agreeable young ladies and gentlemen of eighty two,' and all the red-heeled macaronies; were those of the President, and the ancient history Professor, of the Royal Academy. A little later we trace Goldsmith from Vauxhall to the theatre, but his enjoyment is not so certain. Kelly had tried another comedy (The School for Wires under a feigned name, and with somewhat better success, though it lived but a few brief nights. Yet Beauclerc (who also tells Lord Charlemont of the round of pleasures Goldsmith and Sir Joshua had been getting into) says of it: 'We have a new comedy here which is good for nothing: 'bad as it is, however, it succeeds very well, and has almost 'killed Goldsmith with envy.'

Cradock's account of what was really killing him is somewhat different from Beauclerc's, and will perhaps be thought more authentic. Although, according to the same letter of Beauclerc's, all the world but himself and a million of vulgar people were then in the country, Cradock had come up to town to place his wife under care of a dentist, and had taken lodgings in Norfolk Street to be near his friend. He found Goldsmith much altered, he says; at times very low; and he passed his mornings with him. He induced him once to dine in Norfolk Street: but his usual cheerfulness had gone, and all was forced.' The idea occurred to Cradock that money might be raised by a special subscription edition of the Traveller and Deserted Village, if consent could be obtained from the holders of the copyrights. 'Pray do what you please with them,' said Goldsmith sadly.

6

But he rather submitted, than encouraged, says Cradock; and the scheme fell to the ground. 'Oh sir,' said two sister milliners, named Gun, who lived at the corner of Temple Lane and were among his creditors, 'sooner persuade him to let us work for him gratis, than suffer him to apply to 'any other. We are sure that he will pay us if he can.' Cradock ends his melancholy narrative by saying, that had Goldsmith freely laid open all the debts he had contracted, he is certain his zealous friends were so numerous that they would freely have contributed to his relief. There is reason to presume as much of Reynolds, certainly; and that he had offered his aid. 'I mean,' Cradock adds, 'explicitly 'to assert only, that I believe he died miserably, and that 'his friends were not entirely aware of his distress.' Truly, it was to assert enough.

Yet before he died, and from the depth of that distress, his genius flashed forth once more. Johnson had returned to town after his three months' tour in the Hebrides; parliament had again brought Burke to town; Richard Burke was in London on the eve of his return to Grenada; the old dining party had resumed their meetings at the St. James' Coffee House, and out of these meetings sprang Retaliation. More than one writer has professed to describe the particular scene from which it immediately rose, but their accounts are not to be reconciled with what is certainly known. Cumberland's is pure romance. The poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it when published, sufficiently explains its own origin. What had formerly

been abrupt and strange in Goldsmith's manners had now so visibly increased, as to become matter of increased sport to such as were ignorant of its cause; and a proposition. made at one of the dinners when he was absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him (his country dialect,' and his awkward person), was agreed to and put in practice by several of the guests. The active aggressors appear to have been Garrick, Doctor Barnard, Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it was complimentary and grave, and hence the grateful return he received. None were actually preserved but Garrick's; but it will indicate what was doubtless (unless the exception of Cumberland be admitted) the tone of all.

Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,

Who wrote like an angel but talk'd like poor Poll.

This, with the rest, was read to Goldsmith when he next appeared at the St. James' Coffee House. 'The Doctor 'was called on for Retaliation,' says the friend who published the poem with that name, and at their next meeting pro'duced the following, which I think adds one leaf to his 'immortal wreath.' It is possible he may have been asked to retaliate, but not likely; very certainly, however, the poem was not produced at the next meeting. It was unfinished when he died. But fragments of it, as written from time to time, appear to have been handed about; and it is pretty clear that the masterly lines on Garrick were known some time before the others. This was a subject he had

studied thoroughly; most familiar had he reason to be with its lights and its shadows; very ample and various had been his personal experience of both; and whether anger or adulation should at last predominate, the reader of this narrative of his life has had abundant means of determining. But neither were visible in the character of Garrick. Indignation makes verses, says the poet; yet will the verses be all the better, in proportion as the indignation is not seen. The Garrick lines 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 all the more merciless for exquisite good manners and good taste. The epitaph writers might well be alarmed. Dean Barnard and Whitefoord deprecated Goldsmith's wrath, in verses that still exist; and the flutter of fear became very perceptible. 'Retaliation,' says Walter Scott, 'had the effect of placing the author on a more equal 'footing with his society than he had ever before assumed.' Fear might doubtless have had that effect, if Goldsmith could have visited St. James' Street again: but a sterner invitation awaited him. Allusions to Kenrick show he was still writing his retaliatory epitaphs in the middle of February; such of them as escaped during his progress were limited to very few of his acquaintance; and when the publication of the poem challenged wider respect for the writer, the writer had been a week in his grave.

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;

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.
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
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 hunstman his pack,

For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed 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.
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.

Other brief passages of the poem which were handed about at the same time with this, Burke is said to have received under solemn injunctions of secrecy; which he promised to observe if they had passed into no other hands, but from which he released himself with all dispatch when told that Mrs. Cholmondely had also received a copy. It would be curious to know if his own epitaph, formerly