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, comites, convivas, hospites,
Tam facili fuit morum suavitate
Ut omnium animos ad se alliceret;
Tam felici sermonis libertate,
Ut nulli adulatus, omnibus placeret. 
Natus 1724.  Obijt 1781. 
Consortes tumuli habet Rodolphum, patrem, strenuum
fortemque virum, et Henricum, filium unicum, quem
spei parentum mors inopiua decennem proripuit. 
Ita
Domus felix et opulenta quam erexit
Avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit. 
Abi, Viator,
Et, vicibus rerum humanarum perspectis,
Aeternitatem cogita!