Would you ask for his merits ? alas! he had none; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.

[sigh at; Here lies honest Richard,* whose fate I must 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 teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all! In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,

[Nick ; That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old 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 Douglas 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 Kenrickst shall

lecture; Macphersoni'write bombast, and call it a style; Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile; NewLauders and Bowers the 'Tweed shall cross over, No countrymen living their tricks to discover; Detection her taper shall quench to a spark, And Scotchmen meet Scotchmen, 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, confess'd 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.

The Rev. Dr. Dodd, preacher at the Magdalen. + Dr. Kenrick read lectures at the Devil-tavern, under the title of “The Sehool of Shakspeare.'

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

70

COU

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, arteo
He turn’d and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly she
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 whisth
them back.

PEN
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 Woodfallst so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and
you gave !

(rais'd,
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you
While he was be-Roscius’d, and you were be-prais’d!
But peace to his spirit, wherever it dies,
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 ; [love,
Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.
Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant crea-

ture,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;
He cherish'd his friend, and he relished a bumper:
Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser?
answer, no, no; for he always was wiser :

of his wo courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat? mes a dars very worst foe can't accuse him of that: onfoundecarhaps he confided in men as they go, ng and tind so was too foolishly honest? Ah no! [ye, in his på nen what was his failing ? come, tell it, and burn e could le was, could he help it? a special attorney.

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, ,d wh: He has not left a wiser or better behind : t for fis 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 julg'd without skill he was still hard
of hearing;

(stuff, When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and He shifted his trumpet,* and only took snuff.

o dises

t to play ur kind.

min

ts that

be-piz

POSTSCRIPT.

[After the fourth edition of this poem was printed, the Publisher

received the following Epitaph on Mr. Whitefoord,t 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 grave man:*:
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic’d in a pun;

* Sir Joshua Reynolds was so remarkably deaf, as to be under the necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company. + Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous essays.

Mr. W. is so notorious a punster, that Dr. Goldsmith used to say it was impossible tv keep him company, without being inn fected with the itch of punning.

Whose temper was generous, open, sincere ;
A stranger to flattery, 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 liberal 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 Woodfall* confessed 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 bis 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.t

Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit That a Scot may have humour, I had almost said wit: This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse, • Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd

muse'?

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

+ Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with humourous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser.

A line nearly taken from Rochester's character of Charles, earl of Dorset.