the very genteelest of tunes. Water Parted', or the minuet in Ariadne.' 1. 9. When Methodist preachers, &c. 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.) 1. 23. 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 1i.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. 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.' 1. 6. 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.' 1. 16. 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.' 1. 26. 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, Her easy mien, her shape so neat, She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet, I die for Nancy Dawson. 66 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. 1. 28. 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 222 EPILOGUE TO 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER' (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 had, at her house in Piccadilly, two doors from Air Street.' 1. 31. 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 In vain, alas! her hope is fed; She draws an ace, and sees it red. 1. 35. 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 and Colman's Epilogue to The School for Scandal, 1777 :— 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 hornpipe, 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, 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, &c.' 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,' &c., 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. 1. 1. Of old, when Scarron, &c. Paul Scarron (1610–60), the author inter alia of the Roman Comique, 1651-7, upon a translation |