' 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and has superseded those of Davies, Cradock, Cumberland, and others, to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.
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