cket_, sneering at the poet's vanity, and calling "The
Traveller" a flimsy poem, denying the "Deserted Village" genius, fancy,
or fire, and calling "She Stoops to Conquer" the merest pantomime.
Goldsmith's Irish blood fired at an allusion to Miss Horneck and his
supposed rejection by her. Supposing Evans, of Paternoster Row, to be
the editor of the _Packet_, Goldsmith resolved to chastise him. Evans, a
brutal fellow, who turned his son out in the streets and separated from
his wife because she took her son's part, denied all knowledge of the
matter. As he turned his back to look for the libel, Goldsmith struck
him sharply across the shoulders. Evans, a sturdy, hot Welshman,
returned the blow with interest, and in the scuffle a lamp overhead was
broken and covered the combatants with fish-oil. Dr. Kenrick then
stepped from an adjoining room, interposed between the combatants, and
sent poor Goldsmith home, bruised and disfigured, in a coach. Evans
subsequently indicted Goldsmith for the assault, but the affair was
compromised by Goldsmith paying L50 towards a Welsh charity. The friend
who accompanied Goldsmith to this chivalrous but unsuccessful attack is
said to have been Captain Horneck, but it seems more probable that it
was Captain Higgins, an Irish friend mentioned in "The Haunch of
Venison."

Near the site of the present Dolly's Chop House stood the "Castle," an
ordinary kept by Shakespeare's friend and fellow actor, Richard
Tarleton, the low comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It was this
humorous, ugly actor who no doubt suggested to the great manager many of
his jesters, fools, and simpletons, and we know that the tag songs--such
as that at the end of _All's Well that Ends Well_, "When that I was a
little tiny boy"--were expressly written for Tarleton, and were danced
by that comedian to the tune of a pipe and a tabor which he himself
played. The part which Tarleton had to play as host and wit is well
shown in his "Book of Jests:"--

"Tarleton keeping an ordinary in Paternoster Row, and sitting with
gentlemen to make them merry, would approve mustard standing before them
to have wit. 'How so?' saies one. 'It is like a witty scold meeting
another scold, knowing that scold will scold, begins to scold first.
So,' says he, 'the mustard being lickt up, and knowing that you will
bite it, begins to bite you first.' 'I'll try that,' saies a gull by,
and the mustard so tickled him that his eyes watered. 'How now?' saies