Aetat. 67.] Goldsmith's epitaph. 81 I admit that the beadle within him was often so eager to apply the lash, that the Judge had not time to consider the case with sufficient deliberation. That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of temper may be granted: but let us ascertain the degree, and not let it be supposed that he was in a perpetual rage, and never without a club in his hand, to knock down every one who approached him. On the contrary, the truth is, that by much the greatest part of his time he was civil, obliging, nay, polite in the true sense of the word; so much so, that many gentlemen, who were long acquainted with him, never received, or even heard a strong expression from him1. The following letters concerning an Epitaph which he wrote for the monument of Dr. Goldsmith, in Westminster-Abbey, afford at once a proof of his unaffected modesty, his carelessness as to his own writings, and of the great respect which he entertained for the taste and judgement of the excellent and eminent person to whom they are addressed: 'DEAR SIR, 'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'I have been kept away from you, I know not well how, and of these vexatious hindrances I know not when there will be an end. I therefore send you the poor dear Doctor's epitaph. Read it first yourself; and if you then think it right, shew it to the Club. I am, you know, willing to be corrected. If you think any thing much amiss, keep it to yourself, till we come together. I have sent two copies, but prefer the card. The dates must be settled by Dr. Percy. 'I am, Sir, 82 Goldsmith's epitaph. [AI 'SIR, TO THE SAME. 'Miss Reynolds has a mind to send the Epitaph to Dr. B I am very willing, but having no copy, cannot immediately re it. She tells me you have lost it. Try to recollect and put as much as you retain; you perhaps may have kept what dropped. The lines for which I am at a loss are something of crvilium sivè naturalium1. It was a sorry trick to lose it; hel if you can. I am, Sir, 'June 22, 1776. 'Your most humble servant, 'The gout grows better but slowly?.? 'SAM. JOHNS It was, I think, after I had left London this year, that Epitaph gave occasion to a Remonstrance to the MONARC LITERATURE, for an account of which I am indebted to William Forbes, of Pitsligo. That my readers may have the subject more fully and cle before them, I shall first insert the Epitaph. OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, Poeta, Physici, Historici, Qui nullum ferè scribendi genus Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit 3: These words must have been in the other copy. They are not in that which was preferred. BOSWELL. 2 On June 3 he wrote that he was suffering from 'a very serious and troublesome fit of the gout. I enjoy all the dignity of lameness. I receive ladies and dismiss them sitting. Painful pre-eminence? Piozzi Letters, i. 337. 'Painful pre-eminence' comes from Addison's Cato, act iii. sc. 5. Pope, in his Essay on Man, iv. 267, borrows the phrase :'Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view, Above life's weakness and its com- It is humorously introduced into the 'I enclose the Round Robin. This jeu d'esprit took its rise one day at dinner at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds's2. All the company present, except myself, were friends and acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith3. The Epitaph, written for him by Dr. Johnson, take, of course, is the Dean's and the Professor's, who did not take the trouble to ascertain what Johnson had really written. If we may trust Cradock, Johnson here gave in a Latin form what he had already said in English. 'When a bookseller ventured to say something rather slightingly of Dr. Goldsmith, Johnson retorted:-"Sir, Goldsmith never touches any subject but he adorns it." Once when I found the Doctor very low at his chambers I related this circumstance to him, and it instantly proved a cordial.' Cradock's Memoirs, i. 231. According to Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, i. 1), he was born on Nov. 10, 1728. There is a passage in Goldsmith's Bee, No. 2, which leads me to think that he himself held Nov. 12 as his birth-day. He says; 'I shall be sixty-two the twelfth of next November.' Now, as The Bee was published in October 1759, he would be, not sixty-two, but just half that number-thirty-one on his next birth-day. It is scarcely likely that he selected the number and the date at random. 2 Reynolds chose the spot in Westminster Abbey where the monument should stand. Northcote's Reynolds, i. 326. 3 For A. Chamier, see ante, i. 478, note ; and post, April 9, 1778: for P. Metcalfe, post, under Dec. 20, 1782. W. Vachell seems only known to fame as having signed this Round Robin, and attended Sir Joshua's funeral. Who Tho. Franklin was I cannot learn. He certainly was not Thomas Francklin, D.D., the Professor of Greek at Cambridge and translator of Sophocles and Lucian, mentioned post, end of 1780. The Rev. Dr. Luard, the Registrar of that University, has kindly compared for me six of his signatures ranging from 1739 to 1770. In each of these G 2 became |