire is finished, keen, and uncompromising;
the wit is adorned by most discriminating praise; and the truth
is only the more unsparing for its exquisite good manners and
good taste. '

l. 115. -----
"Ye Kenricks". See note to line 86.

"ye Kellys". Hugh Kelly (1739-1777), an Irishman, the author of
'False Delicacy', 1768; 'A Word to the Wise', 1770; 'The School
for Wives', 1774, and other 'sentimental dramas,' is here
referred to. His first play, which is described in Garrick's
prologue as a 'Sermon,' 'preach'd in Acts,' was produced at
Drury Lane just six days before Goldsmith's comedy of 'The Good
Natur'd Man' appeared at Covent Garden, and obtained a success
which it ill deserved. 'False Delicacy' -- said Johnson truly
(Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 48) -- 'was totally void
of character,' -- a crushing accusation to make against a drama.
But Garrick, for his private ends, had taken up Kelly as a rival
to Goldsmith; and the 'comedie serieuse' or 'larmoyante' of La
Chaussee, Sedaine, and Diderot had already found votaries in
England. 'False Delicacy', weak, washy, and invertebrate as it
was, completed the transformation of 'genteel' into
'sentimental' comedy, and establishing that 'genre' for the next
few years, effectually retarded the wholesome reaction towards
humour and character which Goldsmith had tried to promote by
'The Good Natur'd Man'. (See note to l. 66. )

"Woodfalls". 'William Woodfall' -- says Bolton Corney --
'successively editor of 'The London Packet' and 'The Morning
Chronicle', was matchless as a reporter of speeches, and an able
theatrical critic. He made lofty pretensions to editorial
impartiality -- but the actor [i. e. Garrick] was not 'always'
satisfied. ' He died in 1803. He must not be confounded with
Henry Sampson Woodfall, the editor of Junius's 'Letters'. (See
note to l. 162. )

l. 120. -----
"To act as an angel". There is a sub-ironic touch in
this phrase which should not be overlooked. Cf. l. 102.

l. 125. -----
"Here Hickey reclines". See note to l. 15. In
Cumberland's 'Poetical Epistle to Dr. Goldsmith; or Supplement
to his Retaliation' {'Gentleman's Magazine', Aug. 1778, p. 384)
Hickey's genial qualities are thus referred to:--

Give RIDGE and HICKY, generous souls!
Of WHISKEY PUNCH convivial bowls.

l. 134. -----
"a special attorney". A special attorney was merely an
attorney who practised in one court only. The species is now
said to be extinct.

l. 135. -----
"burn ye". The annotator of the second edition,
apologizing for this 'forced' rhyme to 'attorney,' informs the
English reader that the phrase of 'burn ye' is 'a familiar
method of salutation in Ireland amongst the lower classes of the
people. '

l. 137. -----
"Here Reynolds is laid". This shares the palm with the
admirable epitaphs on Garrick and Burke. But Goldsmith loved
Reynolds, and there are no satiric strokes in the picture. If we
are to believe Malone (Reynolds's 'Works', second edition, 1801,
i. xc), 'these were the last lines the author wrote. '

l. 140. -----
"bland". Malone ('ut supra', lxxxix) notes this word
as 'eminently happy, and characteristick of his [Reynolds's]
easy and placid manners. ' Boswell (Dedication of 'Life of
Johnson') refers to his 'equal and placid temper. ' Cf. also Dean
Barnard's verses (Northcote's 'Life of Reynolds', 2nd ed. , 1819,
i. 220), and Mrs. Piozzi's lines in her 'Autobiography', 2nd
ed. , 1861, ii. 175-6.

l. 146. -----
"He shifted his trumpet". While studying Raphael in
the Vatican in 1751, Reynolds caught so severe a cold 'as to
occasion a deafness which obliged him to use an ear-trumpet for
the remainder of his life. ' (Taylor and Leslie's 'Reynolds',
1865, i. 50. ) This instrument figures in a portrait of himself
which he painted for Thrale about 1775. See also Zoffany's
picture of the 'Academicians gathered about the model in the
Life School at Somerset House,' 1772, where he is shown
employing it to catch the conversation of Wilton and Chambers.

"and only took snuff". Sir Joshua was a great snuff-taker. His
snuff-box, described in the Catalogue as the one 'immortalized
in Goldsmith's 'Retaliation',' was exhibited, with his
spectacles and other personal relics, at the Grosvenor Gallery
in 1883-4. In the early editions this epitaph breaks off
abruptly at the word 'snuff. ' But Malone says that half a line
more had been written. Prior gives this half line as 'By
flattery unspoiled --,' and affirms that among several erasures
in the manuscript sketch devoted to Reynolds it 'remained
unaltered. ' ('Life', 1837, ii. 499. ) See notes to ll. 53, 56,
and 91 of 'The Haunch of Venison'.

l. 147. -----
"Here Whitefoord reclines". The circumstances which
led to the insertion of these lines in the fifth edition are
detailed in the prefatory words of the publisher given at p. 92.
There is more than a suspicion that Whitefoord wrote them
himself; but they have too long been accepted as an appendage to
the poem to be now displaced. Caleb Whitefoord (born 1734) was a
Scotchman, a wine-merchant, and an art connoisseur, to whom J.
T. Smith, in his 'Life of Nollekens', 1828, i. 333-41, devotes
several pages. He was one of the party at the St. James's
Coffee-house. He died in 1810. There is a caricature of him in
'Connoisseurs inspecting a Collection of George Morland,'
November, 16, 1807; and Wilkie's 'Letter of Introduction', 1814,
was a reminiscence of a visit which, when he first came to
London, he paid to Whitefoord. He was also painted by Reynolds
and Stuart. Hewins's 'Whitefoord Papers', 1898, throw no light
upon the story of the epitaph.

l. 148. -----
"a grave man". Cf. 'Romeo and Juliet', Act iii, Sc. 1:
-- 'Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me 'a grave man'. '
This Shakespearean recollection is a little like Goldsmith's
way. (See note to 'The Haunch of Venison', l. 120. )

l. 150. -----
"and rejoic'd in a pun". 'Mr. W. is so notorious a
punster, that Doctor Goldsmith used to say, it was impossible to
keep him company, without being 'infected' with the 'itch of
punning'. ' (Note to fifth edition. )

l. 160. -----
'"if the table he set on a roar". ' Cf. 'Hamlet', Act
v, Sc. I.

l. 162. -----
"Woodfall", i. e. Henry Sampson Woodfall, printer of
'The Public Advertiser'.