‘May 16, 1776.’

‘Sam.  Johnson.’

It was, I think, after I had left London this year, that this Epitaph gave occasion to a Remonstrance to the Monarch of literature, for an account of which I am indebted to Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo.

That my readers may have the subject more fully and clearly before them,
I shall first insert the Epitaph.

OLIVARII Goldsmith,

Poetae, Physici, Historici,
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetiqit non ornavit: 
Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae,
Affectuum potens at 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;
Eblanae literis institutus;
Obiit Londini,
April IV, MDCCLXXIV.’

Sir William Forbes writes to me thus:—­

’I enclose the Round Robin.  This jeu d’esprit took its rise one day at dinner at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds’s.  All the company present, except myself, were friends and acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith.  The Epitaph, written for him by Dr. Johnson, became the subject of conversation, and various emendations were suggested, which it was agreed should be submitted to the Doctor’s consideration.  But the question was, who should have the courage to propose them to him?  At last it was hinted, that there could be no way so good as that of a Round Robin, as the sailors call it, which they make use of when they enter into a conspiracy, so as not to let it be known who puts his name first or last to the paper.  This proposition was instantly assented to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, now Bishop of Killaloe, drew up an address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humour, but which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too much levity.  Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the paper in writing, to which I had the honour to officiate as clerk.

’Sir Joshua agreed to carry it to Dr. Johnson, who received it with much good humour,* and desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen, that he would alter the Epitaph in any manner they pleased, as to the sense of it; but he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription.

* He however, upon seeing Dr. Warton’s name to the suggestion, that the Epitaph should be in English, observed to Sir Joshua, ’I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool.’  He said too, ’I should have thought Mund Burke would have had more sense.’  Mr. Langton, who was one of the company at Sir Joshua’s, like a sturdy scholar, resolutely refused to sign the Round Robin.  The Epitaph is engraved upon Dr. Goldsmith’s