Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

'What have we got here? Why, this is good eating! Your own, I suppose or is it in waiting?' 'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce: 'I get these things often ;'—but that was a bounce: 'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleas'd to be kind—but I hate ostentation.'

"If that be the case, then,' cried he, very gay, 'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words I insist on't precisely at three: We'll have Johnson and Burke, all the wits will be there;

My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my lord Clare.
And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
We wanted this venison to fmake out the dinner.
What say you
a pasty ?—it shall, and it must,
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter—this venison with me to Mile-end;
* No stirring - I beg― my dear friend-my dear

h

friend!'

[wind, Thus, snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,

[blocks in formation]

I'll take no denial — you shall, and you must.

8 No words, my dear Goldsmith! my very good friend!

h seizing

+

[ocr errors]

2

And nobody with me at sea but myself;
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 i 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;
1 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.

[blocks in formation]

But, I warrant for me, we shall make up the party. 1 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. n 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:

VARIATIONS.

m venison

"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!'

"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 mistake 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 dropAnd 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.'

a looks quite astonishing

r 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 1 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 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 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.

« AnteriorContinuar »