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,
While he was be-Rosciused, and you were be-praised!
But peace to his spirit wherever it flies,

To act as an angel, and mix with the skies:
Those poets,

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:
He cherished his friend, and he relished 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.

* 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 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 judged without skill he was still hard
of hearing :

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!
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 *Woodfall confessed him a wit.

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 less)

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,
And five cracked tea-cups dressed the chimney board;

A night-cap decked his brows instead of bay;
A cap by night-a stocking all the day!

THE

DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION.

A TALE.

SECLUDED from domestic strife,
Jack Book-worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five

Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass, and cracked his joke,
And freshmen wondered as he spoke.

Such pleasures, unallayed with care,
Could any accident impair?

Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arrived at thirty-six ?
O had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town!
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-street shop;
O had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze
O!-but let exclamation cease,
Her presence banished all his peace.
So with decorum all things carried;

Miss frowned and blushed, and then was married.
Need we expose to vulgar sight

The raptures of the bridal night?