(Vol. v., pp. 296. 333.)
Your correspondent E. F. may very probably have been informed, by ladies
intimate with the Sheridan family, that Tom Sheridan composed the lines
on Dr. Fell, respecting whose author and subject inquiries were made by
a querist in page 296.; but it is nevertheless quite untrue. My memory
of those lines goes back to a date earlier than Tom Sheridan's capacity
for writing an epigram; and this on Dr. Fell may be found, if memory
does not deceive me, in the _Elegant Extracts in Verse_, of a date at
least as early as Tom Sheridan's work. The subject of the epigram was
Dr. Fell, who held the deanery of Christ Church with the bishopric of
Oxford, in the times of Charles II. and James II. Its author probably
put it into circulation anonymously, as is usual with such brief
specimens of personal satire.