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Doctor Goldsmith, inclosed in a letter, of which the following is an abstract:

"I have in my possession a sheet of paper, containing near forty lines in the Doctor's own handwriting: there are many scattered, broken verses, on Sir Jos. Reynolds, Counsellor Ridge, Mr. Beauclerk, and Mr. Whitefoord. The Epitaph on the last-mentioned gentleman is the only one that is finished, and therefore I have copied it, that you may add it to the next edition. It is a striking proof of Doctor Goldsmith's good-nature. I saw this sheet of paper in the Doctor's room, five or six days before he died; and, as I had got all the other Epitaphs, I asked him if I might take it. 'In truth you may, my Boy,' (replied he) 'for it will be of no use to me where I am going."

HERE Whitefoord 1 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 ;
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 news-paper essays confin'd;
Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar,
Yet content "if the table he set on a roar;"
Whose talents to fill any station were fit,
Yet happy if Woodfall 2 confess'd him a wit.
Ye news-paper 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.

[Caleb Whitefoord, d. 1810, an inveterate punster, and author of the once-popular "Cross Readings," for an account of which see Smith's Life of Nollekens, 1828, i. 336-7.]

[ H. S. Woodfall, d. 1805, printer of the Public Advertiser, in which the "Cross Readings" appeared.]

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." 1

[An adaptation of Rochester on Lord Buckhurst. It is half suspected that Whitefoord wrote this "Postscript" himself. The recently published Whitefoord Papers (1898) throw no light on the subject.]

THE HAUNCH OF VENISON

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE

(The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare. By the late Dr. Goldsmith. With a Head of the Author, Drawn by Henry Bunbury, Esq.; and Etched by [James] Bretherton, was first published in 1776 by J. Ridley, in St. James's Street, and G. Kearsly, in Fleet Street. It is supposed to have been written early in 1771. The present version is printed from the second edition "taken from the author's last Transcript," and issued in the same year as the first.]

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