Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at;
Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet!
What spirits were his! what wit and what whim!
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball;
Now teazing and vexing, yet laughing at all.
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,
That we wish'd full ten times a day at old Nick;
But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wish'd to have Dick back again.
Here Cumberland+ lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care

To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And Comedy wonders at being so fine:
Like a tragedy-queen he has dizen'd her out,
Or rather like Tragedy giving a rout.

His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that Folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleas'd with their own.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught?
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that, vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?

Here Douglast retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks;
Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines,
Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines.
When satire and censure encircled his throne,

I fear'd for your safety, I fear'd for my own:
But now he is gone, and we want a detector,
Our Dodds, shall be pious, our Kenricks|| shall lecture;

Mr. Richard Burke; vide page 163. This gentleman having slightly fractured one of his arms and legs, at different times, the doctor had rallied him on those accidents, as a kind of retributive justice for breaking his jests upon other people.

+ Vide page 163.

1 Ibid.

6 The Rev. Dr. Dodd. Dr. Kenrick, who read lectures at the Devil Tavern, under the title of The School of Shakspeare.'

Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style,

Our Townshendt make speeches, and I shall compile ;
New Lauders and Bowers; the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark,

And Scotchman meet Scotchman and cheat in the dark.
Here lies David Garrick, describe him 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 beplaster'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;
Though 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 swallowed 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 Kelleys, 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;

James Macpherson, Esq. who lately, from the mere force of his style, wrote down the first poet of all antiquity.

+ Vide page 164.

Vide page 163.

Vide page 163.
Vide page 166.

Mr. Hugh Kelly, author of False Delicacy, Word to the Wise, Clementina, School for Wives, &c. &c.

** Mr. W. Woodfall, printer of the Morning Chronicle.

Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kelleys above.

Here Hickey+ reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good-nature:
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper,
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser:
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah no!
Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye,
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.

Here Reynoldst is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind;
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart:

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering;

When they judg'd without skill, he was still hard of hearing? When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.

Vide page 166.

+ Vide page 164.

Ibid.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was so remarkably deaf as to be under the necessity of using an car-trumpet in company.

POSTSCRIPT.

After the fourth edition of this poem was printed, the publisher
received the following epitaph on Mr. Whitefoord, from a
friend of the late Dr. Goldsmith.

HERE Whitefoord reclines; and deny it who can,
Though he merrily liv'd, he is now a gravet man :
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open, sincere ;
A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear;
Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill;
A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free;
A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.

What pity, alas! that so lib'ral a mind

Should so long be to newspaper-essays confin'd!
Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar,
Yet content if the table he set in a roar;'
Whose talents to fill any station were fit,
Yet happy if Woodfallt confess'd him a wit.

Ye newspaper-witlings! ye pert scribbling folks!
Who copied his squibs and re-echoed his jokes;
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
Still follow your master, and visit his tomb;
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine,
And copious libations bestow on his shrine;
Then strew all around it (you can do no less)
Cross-readings, ship-news, and mistakes of the press.
Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit
That a Scot may have humour, I had almost said wit;
This debt to thy mem'ry I cannot refuse,
"Thou best-humour'd man with the worst-humour'd muse."

Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous essays. + Mr. W. was so notorious a punster, that Dr. Goldsmith used to say it was impossible to keep him company without being infected with the itch of punning.

Mr. H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser.

$ Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with humo. rous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser.

THE HERMIT:

A BALLAD,

FIRST PRINTED IN MDCCLXV.

The following Letter, addressed to the Printer of the St. James's Chronicle, appeared in that Paper, in June, 1767.

SIR,

As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours, that I recommended Blainville's Travels, because I thought the book was a good one; and I think so still. I said, I was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that, it seems, I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me right.

Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad, i published sometime ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from mine. 1 read it to Mr. Percy some years ago; and he (as we both considered these things as trifles at best) told me, with his usual good humour, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing: and were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a much more important nature.

I am, Sir,

Yours, &c.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

The Friar of Orders Gray. "Reliq. of Anc. Poetry," vol.

I. p. 243.