Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confest without rival to shine, As a wit, if not first, in the very first line; Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art; Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplaister’d, with rouge, his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ’Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting: With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turn’d and he varied full ten times a-day; Tho’ secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick, If they were not his own by finessing and trick; He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame; ’Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who pepper’d the highest, was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave? How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you rais’d, While he was be-Roscius’d, and you were be-prais’d? But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies: Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will. Old Shakespeare, receive him, with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.
Oliver Goldsmith, 1730-1774 – “Retaliation” from The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins and Oliver Goldsmith
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