Chapter 9

Oswego’s dreary shores. Cf. _The Traveller_, l. 411.

And with the avenging fight. Varied from Collins’s _Ode on the Death of Colonel Charles Ross at Fontenoy_.

Its earliest bloom. Cf. Collins’s _Dirge in Cymbeline_.

SONG

FROM ‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.’

This thoroughly characteristic song, for a parallel to which one must go to Congreve, or to the ‘Here’s to the maiden of bashful fifteen’ of _The School for Scandal_, has one grave defect,—it is too good to have been composed by Tony Lumpkin, who, despite his inability to read anything but ‘print-hand,’ declares, in Act i. Sc. 2 of _She Stoops to Conquer_, 1773, that he himself made it upon the ale-house (‘The Three Pigeons’) in which he sings it, and where it is followed by the annexed comments, directed by the author against the sentimentalists, who, in _The Good Natur’d Man_ of five years before, had insisted upon the omission of the Bailiff scene:—

‘OMNES.

Bravo, bravo!

_First_ FELLOW.

The ’Squire has got spunk in him.

_Second_ FELLOW.

I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that’s _low_ . . .

_Fourth_ FELLOW.

The genteel thing is the genteel thing at any time. If so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

_Third_ FELLOW.

I like the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho’ I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes. _Water Parted_,* or the minuet in _Ariadne_.’

* i.e. Arne’s _Water Parted from the Sea_,—the song of Arbaces in the opera of _ Artaxerxes_ 1762. The minuet in _Ariadne_ was by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been the best thing in the opera.

When Methodist preachers, etc. Tony Lumpkin’s utterance accurately represents the view of this sect taken by some of his contemporaries. While moderate and just spectators of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who, like Wesley, travelled ‘nine hundred miles in a month, and preached twelve times a week’ for no ostensibly adequate reward, there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote’s _Minor_ (1760) and Bickerstaffe’s _ Hypocrite_ (1768); in art the _Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism_ of Hogarth (1762); and in literature the _New Bath Guide_ of Anstey (1766), the _Spiritual Quixote_ of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne, Smollett and Walpole.

It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of the _Retaliation_ gallery. Scott highly praises the character of Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland’s _ Henry_, 1795, adding, in his large impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, ‘A very different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole reason to be held either a fool or an impostor.’ (Scott’s _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, 1834, iii. 222.)

But of all the birds in the air. Hypercriticism may object that ‘the hare’ is not a bird. But exigence of rhyme has to answer for many things. Some editors needlessly read ‘the _gay_ birds’ to lengthen the line. There is no sanction for this in the earlier editions.

EPILOGUE TO ‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.’

This epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley in the character of Miss Hardcastle. It is probably the epilogue described by Goldsmith to Cradock, in the letter quoted at p. 246, as ‘a very mawkish thing,’ a phrase not so incontestable as Bolton Corney’s remark that it is ‘an obvious imitation of Shakespere.’

That pretty Bar-maids have done execution. Cf. _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, i. 7:—‘Sophia’s features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution.’

coquets the guests. Johnson explains this word ‘to entertain with compliments and amorous tattle,’ and quotes the following illustration from Swift, ‘You are _coquetting_ a maid of honour, my lord looking on to see how the gamesters play, and I railing at you both.’

Nancy Dawson. Nancy Dawson was a famous ‘toast’ and horn-pipe dancer, who died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767, and was buried behind the Foundling, in the burial-ground of St. George the Martyr. She first appeared at Sadler’s Wells, and speedily passed to the stage of Covent Garden, where she danced in the _Beggar’s Opera_. There is a portrait of her in the Garrick Club, and there are several contemporary prints. She was the heroine of a popular song, here referred to, beginning:—

Of all the girls in our town,

The black, the fair, the red, the brown,

Who dance and prance it up and down,

There’s none like Nancy Dawson:

Her easy mien, her shape so neat,

She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet,

Her ev’ry motion is complete;

I die for Nancy Dawson.

Its tune—says J. T. Smith (_Book for a Rainy Day_, Whitten’s ed., 1905, p. 10) was ‘as lively as that of “Sir Roger de Coverley.”’

Che farò, i.e. _Che farò senza Euridice_, the lovely lament from Glück’s _Orfeo_, 1764.

the Heinel of Cheapside. The reference is to Mademoiselle Anna-Frederica Heinel, 1752–1808, a beautiful Prussian, subsequently the wife of Gaetano Apollino Balthazar Vestris, called ‘Vestris the First.’ After extraordinary success as a _danseuse_ at Stuttgard and Paris, where Walpole saw her in 1771 (Letter to the Earl of Strafford 25th August), she had come to London; and, at this date, was the darling of the Macaronies (cf. the note on p. 247, l. 31), who, from their club, added a _regallo_ (present) of six hundred pounds to the salary allowed her at the Haymarket. On April 1, 1773, Metastasio’s _Artaserse_ was performed for her benefit, when she was announced to dance a minuet with Monsieur Fierville, and ‘Tickets were to be hand, at her house in Piccadilly, two doors from Air Street.’

spadille, i.e. the ace of spades, the first trump in the game of Ombre. Cf. Swift’s _Journal of a Modern Lady in a Letter to a Person of Quality_, 1728:—

She draws up card by card, to find

Good fortune peeping from behind;

With panting heart, and earnest eyes,

In hope to see _spadillo_ rise;

In vain, alas! her hope is fed;

She draws an ace, and sees it red.

Bayes. The chief character in Buckingham’s _Rehearsal_, 1672, and intended for John Dryden. Here the name is put for the ‘poet’ or ‘dramatist.’ Cf. Murphy’s Epilogue to Cradock’s _ Zobeide_, 1771:—

Not e’en poor ‘Bayes’ within must hope to be

Free from the lash:—His Play he writ for me

’Tis true—and now my gratitude you’ll see;

and Colman’s Epilogue to _The School for Scandal_, 1777:—

So wills our virtuous bard—the motley _Bayes_

Of crying epilogues and laughing plays!

RETALIATION.

_Retaliation: A Poem. By Doctor Goldsmith. Including Epitaphs on the Most Distinguished Wits of this Metropolis_, was first published by G. Kearsly in April, 1774, as a 4to pamphlet of 24 pp. On the title-page is a vignette head of the author, etched by James Basire, after Reynolds’s portrait; and the verses are prefaced by an anonymous letter to the publisher, concluding as follows:—‘Dr. Goldsmith _belonged to a Club of_ Beaux Esprits, _where Wit sparkled sometimes at the Expence of Good-nature.It was proposed to write Epitaphs on the Doctor; his Country, Dialect and Person, furnished Subjects of Witticism.—The Doctor was called on for’ Retaliation, ‘and at their next Meeting produced the following Poem, which I think adds one Leaf to his immortal Wreath._ This account seems to have sufficed for Evans, Percy, and the earlier editors. But in vol. i. p. 78 of his edition of Goldsmith’s _Works_, 1854, Mr. Peter Cunningham published for the first time a fuller version of the circumstances, derived from a manuscript lent to him by Mr. George Daniel of Islington; and (says Mr. Cunningham) ‘evidently designed as a preface to a collected edition of the poems which grew out of Goldsmith’s trying his epigrammatic powers with Garrick.’ It is signed ‘D. Garrick.’ ‘At a meeting’—says the writer—‘of a company of gentlemen, who were well known to each other, and diverting themselves, among many other things, with the peculiar oddities of Dr. Goldsmith, who would never allow a superior in any art, from writing poetry down to dancing a horn-pipe, the Dr. with great eagerness insisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with Mr. Garrick, and each of them was to write the other’s epitaph. Mr. Garrick immediately said that his epitaph was finished, and spoke the following distich extempore:—

Here lies NOLLY Goldsmith, for shortness call’d Noll,

Who wrote like an angel, but talk’d like poor Poll.

Goldsmith, upon the company’s laughing very heartily, grew very thoughtful, and either would not, or could not, write anything at that time: however, he went to work, and some weeks after produced the following printed poem called _ Retaliation_, which has been much admired, and gone through several editions.’ This account, though obviously from Garrick’s point of view, is now accepted as canonical, and has superseded those of Davies, Cradock, Cumberland, and others, to which some reference is made in the ensuing notes. A few days after the publication of the first edition, which appeared on the 18th or 19th of April, a ‘new’ or second edition was issued, with four pages of ‘Explanatory Notes, Observations, etc.’ At the end came the following announcement:—‘G. Kearsly, the Publisher, thinks it his duty to declare, that Dr. Goldsmith wrote the Poem as it is here printed, a few errors of the press excepted, which are taken notice of at the bottom of this page.’ From this version _ Retaliation_ is here reproduced. In the third edition, probably in deference to some wounded susceptibilities, the too comprehensive ‘most Distinguished Wits of the Metropolis’ was qualified into ‘_some of the most_ Distinguished Wits,’ etc., but no further material alteration was made in the text until the suspicious lines on Caleb Whitefoord were added to the fifth edition.

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.

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.

Each guest brought his dish. ‘Chez Scarron,’—says his editor, M. Charles Baumet, when speaking of the poet’s entertainments,—‘venait d’ailleurs l’élite des dames, des courtisans & des hommes de lettres. On y dinait joyeusement. _Chacun apportait son plat_.’ (_Œuvres de Scarron_, 1877, i. viii.) Scarron’s company must have been as brilliant as Goldsmith’s. Villarceaux, Vivonne, the Maréchal d’Albret, figured in his list of courtiers; while for ladies he had Mesdames Deshoulières, de Scudéry, de la Sablière, and de Sévigné, to say nothing of Ninon de Lenclos and Marion Delorme. (Cf. also Guizot, _ Corneille et son Temps_, 1862, 429–30.)

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._”’

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.

Our Burke. The Right Hon. Edmund Burke, 1729–97.

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.’)

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.

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.

Douglas. ‘Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury,’ says Cumberland. He died in 1807 (_v. infra_).

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.)

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.

Magnanimous Goldsmith. According to Malone (Reynolds’s _Works_, second edition, 1801, i. xc), Goldsmith intended to have concluded with his own character.

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.)

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.)

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.’

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.

honest William, i.e. William Burke (_v. supra_).

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.’

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_.

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.’

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.’

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.

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.)

Our Townshend. See note to line 34.

New Lauders and Bowers. See note to l. 80.

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,