are enabled to do from the most indisputable authorities, to wit, his own compofitions, and which, we can assure the public, were intended by himself for the press.

TRUTH being the surest test of compilation, we shall, without any prejudice arifing from hope or fear, opinion or party, give a faithful, if not a comprehenfive, narrative of such circumstances as come safely within our knowledge, in doing which, we shall adopt that excellent line of Shakespeare's.

Nothing extenuate nor fet down aught in malice. As he chose to give himself the appellation of DICK MERRY-FELLOW in a well-known publication *, we think ourselves fully warranted in now applying it; and it is hoped, that as the following sheets were rather hastily got up, to use a theatric expression, the Public will readily excuse a want of method, or of stile.

Eft brevitate opus, ut currat fententia, neu fe
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures :

HOR.

I write, as I would talk; am short, and clear; Not clog'd with words, that load the weari'd ear.

We have, in most instances, thought proper to blank the names of persons; not because we wanted confidence to infert them at length, but because we would avoid giving offence. To those already acquainted with our hero's transactions, the omiffion will be fufficiently under

stood, and to those who are not---it

is

is immaterial. An anonymous story is as entertaining, and as inftructive, as if authorized by the greatest

name.

Ir may be asked, Who are we? we are indefinite! and therefore restrained, by the first problem of Euclid,---to no point. Besides, memoirs are of the plural---and so are WE!

MEMOIRS

ΜΕΜOIRS

OF THE

LIFE and WRITINGS

T

OF

R-ch--d G--d-n-r, Efqa

Alias

1

DICK MERRY-FELLOW.

HE GENTLEMAN, whose Posthumous Effays we have taken some pains to collect, was so eminently diftinguished by his learning, wit, and fatire, that his writings need not the force of elogy to recommend them to public notice.

Dicere verum Quid vetat?

He was born at Saffron-Walden in Effex, October 4, 1723, and died at Mount-Amelia in the parish of Ingoldisthorpe and county of Norfolk, on Friday, September 14, 1781, aged juft fifty-seven years, eleven months, and ten days.

His father was a son of JOHN G-D-N-R, Efq. of Aldborough-Hall near Aldborough in the county of Suffolk, who was a Captain in Lord Cutt's regiment of foot, and died at Minorca, in the reign of Queen Anne, Anno Dni. 1708, when that island fell a conquest to the British troops, and squadron under the command of Admiral Sir John Leake, and General Stanhope.

He was a man of confiderable property and estate, and of such influence in the borough of Aldborough (then a populous and flourishing sea-port town, though in this present age great part of it has been swallowed up by the British ocean that washes the east side of the borough) that on his recommendation, the representatives for Aldborough were generally chosen, an honour that he declined himself, as his military duty (being Captain of foot in Lord Cutt's regiment) so frequently called him into foreign service.

He died at an early period of life, but had this compenfation for the shortness of it, that he lived and ferved his country in an age of heroes, and partook of the glories of that immortal reign, and of the important victories acquired by the all-conquering arms of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marleborough. Though happy in an honourable death himself, in the service of his country, yet it was an irreparable loss in every respect