It is not recorded that Kearsly ever saw this in Goldsmith's "own
handwriting"; the sender's name has never been made known; and--as above
observed--it has been more than suspected that Whitefoord concocted it
himself, or procured its concoction. As J.T. Smith points out in
_Nollekens and his Times_, 1828, i, 337-8, Whitefoord was scarcely
important enough to deserve a far longer epitaph than those bestowed on
Burke and Reynolds; and Goldsmith, it may be added--as we know In the
case of Beattie and Voltaire--was not in the habit of confusing small
men with great. Moreover, the lines would (as intimated by the person
who sent them to Kearsly) be an extraordinarily generous return for an
epitaph "unfit for publication," by which, it is stated, Goldsmith had
been greatly disturbed. Prior had his misgivings, particularly in
respect to the words attributed to Goldsmith on his death-bed; and
Forster allows that to him the story of the so-called "Postscript" has
"a somewhat doubtful look." To which we unhesitatingly say--ditto.
Whitefoord, it seems, was in the habit of printing his "Cross Readings"
on small single sheets, and circulating them among his friends.
"Rainy-Day Smith" had a specimen of these. In one of Whitefoord's
letters he professes to claim that his _jeux d'esprit_ contained more
than met the eye.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174