Chapter 10

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.’

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 _comédie sérieuse_ or _ larmoyante_ of La Chaussée, 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.)

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

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.

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

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.’

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.’

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.

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_.

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.

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.)

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.)

‘if the table he set on a roar.’ Cf. _Hamlet_,