Our Will* shall be wild fowl, of excellent flavor;
And Dickt with his pepper shall heighten the sa-

vor:

Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall
obtain ;

And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain :
Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree:
To make out the dinner, full certain I am
That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds** is lamb;
That Hickey'stt a capon; and, by the same rule,
Magnanimous Goldsmith, a gooseberry fool.
At a dinner so various, at such a repast,
Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last?
Here, waiter, more wine, let me sit while I'm able,
Till all my companions sink under the table;
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,|
Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead.
Here lies the good dean, reunited to earth,
Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with
mirth ;

If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt,
At least in six weeks I could not find them out;
Yet some have declar'd, and it can't be denied 'em,
That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em.
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was
such,

We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his
throat

To persuade Tommy Townshend‡‡ to lend him a
vote;

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,

Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam,
The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home;
Would you ask for his merits? alas! he had none;
What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his

own.

Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must
sigh at;

Alas! that such frolic should now be so quiet:
What spirits were his! what wit and what whim,
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb!
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball!
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all!
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,
That we wish'd him full ten times a day at old Nick;
But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wish'd to have Dick back again.

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And Comedy wonders at being so fine:
Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out,
Or rather like Tragedy giving a rout.
His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings, alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleas'd with their own
Say, where has our poet this malady caught?
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?
Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks:

And thought of convincing, while they thought of Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines,

Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant re-
clines:

When satire and censure encircled his throne;
I fear'd for your safety, I fear'd for my own:
But now he is gone, and we want a detector,
Our Doddst shall be pious, our Kenricks shall
lecture;

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 him who can,

* Mr. William Burke, Secretary to General Conway, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man:

and Member for Bedwin.

† Mr. Richard Burke, Collector of Grenada.

↑ Mr. Richard Cumberland, author of the West-Indian, Fashionable Lover, The Brothers, and other dramatic pieces.

§ Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, who no less distinguished himself as a citizen of the world, than a sound critic, in detecting several literary mistakes (or rather forgeries) of his countrymen; particularly Lauder on Milton, and Bower's History of the Popes.

David Garrick, Esq.

Counsellor John Ridge, a gentleman belonging to the Irish bar.

** Sir Joshua Reynolds.

†† An eminent attorney.

t Mr. T. Townshend, Member for Whitchurch.

As an actor, confest 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.

*Mr. Richard Burke. This gentleman having slightly fractured one of his arms and legs, at different times, the Doctor has rallied him on those accidents, as a kind of retributive justice for breaking his jests upon other people.

The Rev. Dr. Dodd.

Dr. Kenrick, who read lectures at the Devil Tavern, under the title of The School of Shakspeare.

§ James Macpherson, Esq. who, from the mere force of his style, wrote down the first poet of all antiquity.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, a writer of great eminence, thirteen nights, but has never since appeared on was born in 1709 at Litchfield, in which city his the theatre: Johnson, in fact, found that he was not father was a petty bookseller. After a desultory formed to excel on the stage, and made no further course of school-education, it was proposed to him, trials.

by Mr. Corbet, a neighboring gentleman, that he His periodical paper, entitled "The Rambler," should accompany his own son to Oxford as his appeared in March 1750, and was continued till companion; accordingly, in his nineteenth year, he March 1752. The solemnity of this paper prewas elected a commoner of Pembroke College. vented it at first from attaining an extensive cirFrom young Corbet's departure, he was left to culation; but after it was collected into volumes, it struggle with penury till he had completed a resi- continually rose in the public esteem, and the author dence of three years, when he quitted Oxford had the satisfaction of seeing a tenth edition. The without taking a degree. His father died, in very" Adventurer," conducted by Dr. Hawkesworth, narrow circumstances, soon after his return from the succeeded the Rambler, and Johnson contributed university; and for some time he attempted to gain several papers of his own writing. In 1755, the a maintenance by some literary projects. At length, first edition of his "Dictionary" made its appearin 1735, he thought proper to marry a widow twice ance. It was received by the public with general his own age, and far from attractive, either in her applause, and its author was ranked among the person or manners. By the aid of her fortune he greatest benefactors of his native tongue. Modern was enabled to set up a school for instruction in Latin accuracy, however, has given an insight into its and Greek, but the plan did not succeed; and after defects; and though it still stands as the capital a year's experiment, he resolved to try his fortune work of the kind in the language, its authority as a in the great metropolis. Garrick, afterwards the standard is somewhat depreciated. Upon the last celebrated actor, had been one of his pupils, accom- illness of his aged mother, in 1759, for the purpose panied by whom he arrived in London; Johnson of paying her a visit, and defraying the expense of having in his pocket his unfinished tragedy of Irene. her funeral, he wrote his romance of Rasselas, The first notice which he drew from the judges Prince of Abyssinia," one of his most splendid perof literary merit, was by the publication of “ London, formances, elegant in language, rich in imagery, a Poem," in imitation of Juvenal's third satire. and weighty in sentiment. Its views of human life The manly vigor, and strong painting, of this per-are, indeed, deeply tinged with the gloom that overformance, placed it high among works of its kind, shadowed the author's mind; nor can it be praised though it must be allowed, that its censure is coarse for moral effect. and exaggerated, and that it ranks rather as a party, Soon after the accession of George III., a than as a moral poem. It was published in 1738. For some years Johnson is chiefly to be traced in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, then conducted by Cave; and it was for this work that he gratified the public with some extraordinary pieces of eloquence which he composed under the disguise of debates in the senate of Liliput, meaning the British parliament. He likewise wrote various biographical articles for the same miscellany, of this circumstance of his life, which was enhanced which the principal and most admired was "The Life of Savage."

grant of a pension of 300l. per annum was made him by His Majesty during the ministry of Lord Bute. A short struggle of repugnance to accept a favor from the House of Hanover was overcome by a sense of the honor and substantial benefit conferred by it, and he became that character, a pensioner, on which he had bestowed a sarcastic definition in his Dictionary. Much obloquy attended

when he published, in several of his productions, arguments which seemed directly to oppose the rising spirit of liberty.

The plan of his English Dictionary was laid before the public in a letter addressed to Lord Ches- A long-promised edition of Shakspeare appeared terfield in 1747. In the same year he furnished in 1765; but though ushered in by a preface writGarrick with a prologue on the opening of Drury- ten with all the powers of his masterly pen, the lane theatre, which in sense and poetry has not a edition itself disappointed those who expected much competitor among compositions of this class, except from his ability to elucidate the obscurities of the ing Pope's prologue to Cato. Another imitation great dramatist. A tour to the Western Islands of of Juvenal, entitled "The Vanity of Human Scotland in 1773, in which he was attended by his Wishes," was printed in 1749, and may be said to enthusiastic admirer and obsequious friend, James reach the sublime of ethical poetry, and to stand at Boswell, Esq. was a remarkable incident of his life, the head of classical imitations. The same year. considering that a strong antipathy to the natives of under the auspices of Garrick, brought on the stage that country had long been conspicuous in his conof Drury-lane his tragedy of "Irene." It ran versation. But when, two years afterwards, he