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, [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 "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. 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.] |