*Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style, Our Townshend make speeches,and I shall compile; New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross

over,

No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark,

And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark.

Here lies §David Garrick ; describe me, who can, An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confessed without rival to shine; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line: Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turned and he varied full ten times a day: 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 pleased, he could whistle them back.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;

* James Macpherson, esq. who lately, from the mere force of his style, wrote down the first poet of all antiquity.

† Vide page 69.

Vide page 68. § Vide page 68.

Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppered 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 you
gave!
[raised
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you
While he was be-Rosciused, and you were be-prais-
But peace to his spirit wherever it flies,

[ed!

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. [love,
Old Shakspeare, receive him, with praise and with
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. [ture.
Here §Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant crea-
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!

* Vide page 71.

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 69.

G

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 judged without skill he was still hard of
hearing:

When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregios, and
He shifted his ftrumpet, and only took snuff. [stuff,

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 flattery, a stranger to fear; Who scattered around wit and humour at will; Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill;

* Vide page 69.

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 liberal 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 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 memory 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 humour⚫us pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser.,

DESCRIPTION

OF AN

AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER.

WHERE the Red Lion staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay :
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black cham-
paign,

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!