Here Reynolds* 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 talked of their Rapha

Corre

gios, and stuff,

He shifted his trumpett, and only took snuff.

* Vide page 60.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was so remarkably deaf as to be under the necessity of using an ear-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

doctor 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!

* Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humourous essays.

+ Mr. W. was so notorious a punster, that doctor Goldsmith used to say it was impossible to keep him company without being infected with the itch of punning.

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* 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.t

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 worsthumour'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.