supra'] having slightly fractured one of his arms and
legs, at different times, the Doctor [i.e. Goldsmith] has
rallied him on those accidents, as a kind of 'retributive'
justice for breaking his jests on other people.'
l. 61. -----
"Here Cumberland lies". According to Boaden's 'Life of
Kemble', 1825, i. 438, Mrs. Piozzi rightly regarded this
portrait as wholly ironical; and Bolton Corney, without much
expenditure of acumen, discovers it to have been written in a
spirit of 'persiflage'. Nevertheless, Cumberland himself
('Memoirs', 1807, i. 369) seems to have accepted it in good
faith. Speaking of Goldsmith he says -- I conclude my account of
him with gratitude for the epitaph he bestowed on me in his poem
called 'Retaliation'.' From the further details which he gives
of the circumstances, it would appear that his own performance,
of which he could recall but one line --
All mourn the poet, I lament the man --
was conceived in a less malicious spirit than those of the
others, and had predisposed the sensitive bard in his favour.
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