the general
voice to be productions of a Lady of Quality. From the proximity of
the house to St. James's Palace, it was much frequented by the
Guards; and we read of its being no uncommon circumstance to see
Dr. Joseph Warton at breakfast in the St. James's Coffee-house,
surrounded by officers of the Guards, who listened with the utmost
attention and pleasure to his remarks.

To show the order and regularity observed at the St. James's, we
may quote the following advertisement, appended to the _Tatler_.
No. 25; "To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of
the other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's
Coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such
things from them as are not properly within their respective
provinces, this is to give notice that Kidney, keeper of the
book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go
off without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded
by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first
coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes
as shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird."

But the St. James's is more memorable as the house where originated
Goldsmith's celebrated poem, "Retaliation." The poet belonged to a
temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the
Club, who dined together occasionally here. At these dinners he was
generally the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was later
than usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him as
"the late Dr. Goldsmith", and several were thrown off in a playful
vein. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been
preserved, very probably, by its pungency:

Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll;
He wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially coming from such a
quarter; and, by way of _retaliation_, he produced the famous poem,
of which Cumberland has left a very interesting account, but which
Mr. Forster, in his "Life of Goldsmith", states to be "pure
romance". The poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it
when published, sufficiently explains its own origin. What had
formerly been abrupt and strange in Goldsmith's manners, had now so