[to make palaver,] to hold a parley, generally with the intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith’s notes to Garrick in 1773 are endorsed by the actor—‘Goldsmith’s parlaver.’ (Forster’s Life, 1871, ii. 397.)
[mercenary.] Cradock gave the profits of Zobeide to Mrs. Yates. ‘I mentioned the disappointment it would be to you’—she says in a letter to him dated April 26, 1771—‘as you had generously given the emoluments of the piece to me.’ (Memoirs, 1828, iv. 211.)
[THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.]
Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and mother of George the Third, died at Carlton House, February 8, 1772. This piece was spoken and sung in Mrs. Teresa Cornelys’s Great Room in Soho Square, on the Thursday following (the 20th), being sold at the door as a small quarto pamphlet, printed by William Woodfall. The author’s name was not given; but it was prefaced by this ‘advertisement,’ etc.:—
‘The following may more properly be termed a compilation than a poem. It was prepared for the composer in little more than two days: and may be considered therefore rather as an industrious effort of gratitude than of genius. In justice to the composer it may likewise be right to inform the public, that the music was adapted in a period of time equally short.
SPEAKERS.
Mr. Lee and Mrs. Bellamy.
SINGERS.
Mr. Champnes, Mr. Dine, and Miss Jameson; with twelve chorus singers. The music prepared and adapted by Signor Vento.
It is—as Cunningham calls it—a ‘hurried and unworthy off-spring of the muse of Goldsmith.’
(Part I).
[Celestial-like her bounty fell.] The Princess’s benefactions are not exaggerated. ‘She had paid off the whole of her husband’s debts, and she had given munificent sums in charity. More than 10,000 pounds a year were given away by her in pensions to individuals whom she judged deserving, very few of whom were aware, until her death, whence the bounty came. The whole of her income she spent in England, and very little on herself’ (Augusta: Princess of Wales, by W. H. Wilkins, Nineteenth Century, October, 1903, p. 675).
[There faith shall come.] This, and the three lines that follow, are borrowed from Collins’s Ode written in the beginning of the year 1746.