Hickey. The commentator of the second edition of _Retaliation_ calls this gentleman ‘honest Tom Hickey’. His Christian name, however, was _Joseph_ (Letter of Burke, November 8, 1774). He was a jovial, good-natured, over-blunt Irishman, the legal adviser of both Burke and Reynolds. Indeed it was Hickey who drew the conveyance of the land on which Reynolds’s house ‘next to the Star and Garter’ at Richmond (Wick House) was built by Chambers the architect. Hickey died in 1794. Reynolds painted his portrait for Burke, and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772 (No. 208). In 1833 it belonged to Mr. T. H. Burke. Sir Joshua also painted Miss Hickey in 1769–73. Her father, not much to Goldsmith’s satisfaction, was one of the Paris party in 1770. See also note to l. 125. Magnanimous Goldsmith. According to Malone (Reynolds’s _Works_, second edition, 1801, i. xc), Goldsmith intended to have concluded with his own character. Tommy Townshend, M.P. for Whitchurch, Hampshire, afterwards first Viscount Sydney. He died in 1800. Junius says Bolton Corney, gives a portrait of him as _still life_. His presence in _ Retaliation_ is accounted for by the fact that he had commented in Parliament upon Johnson’s pension. ‘I am well assured,’ says Boswell, ‘that Mr. Townshend’s attack upon Johnson was the occasion of his “hitching in a rhyme”; for, that in the original copy of Goldsmith’s character of Mr. Burke, in his _ Retaliation_ another person’s name stood in the couplet where Mr. Townshend is now introduced.’ (Birkbeck Hill’s _ Boswell_, 1887, iv. 318.) too deep for his hearers. ‘The emotion to which he commonly appealed was that too rare one, the love of wisdom, and he combined his thoughts and knowledge in propositions of wisdom so weighty and strong, that the minds of ordinary hearers were not on the instant prepared for them.’ (Morley’s _Burke_, 1882, 209–10.) And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining. For the reason given in the previous note, many of Burke’s hearers often took the opportunity of his rising to speak, to retire to dinner. Thus he acquired the nickname of the ‘Dinner Bell.’ To eat mutton cold. There is a certain resemblance between this character and Gray’s lines on himself written in 1761, beginning ‘Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune.’ (See Gosse’s _Gray’s Works_, 1884, i. 127.) But both Gray and Goldsmith may have been thinking of a line in the once popular song of _Ally Croaker_:— Too dull for a wit, too grave for a joker. honest William, i.e. William Burke (_v. supra_).