Chapter 45 - Page 2

epitaph, which was read at the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where several members of the club and other friends of the deceased were present. Though considered by them a masterly composition, they thought the literary character of the poet not defined with sufficient exactness, and they preferred that the epitaph should be in English rather than Latin, as "the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be perpetuated in the language to which his works were likely to be so lasting an ornament." These objections were reduced to writing, to be respectfully submitted to Johnson, but such was the awe entertained of his frown that every one shrank from putting his name first to the instrument; whereupon their names were written about it in a circle, making what mutinous sailors call a Round Robin. Johnson received it half graciously, half grimly. "He was willing," he said, "to modify the sense of the epitaph in any manner the gentlemen pleased; but he never would consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription." Seeing the names of Dr. Wharton and Edmund Burke among the signers, "he wondered," he said, "that Joe Wharton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool; and should have thought that Mund Burke would have had more sense." The following is the epitaph as it stands inscribed on a white marble tablet beneath the bust:

OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,

Poetae, Physici, Historici, Qui nullum ferè scribendi genus Non tetigit, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit Sive risus essent movendi, Sive lacrymae, Affectuum potens ac lenis dominator: Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis, Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus: Hoc monumento memoriam coluit Sodalium amor, Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Natus in Hibernia Forniae Longfordiensis, In loco cui nomen Pallas, Nov. xxix. MDCCXXXI.; Eblanse literis institutus; Obiit Londini, April iv. MDCCLXXIV.

The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson:

OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH--

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn; Of all the passions, Whether smiles were to be moved or tears, A powerful yet gentle master; In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, In style, elevated, clear, elegant-- The love of companions, The fidelity of friends, And the veneration of readers, Have by this monument honored the memory. He was born in Ireland, At a place called Pallas, [In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, On the 29th Nov., 1731,[*] Educated at [the University of] Dublin, And died in London, 4th April, 1774.

[Footnote *: Incorrect.]

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We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life of Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings; their merits have long since been fully discussed, and their station in the scale of