Perhaps he confided in men as they go, He was, could he help it? a special attorney. Here 32 Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart: 32 Vide page 64. 33 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,34 from a friend of the late Doctor Goldsmith. HERE Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can, 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 was fit, Yet Happy if 36 Woodfall confess'd him a wit. 34 Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous essays. 35 Mr. W. was so notorious a punster, that Doctor Gold. smith used to say it was impossible to keep him company, without being infected with the itch of punning. 36 Mr. H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser. Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks! Who copied his squibs, and reechoed 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) 37 Cross readings, ship news, and mistakes of the press. 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, 38 Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd muse.' Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with humorous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser. On C. Whitefoord, see Smith's Life of Nollekens, vol. i. p. 338-340. See his poem to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ́ Admire not, dear knight,' in Northcote's Life of Reynolds, p. 128. зe When you and Southern, Moyle, and Congreve meet, The best good men, with the best natured wit.' C. Hopkins. v. Nicholls' Col. Poems, ii. p. 207. |