'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 monument
without any alteration. At another time, when somebody
endeavoured to argue in favour of its being in English,
Johnson said, 'The language of the country of which a
learned man was a native, is not the language fit for his
epitaph, which should be in ancient and permanent language.
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