rhaps he confided in men as they go,
d so was too foolishly honest? ah no!
en what was his failing? come, tell it, and
burn ye,-

e was, could he help it? a special attorney.

ere 32 Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, e has not left a wiser or better behind; s pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; Es manners were gentle, complying, and bland; ill born to improve us in every part,

is pencil our faces, his manners our heart: O coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, Then they judg'd without skill he was still hard of hearing: [stuff, 'hen they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and e shifted his 33 trumpet, and only took snuff.

32 Vide page 64.

33 Sir Joshua Reynolds was so remarkably deaf as to be der the necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company.

POSTSCRIPT.

AFTER the fourth edition of this poem was printed, the pub-
lisher received the following epitaph on Mr. Whitefoord,34
from a friend of the late Doctor Goldsmith.

HERE Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can,
Though he merrily liv'd, he is now a 35 grave man :
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open, sincere;
A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear;
Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill:
A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free;
A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.

Te newspaper witlings! To copied his squibs, a tame imitators, ye ser follow your master,

What pity, alas! that so liberal a mind
Should so long be to newspaper essays confin'd!
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 was fit,
Yet Happy if 36 Woodfall confess'd him a wit.

34 Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous

essays.

deck it, bring with y

d copious libations be en strew all around it Cross readings, ship n press.

35 Mr. W. was so notorious a punster, that Doctor Goldsmith used to say it was impossible to keep him company, without being infected with the itch of punning.

36 Mr. H. S. Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser.

Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks!
ho copied his squibs, and reechoed his jokes ;
e tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
ill follow your master, and visit his tomb:
o deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine,
nd copious libations bestow on his shrine;
men 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 hat a Scot may have humour, I had almost said

wit:

'his debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,

3 Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd muse.'

37 Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with umorous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser. On C. Whitefoord, see Smith's Life of Nollekens, vol. i. D. 338-340. See his poem to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ' Admire not, dear knight,' in Northcote's Life of Reynolds, D. 128.

38

When you and Southern, Moyle, and Congreve meet,
The best good men, with the best natured wit.'

C. Hopkins. v. Nicholls' Col. Poems, ii. p. 207.

THE HERMIT

A BALLAD.

FIRST PRINTED IN MDCCLXV.