Mr. Edmund Burke, and Mr. Garrick; but from fome unaccountable circumftances, this defign was dropped, and his remains were privately depofited in the Temple burial-ground, on Saturday the 9th of April; when Mr. Hugh Kelley, Meffrs. John and Robert Day, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Etherington, and. Mr. Hawes-gentlemen who had been his friends in life-attended his corpse as mourners, and paid the last tribute to his memory. A fubfcription, however, has fince been raised by his friends, to defray the expence of a marble monument, which is now executed by Mr. Nollikens, an eminent ftatuary in London, and placed in Westminster-abbey, between Gay's monument and the Duke of Argyle's, in Poet's Corner. It confifts of a large medallion, exhibiting a very good likeness of the Doctor, embellished with literary ornaments, underneath which is a tablet of white marble, with the following Latin infcription, written by his excellent friend, Dr. Samuel Johnson: OLIVARI GOLDSMITH, POETE. PHYSICI. HISTORICI. QUI NULLUM FERE SCRIBENDI GENUS NULLUM QUOD TETIGIT NON ORNAVIT, SIVE LACRYME. AFFECTUUM POTENS AT LENIS DOMINATOR, AMICORUM FIDES, LECTORUM VENERATIO. NATUS HIBERNIA FORNIE LONFORDIENSIS, OBIIT LONDINI, APRIL IV, MDCCLXXIV, Tranflation. THIS MONUMENT IS RAISED TO THE MEMORY OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH, POET, NATURAL PHILOSOPHER, AND HISTORIAN, WHO LEFT NO SPECIES OF WRITING UNTOUCHED, WHETHER TO MOVE LAUGHTER, OR DRAW TEARS: HE WAS A POWERFUL MASTER OVER THE AFFECTIONS, THOUGH, AT THE SAME TIME, A GENTLE TYRANT; AT ONCE SUBLIME, LIVELY, AND IN EXPRESSION AT ONCE NOBLE, PURE, AND DELICATE. WILL LAST AS LONG AS SOCIETY RETAINS AFFECTION, AND READING WANTS NOT HER ADMIRERS. HE WAS BORN IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND, AT FERNES, HE WAS EDUCATED AT DUBLIN, APRIL IV. MDCCLXXIV. As to Doctor Goldsmith's character, it is strongly illuftrated by Mr. Pope's line, "In wit a man, fimplicity a child." The learned leisure he loved to enjoy, was too often interrupted by diftreffes which arose from the openness of his temper, and which fometimes threw him into loud fits of paffion; but this impetuofity was corrected upon a moment's reflection; and his fervants have been known upon the fe occafions purposely to throw themselves in his way, that they might profit by it immediately after, for he who had the good fortune to be reproved, was certain of being rewarded for it. His difappoint ments at other times, made him peevish and fullen, and he has often left a party of convivial friends abruptly in the evening, in order to go home and brood over his misfortunes. The univerfal esteem in which his poems are held, and the repeated pleasure they give in the perufal, are striking proofs of their merit. He was a ftudious and correct obferver of nature, happy in the felection of his images, in the choice of his fubjects, and in the harmony of his verfification; and, though his embarraffed fituation prevented him from putting the laft hand to fome of his productions, his Hermit, his Traveller, and his Deferted Village, bid fair to claim a place among the most finished pieces in the English language. EPITAPH ON DR. GOLDSMITH, BY W. WOTY. ADIEU, fweet bard! to each fine feeling true, Those form'd to charm even vicious minds-and thefe, |