EPITAPH

ON

EDWARD PURDON.

Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;

He led such a damnable life in this world,

I don't think he'll wish to come back.*

* [Purdon died suddenly in Smithfield, in March 1767. He was the college friend of Goldsmith. Being of a thoughtless turn, he enlisted as a private soldier after quitting the University; but becoming tired of this mode of life, he commenced professional writer in London, and renewed his acquaintance with the Poet, of whose bounty he frequently partook, and is believed to have been the cause of some of the difficulties and imprudences of his good-natured friend. He died as he had lived-in penury; and it was, perhaps, with reference to him and others whom Goldsmith had known in the same unfortunate situation, and it is to be feared with the remembrance of some sufferings of his own, that we find the following passage on the effects of hunger in his Animated Nature:-"The lower race of animals, when satisfied for the instant moment, are perfectly happy; but it is otherwise with man: his mind anticipates distress, and feels the pangs of want even before it arrests him. Thus the mind being continually harassed by the situation, it at length influences the constitution, and unfits it for all its functions. Some cruel disorder, but no way like hunger, seizes the unhappy sufferer; so that almost all those men who have thus long lived by chance, and whose every day may be considered as a happy escape from famine, are known at last to die in reality of a disorder caused by hunger, but which, in common language, is often called a broken heart. Some of these I have known myself when very little able to relieve them."-See Life, ch. vii.]

EPILOGUE

TO THE

COMEDY OF THE SISTER.*

What? five long acts-and all to make us wiser?
Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser.
Had she consulted me, she should have made
Her moral play a speaking masquerade;
Warm'd up each bustling scene, and in her rage
Have emptied all the green-room on the stage.
My life on't, this had kept her play from sinking;
Have pleas'd our eyes, and sav'd the pain of thinking.
Well! since she thus has shown her want of skill,

What if I give a masquerade?—I will.

But how? ay, there's the rub! [pausing]-I've got my cue; The world's a masquerade! the masquers, you, you, you.

[To Boxes, Pit, and Gallery.

Lud! what a group the motley scene discloses!

False wits, false wives, false virgins, and false spouses!
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,
Patriots in party-color'd suits that ride 'em.

* [Written by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, and represented at Covent-Garden Theatre, in Januray 1769. The plot was taken from the authoress's own novel entitled "Henrietta." The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much clamor and appearance of prejudice, that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time. She published it without either remonstrance or complaint.-See Gent. Mag. vol. xxxix. p. 199.]

"There are but two decent prologues in our tongue-Pope's to CatoJohnson's to Drury Lane. These, with the epilogue to the Distrest Mother, and, I think, one of Goldsmith's, and a prologue of old Colman's to Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, are the best things of the kind we have."-LORL BYRON, Works, vol. ii p 165.]

There Hebes, turn'd of fifty, try once more
To raise a flame in Cupids of threescore:
These in their turn, with appetites as keen,
Deserting fifty, fasten on fifteen.

Miss, not yet full fifteen, with fire uncommon,

Flings down her sampler, and takes up the woman;
The little urchin smiles, and spreads her lure,
And tries to kill, ere she's got power to cure:
Thus 'tis with all-their chief and constant care
Is to seem every thing-but what they are.
Yon broad, bold, angry spark, I fix my eye on,
Who seems t' have robb'd his vizor from the lion;
Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade,
Looking, as who should say, dam'me! who's afraid?

Strip but this vizor off, and sure I am
You'll find his lionship a very lamb.
Yon politician, famous in debate,
Perhaps, to vulgar eyes, bestrides the state;
Yet, when he deigns his real shape t'assume,
He turns old woman, and bestrides a broom.
Yon patriot, too, who presses on your sight,
And seems, to every gazer, all in white,

If with a bribe his candor you attack,

[Mimicking.

He bows, turns round, and whip-the man in black!
Yon critic, too-but whither do I run?

If I proceed, our bard will be undone !
Well then, a truce, since she requests it too:
Do you spare her, and I'll for once spare you.

VERSES

IN REPLY TO

AN INVITATION TO DINNER AT SIR GEORGE BAKER'S*

"This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!

Your mandate I got,

You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night;
As I hope to be saved,
I put off being shaved;
For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,

Or to put on my duds;

So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,

And Kauffman beside,
And the Jessamy bride,t
With the rest of the crew,

The Reynoldses two,

Little Comedy's face,

And the Captain in lace.§

For the above verses, now first published, the reader is indebted to Major General Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart. They were written about the year 1769, in reply to an invitation to dinner at Sir George Baker's, to meet the Misses Homeck, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Miss Reynolds, Angelica Kauffman, and others. See Life, ch. xvii.]

[Mary Horneck (Mrs. Gwyn).]

[Catherine Horneck, afterwards Mrs. Bunbury.]

§ [Ensign (afterwards General) Horneck.]

(By the bye you may tell him,
I have something to sell him;
Of use I insist,

When he comes to enlist.

Your worships must know
That a few days ago,

An order went out,

For the foot guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste,
Twelve inches at least;
Now I've got him a scale
To measure each tail,
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail.)—
Yet how can I when vext,
Thus stray from my text?
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,

For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim.

To be frolick like him,

But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Advertiser ?*

[The following is the compliment alluded to:

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

"While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,
Paints Conway's lovely form and Stanhope's face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,

O Reynolds with astonishment we see,