[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
Good fortune peeping from behind;
With panting heart, and earnest eyes,
In hope to see spadillo rise;
In vain, alas! her hope is fed;
She draws an ace, and sees it red.
[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
Free from the lash:—His Play he writ for me
’Tis true—and now my gratitude you’ll see;
and Colman’s Epilogue to The School for Scandal, 1777:—
So wills our virtuous bard—the motley Bayes
Of crying epilogues and laughing plays!
[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 horn-pipe, 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,
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 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, etc.’ 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,’ etc., but no further material alteration was made in the text until the suspicious lines on Caleb Whitefoord were added to the fifth edition.