Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick;
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack;
For he knew, when he pleas'd he could whistle
them back

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
'Till, his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please
But let us be candid and speak out our mind:
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.

*

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys,+ and Woodfalls,‡ so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and

He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser:
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah no!
Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye.
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.

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 talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff,

He shifted his trumpet, † and only took snuff.

• Vide page 192.

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 grave t

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 bons 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!
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 Woodfallt confess'd him a wit.

* Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humour. ous 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.

Mr. H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser.

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,*

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.'

Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with humourous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser.