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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.

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 adverse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judg'd without skill, he was still hard of
hearing:

When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff,

He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.

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

POSTSCRIPT.

After the fourth edition of this poem was printed the publisher received the following epitaph on *Mr. Whitefoord, from a friend of Goldsmith's.

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 relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open,

sincere; A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear;

Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily bons mots half a column might fill:
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 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 Woodfallt confess'd him a wit.

Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks! Who copied his sqibs, and re-echoed his jokes ;

Mr. Caleb Whitefoord, author of many humorous essays.

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

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

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 round 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, 1 had almost said wit. This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,

"Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd

muse.

* Mr. Whitefoord has frequently indulged the town with humorous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser.

1

THE

STATE DUNCES:

A Satire.

INSCRIBED TO MR. POPE.

BY MR. P. WHITEHEAD.

"I from my soul sincerely hate'

Both kings and ministers of state."-Swift.

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