visibly increased, as to become matter of increased sport to such
as were ignorant of its cause; and a proposition made at one of the
dinners, when he was absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him
(his "country dialect" and his awkward person) was agreed to, and
put in practice by several of the guests. The active aggressors
appear to have been Garrick, Doctor Bernard, Richard Burke, and
Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it
was complimentary and grave, and hence the grateful return he
received. Mr. Forster considers Garrick's epitaph to indicate the
tone of all. This, with the rest, was read to Goldsmith when he
next appeared at the St. James's Coffee-house, where Cumberland,
however, says he never again met his friends. But "the Doctor was
called on for Retaliation," says the friend who published the poem
with that name, "and at their next meeting produced the following,
which I think adds one leaf to his immortal wreath."
"'Retaliation'", says Sir Walter Scott, "had the effect of placing
the author on a more equal footing with his Society than he had
ever before assumed."

Cumberland's account differs from the version formerly received,
which intimates that the epitaphs were written before Goldsmith
arrived: whereas the pun, "the late Dr. Goldsmith" appears to have
suggested the writing of the epitaphs. In the "Retaliation",
Goldsmith has not spared the characters and failings of his
associates, but has drawn them with satire, at once pungent and
good-humoured. Garrick is smartly chastised; Burke, the Dinner-bell
of the House of Commons, is not let off; and of all the more
distinguished names of the Club, Thomson, Cumberland, and Reynolds
alone escape the lash of the satirist. The former is not mentioned,
and the two latter are even dismissed with unqualified and
affectionate applause.

Still we quote Cumberland's account of the "Retaliation" which is
very amusing from the closely circumstantial manner in which the
incidents are narrated, although they have so little relationship
to truth: "It was upon a proposal started by Edmund Burke, that a
party of friends who had dined together at Sir Joshua Reynolds's
and my house, should meet at the St. James's Coffee-house, which
accordingly took place, and was