But missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wish'd to have Dick back again.

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And Comedy wonders at being so fine;
Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out,
Or rather like Tragedy giving a rout.

His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught,
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it, that vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?

Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks:
Come all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines,
Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines:
When satire and censure encircled his throne,

I fear'd for your safety, I fear'd for my own;
But now he is gone, and we want a detector,
Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks + shall lecture;
Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style;
Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile:

* The Rev. Dr Dodd, who was executed for forgery.

+ Dr Kenrick, who read lectures at the Devil Tavern, under the title of "The School of Shakespeare." [Kenrick was a well known writer upon town, of prodigious versatility, and some talent. Dr Johnson once observed of him, "He is one of the many who have made themselves public, without making themselves known." He was a man of no

principle, and frequently wrote the severest libels against those with whom he was living on terms of apparent friendship. Amongst those who experienced the bitterness of his abuse was our author himself, which led to the altercation with Evans the bookseller.- See Life of Goldsmith prefixed. He was the original editor of the Morning Chronicle, but was afterwards dismissed for negligence.-B.]

James Macpherson, Esq. who lately, from the mere force of his style, wrote down the first poet of all antiquity. [Macpherson's claim to

New Lauders and Bowers + the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark,

And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark.

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine,
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a-day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick:
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,

For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest, was surest to please.

original genius, rests chiefly upon what has not yet been ascertained with sufficient accuracy, viz. his own share in the publication which he gave to the world as a translation of Ossian's Poems. He was, however, unquestionably a man of considerable talents, and not deficient in classical learning. The popularity of his Ossian induced him to publish a version of Homer in the same style of measured prose; but this work, which is the one alluded to in the first part of this note, certainly added nothing to his reputation.-B.]

* William Lauder, a Scottish schoolmaster, who, by interpolating certain passages from the Adamus Exul of Grotius, from Masenius, and others, with translations from Paradise Lost, endeavoured to fix on Milton a charge of extensive plagiarism from the modern Latin poets. Dr Douglas, in a pamphlet entitled, Milton no Plagiary, detected and exposed this impudent imposture, and extorted from the author a confession and apology, dictated by Dr Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon by the forgery as to furnish a preface and postscript to Lauder's pamphlet.-B.

Dr

+ Archibald Bower, a Scottish Jesuit, and author of a History of the Popes from St Peter to Lambertini. He also published, about the year 1755, his Motives of Conversion from Popery to Protestantism. Douglas published a critical examination of this pamphlet, in which he convicted Bower of gross imposture, and totally destroved the credit of -B.

his

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys,* and Woodfalls + so grave,

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Roscius'd, and you were be-praised!
But peace to his spirit wherever it flies,

To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;

Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.

Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser?
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, no!
Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye:
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind;
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand,
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland :
Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,

When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing:
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.

Mr Hugh Kelly, originally a staymaker, afterwards a newspaper editor and dramatist, and latterly a barrister, was a native of Ireland. His comedies of False Delicacy and the School for Wives, had considerable success. He also wrote Clementina, A Word to the Wise, &c. B. + Mr William Woodfall, printer of the Morning Chronicle.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was so deaf, as to be under the necessity of using an ear trumpet in company.

After the fourth edition of this Poem was printed, the publisher received the following epitaph on Mr Whitefoord, from a friend of the late Doctor Goldsmith. [Mr Whitefoord was not, as Colman erroneously observes in his Random Records, a member of THE LITERARY CLUB, but he was of the party at the St James's Coffeehouse which provoked Retaliation. In the Foundling Hospital for Wit are some apologetical verses by him for having read in that club a ludicrous epitaph on the supposed death of Goldsmith. — B.

HERE Whitefoord reclines, and, deny it who can,
Though he merrily lived, he is now a grave man : †
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relish'd a joke, and rejoiced in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open, sincere;
A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear;
Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill:
A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free;
A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.

What pity, alas! that so liberal a mind
Should so long be to newspaper essays confined!
Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar,
Yet content "if the table he set in a roar:"
Whose talents to fill any station were fit,
Yet happy if Woodfall confess'd him a wit.

Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks!
Who copied his squibs, and re-echo'd his jokes ;
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
Still follow your master, and visit his tomb:
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine,
And copious libations bestow on his shrine;
Then strew all around it (you can do no less)
Cross Readings, Ship News, and Mistakes of the Press. §

Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit
That a Scot may have humour, I had almost said wit.
This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,

"Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd Muse."

* Mr Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous essays.

+ Mr Whitefoord was so notorious a punster, that Dr Goldsmith used to say it was impossible to keep him company, without being infected with the itch of punning.

Mr H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser.

§ Mr Whitefoord had frequently indulged the town with humorous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser

The following poems, by Mr Garrick, may in some measure account for the severity exercised by Dr Goldsmith in respect to that gentleman. [The latter copy of verses, at least, can have no share in accounting for the alleged severity, as this clever jeu d'esprit was necessarily written after Retaliation. The Fable, also, which is printed in Dodsley's Annual Register for 1776, is there said to have been written some time after the appearance of Goldsmith's poem; but Davies, in his Life of Garrick, mentions it as one of the humorous effusions at the St James's Coffeehouse on the occasion referred to in the notice prefixed to Retaliation, and Cumberland seems to confirm this account. It must be admitted, that in these verses the Doctor's character is very happily and very truly described, yet surely with sufficient severity to justify the honest bluntness with which Goldsmith alludes to the great failing of the gifted actor. Garrick's epigram, by shewing how easily his vanity was hurt, only confirms the justness of the poet's censure.-B.]

JUPITER AND MERCURY;

A FABLE.

HERE, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow,
Go fetch me some clay-I will make an odd fellow !
Right and wrong shall be jumbled,- much gold and some dross:
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross;

Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions,

A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions:
Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking,
Turn to learning and gaming, religion and raking.
With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste;
Tip his tongue with strange matter, his pen with fine taste;
That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail,

Set fire to the head, and set fire to the tail.

For the joy of each sex, on the world I'll bestow it,
This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet;
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame,
And among brother mortals-be GOLDSMITH his name:
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear,
You, Hermes, shall fetch him to make us sport here.*

ON DR GOLDSMITH'S CHARACTERISTICAL COOKERY.

A JEU D'ESPRIT.

ARE these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us?
Is this the great poet whose works so content us?
This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has written fine books?
"Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks."

"Candour," says Mr Davies, in his Life of Garrick, " must own, that Mr Garrick, in his verses on Goldsmith, was gentle in describing the subject, as well as delicate in the choice of his expressions; but that Garrick's features in the Retaliation are somewhat exaggerated." Davies' candour seems to be a little too much on one side. The likenesses are both admirable, and it is difficult to say which is the more just. Garrick, let it be remembered, gave the provocation; and it is not easy to discover the superior" gentleness," and "delicacy" of his witty exposure of the poet's foibles.-B.