1773.

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,
Poetae, Physici, Historici,
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit:
Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrimae,
Affectuum potens, at lenis, dominator:
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit
Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.
Elfiniae, in Hibernia, natus MDCCXXIX.
Eblauae literis institutus:
Londini obijt MDCCLXXIV [a].

[a] This is the epitaph, that drew from Gibbon, sir J. Reynolds,
Sheridan, Joseph Warton, &c. the celebrated _Round Robin_, composed by
Burke, intreating Johnson to write an English epitaph on an English
author. His reply was, in the genuine spirit of an old scholar, "he
would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster abbey with an
English inscription." One of his arguments, in favour of a common
learned language, was ludicrously cogent: "Consider, sir, how you should
feel, were you to find, at Rotterdam, an epitaph, upon Erasmus, _in
Dutch_!" Boswell, iii. He would, however, undoubtedly have written a
better epitaph in English, than in Latin. His compositions in that
language are not of first rate excellence, either in prose or verse. The
epitaph, in Stretham church, on Mr. Thrale, abounds with inaccuracies;
and those who are fond of detecting little blunders in great men, may be
amply gratified in the perusal of a review of Thrale's epitaph in the
Classical Journal, xii. 6. His Greek epitaph on Goldsmith, is not
remarkable in itself, but we will subjoin it, in this place, as a
literary curiosity.

[Greek:]
Thon taphon eisoraas thon OLIBARIOIO, koniaen
Aphrosi mae semnaen, xeine, podessi patei.
Oisi memaele phusis, metron charis, erga palaion,
Klaiete poiaetaen, istorikon, phusikon.
--ED.

IN STRETHAM CHURCH.

Hie conditur quod reliquum est
HENRICI THRALE,
Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit,
Ut vitam illi longiorem multi optarent;
Ita sacras,
Ut quam brevem esset habiturus praescire videretur;
Simplex, apertus, sibique semper similis,
Nihil ostentavit aut arte fictum, aut cura
elaboratum.
In senatu, regi patriaeque
Fideliter studuit,
Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus;
Domi, inter mille mercaturae negotia,
Literarum elegantiam minime neglexit.
Amicis, quocunque modo laborantibus,
Consiliis, auctoritate, muneribus, adfuit.
Inter familiares, co