Here Reynolds* is laid, and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind; His pencil our faces, his manners our heart: When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregios, 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 scatter'd around wit and humour at will; 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 ;' folks! Who copied his squibs and re-echoed his jokes ; 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. |