Ye *Kenricks, ye Kellys, and ‡Woodfalls, so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave! How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies: who owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will. Old Shakspeare, receive him, with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good-nature: Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye, * Vide page 67. Mr Hugh Kelly, author of False Delicacy, Word to the Wise, Clementina, School for Wives, &c. &c. Mr. William Woodfall, printer of the Morning Chronicle. Vide page 64. 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 pencil our faces, his manners our heart : When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. POSTSCRIPT.‡ Here Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can, Though he merrily lived, he is now a §grave man : Rare compound of oddity, frolic and fun! Who relished a joke, and rejoiced in a pun; Whose temper was generous, open, sincere; A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear; Who scattered around wit and humour at will; Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill: * Vide page 64. + Sir Joshua Reynolds was so remarkably deaf, as to be under the necessity of using an ear trumpet in company. After the fourth edition of Retaliation was printed, the publisher received the above epitaph on Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, from a friend of the late Doctor Goldsmith. § Mr. W. was so notorious a punster, that Dr. Goldsmith used to say it was impossible to keep him company, without being infected with the itch of punning. 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 confined! Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks! Cross-readings, skip-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 memʼry I cannot refuse, "Thou best humoured man with the worst humoured muse." * Mr. H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser. + Mr. Whitefoord frequently indulged the town with humourous pieces under those titles in the Public Adverfiser. DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER. W HERE the Red Lion staring o'er the way, Invites each passing stranger that can pay : Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champaign, Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane : There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, The muse found Scroggen stretched beneath a rug : A window, patched with paper, lent a ray, That dimly showed the state in which he lay; The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread; The humid wall, with paltry pictures spread: The royal game of goose was there in view, And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew; The seasons, framed with listing, found a place, And brave prince William showed his lamp-black face. The morn was cold; he views with keen desire The rusty grate unconscious of a fire: With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored, A night-cap decked his brows instead of bay; THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION. A TALE. SECLUDED from domestic strife, Made him the happiest man alive; Such pleasures, unallayed with care, Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix Miss frowned and blushed, and then was married. The raptures of the bridal night? |