And 'nobody with me at sea but myself; '2
Tho' I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,
Yet Johnson and Burke, and a good venison pasty,
Were things that I never dislik'd in my life,
Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.
So next day in due splendour to make my approach,
I drove to his door in my own hackney-coach.

When come to the place where we all were to dine (A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine), My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb [come; With tidings that Johnson and Burke 'would not For I knew it,' he cried, 'both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale; But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party, With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew;

'They're both of them merry, and authors like you; The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge; Some thinks he writes Cinna: he owns to Panurge.' While thus he describ'd them by trade and by name, They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came.

2 See the letters that passed between his Royal Highness Henry Duke of Cumberland, and Lady Grosvenor,—12mo, 1769.

1 could

at the house,

VARIATIONS.

But, I warrant for me, we shall make up the party.
Who dabble and write in the papers-like you.

At the top, a fried liver and bacon were seen; At the bottom was tripe, in a swingeing tureen; At the sides there was spinage and pudding made hot;

In the middle a place where the "pasty-was not. Now, my lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion, And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian; So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round: But what vex'd me most was that damn'd Scottish

rogue,

With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue,

And, 'Madam,' quoth he, 'may this bit be my poison, "A prettier dinner I never set eyes on ;

Pray a slice of your liver, though, may I be curst, But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.' The tripe!' quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek,

'I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week: I like these here dinners, so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at

all.'

'O-ho!' quoth my friend, 'he'll come on in a trice, He's keeping a corner for something that's nice :

m venison

VARIATIONS.

"If a prettier dinner I ever set eyes on!

• 'Your tripe!' quoth the Jew, 'If the truth I may speak, I could eat of this tripe seven days in the week!'

6

P There's a pasty'-'A pasty!' repeated the Jew; I don't care if I keep a corner for 't too.'

'What the de’il, mon, a pasty!' re-echoed the Scot;

Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that.' 'We'll all keep a corner,' the lady cried out; 'We'll all keep a corner,' was echo'd about. While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified, enter'd the maid: A visage so sad, and so pale with affright,

Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out, for who could mis

take her?

[baker:

That she came with some terrible news from the
And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.
Sad Philomel thus- - but let similes drop-

And now that I think on't, the story may stop. To be plain, my good lord, it's but labour misplac'd To send such good verses to one of your taste; You've got an odd something-a kind of discerning

A relish a taste - sicken'd over by learning; At least, it's your temper, as very well known, That you think very slightly of all that's your own: So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss, You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this.

VARIATIONS.

There's a pasty.' 'A pasty!' returned the Scot;

'I don't care if I keep a corner for thot.'

q looks quite astonishing

I too soon we

RETALIATION.

A POEM.

"As the cause of writing the following printed poem called Retaliation, has not yet been fully explained, a person concerned in the business begs leave to give the following just and minute account of the whole affair.

At a meeting 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 never would allow a superior in any art, from writing poetry down to dancing a hornpipe, the Dr. with great eager ness 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 any thing 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. The publick in general have been mistaken

1 At the St. James's Coffee-House in St. James's Street. See Art. 'James's (St.) Coffee House,' in Cunningham's HandBook of London, 2d ed. 1850, p. 254.

in imagining that this poem was written in anger by the Doctor; it was just the contrary; the whole on all sides was done with the greatest good humour; and the following poems in manuscript were written by several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the Doctor to an answer, which came forth at last with great credit to him in Retaliation."D. GARRICK, [MS.]

'For this highly interesting account, (now first printed, or even referred to by any biographer or editor of Goldsmith,) I am indebted to my friend Mr. George Daniel, of Islington, who allowed me to transcribe it from the original in Garrick's own handwriting discovered among the Garrick papers, and evidently designed as a preface to a collected edition of the poems which grew out of Goldsmith's trying his epigram. matic powers with Garrick. I may observe also that Garrick's epitaph or distich on Goldsmith is (through this very paper) for the first time printed as it was spoken by its author.

"Retaliation was the last work of Goldsmith, and a postnumous publication-appearing for the first time on the 18th or April, 1774."

CUNNINGHAM.