Part 40

Sydney Smith ludicrously compared Canning in office to a fly in amber:—"Nobody cares about the fly; the only question is—How the devil did it get there? Nor do I attack him," continues Sydney, "from the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province. When he is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like Samson in a wig. Call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest metre, I do most readily admit. After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for the last half-century." Lord Brougham, however, asserts that Mr. Canning was not, by choice a diner-out.

Canning said of Grattan's eloquence that, for the last two years, his public exhibitions were a complete failure, and that you saw all the mechanism of his oratory without its life. It was like lifting the flap of a barrel-organ, and seeing the wheels; you saw the skeleton of his sentences without the flesh on them; and were induced to think that what you had considered flashes, were merely primings kept ready for the occasion.

Lord Byron, in his Age of Bronze, thus characterises Canning:—

"Something may remain, perchance, to chime With reason; and, what's stranger still, with rhyme. Even this thy genius, Canning! may permit, Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit, And never, even in that dull house could tame To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame. Our last, our best, our only orator, Even I can praise thee—Tories do no more. Nay, not so much; they hate thee, man, because Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes!"

Peter Pindar.—Dr. Wolcot.

This sarcastic versifier was a native of Devonshire, born about the year 1738. His father was a substantial yeoman, and sent him to Kingsbridge Free School; and after his father's death, young Wolcot was removed to the Grammar School at Bodmin. He is described as a clumsy, but arch-looking boy. He, at this early period, showed a degree of quickness in repartee and sarcastic jokes, which was the first dawning of that satiric humour which he afterwards displayed. He was not remarkable at school for anything so much as negligence of his dress and person. He described himself in after-life as having been a dull scholar, but as having showed even at that early age a turn for versifying.

On leaving school, he was removed to Fowey, in Cornwall, to the house of an uncle, who was a medical practitioner, whose apprentice he became for seven years. He completed his medical education in London, and applied himself with sufficient diligence to obtain a knowledge of his future profession; but he much annoyed his uncle and two aunts by cultivating his talents for versifying and painting. Some of his chalk drawings have been preserved, and are remarkable for their peculiarity. When seen near the eye, they seem to be composed only of random scratches and masses of black chalk, of different densities and depths, with here and there a streak and blot of white, and others of red. There does not appear to be any defined objects, such as a tree, house, figure, &c.; but when viewed as a whole, at a distance hanging on the wall of the room, each of them appears to be a landscape representing morning and evening, in which the dark and light of the sky, and the foreground, hills, trees, towers, &c., could be made out by the fancy, in the smallest space of time allowed for the imagination to come into play; and then the effect is surprisingly good. Wolcot became fond of art, eminently critical and learned in its elements, sketched many favourite places in Devonshire and Cornwall, and dabbled occasionally in oils.

He settled in London, obtained a Scotch diploma of M.D., and began to practise as a physician. In 1767, Sir William Trelawney was appointed Governor of Jamaica, and Wolcot, who had some connection with the family, accompanied him to that island as his physician, and he was appointed Physician-General. The Governor's regard for his lively medical friend was so great, that he intended to procure his appointment as Governor of the Mosquito territory; but the retirement from office of his best friend, Lord Shelburne, prevented its accomplishment.

Wolcot's practice in Jamaica was not extensive; the whites were not numerous, and the coloured could not pay. Governor Trelawney, however, thinking he could promote Wolcot's interest more effectually by his patronage in the Church, having then a valuable living in his gift likely to become vacant by the severe illness of the incumbent, he recommended his client to return to England, enter holy orders, and return and take possession. Although the Governor had no very sublime ideas of priesthood, it was the only way he had of serving the wit. "Away, then," he said, "to England, get yourself japanned. But remember not to return with the hypocritical solemnity of a priest. I have just bestowed a good living on a parson, who believes not all he preaches, and what he really believes he is afraid to preach. You may very conscientiously declare," said the conscientious Governor to his admiring pupil, "that you have an internal call, as the same expression will equally suit a hungry stomach and the soul." Having accomplished this praiseworthy object, the rev. (M.D.) doctor returned to his patron for induction; but "between the cup and the lip there is many a slip," for the ailing incumbent, whose living the doctor sought, became convalescent, proved a very incumbrance in his path, and the japanned medico was fain to take up with the living of Vere, a congregation exclusively of blacks, which he handed over to a curate, his real employment being master of ceremonies to the Governor. On his death, Wolcot returned to England with Lady Trelawney; and to carry on the metaphor, the black lobster was boiled, and came out in scarlet and gold.—(Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. vii. pp. 381-383.)

The next twelve years of Wolcot's life were spent in attempting to establish himself as a physician in Cornwall, in which he failed, apparently on account of his invincible propensity to live as a practical humorist, and satirize his neighbours. He humorously tells us that the clinking of the bell-metal pestle and mortar seemed to him to say, "Kill 'em again, kill 'em again," and so frightened him from the profession. During his residence at Truro, some songs of his composition were set to music by Mr. W. Jackson, of Exeter, and first introduced him to general notice. In 1778, he published his first composition in that peculiar style which not long after obtained for him such a high and continued popularity—The Epistle to the Reviewers. At Truro, Wolcot discovered the genius of the self-taught artist, Opie, and with him came to London in 1780, they agreeing to share the joint profits of their adventure for one year. They did so for that term, when Opie told Wolcot he might return to the country, as he could now do for himself. Wolcot appears not to have contributed anything to the joint profits. There was now a split between the poet and the brushman. Opie would not, for he could not, praise Wolcot's sketches and paintings. "I tell ee, ye can't paint," said the blunt and honest Opie; "stick to the pen." This advice was too much for "the distant relation of the Poet of Thebes" to receive from "a painting ape," and the feud was never healed. The Doctor scarified and lanced, but Opie, in a more quiet way, was quite a match for the satirist, who, as he said:—

"Sons of the brush, I'm here again, At times a Pindar, a Fontaine, Casting poetic pearl (I fear) to swine."

Wolcot was the friend and pupil of Wilson, our great landscape painter, whose style he used to imitate not unsuccessfully. In his addenda to Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, he pays due honour to the memory of his old friend, Wilson.

Wolcot now betook himself to his pen for support. His satirical and artistic tastes suggested his first publication, "Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782, by Peter Pindar Esq., a distant relation of the Poet of Thebes, and Laureate to the Royal Academy," which took the town by surprise, by the reckless daring of their personalities and quaintness of style. Thus he flayed the R.A.'s—from West to Dance, and from Chambers to Wyatt—not forgetting their Royal patron, King George III. In Ode III. of the second series, entitled More Odes to the Royal Academicians, after complaining that Gainsborough had kicked Dame Nature out of doors, he turns from the picture he censures to another, and exclaims:—

"Speak, Muse, who form'd that matchless head? The Cornish boy, in tin-mines bred; Whose native genius, like his diamonds, shone In secret, till chance brought him to the sun. 'Tis Jackson's portrait—put the laurel on it, Whilst to that tuneful swan I pour a sonnet."

Opie.

Peter here meant himself, which is in part true.

Peter then drops the lash, resumes his neglected lyre, and pours out a sonnet to "Jackson of Exeter," worthy of the twain—the "enchanting harmonist and the lyric bard."

Peter's poems were very dear to the purchaser, being printed in thin quarto pamphlets, at 2s. 6d. each, and very little letter-press for the money. After the Royal Academicians, Peter attacked King George III. In 1785, Wolcot produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786, he published the Lousiad, a Heroic Comic Poem, founded on the fact that an obnoxious insect (either of the garden or the body) had been discovered on the King's plate of some green peas, which produced a solemn decree that all the servants in the Royal kitchen were to have their heads shaved. In the hands of an unscrupulous satirist, like Wolcot, this ridiculous incident was a stinging theme. He also mercilessly quizzed Boswell, the biographer of Johnson. Sir Joseph Banks was another subject of his satire:—

"A President, on butterflies profound, Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises, Went on a day to catch the game profound, On violets, dunghills, violet-tops, and daisies," &c.

From 1778 to 1808, above sixty of these political pamphlets were issued by Wolcot. So formidable was he considered, that the Ministry, as he alleged, endeavoured to bribe him to silence; he also boasted that his writings had been translated into six different languages. His ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature sketch of Dr. Johnson's style.

"I own I like not Johnson's turgid style, That gives an inch the importance of a mile; Casts of manure a wagon-load around, To raise a simple daisy from the ground. Uplifts the club of Hercules—for what? To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat! Creates a whirlwind from the earth, to draw A goose's feather, or exalt a straw! Sets wheels on wheels in motion—such a clatter, To force up one poor nipperkin of water! Bids ocean labour with tremendous roar, To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore; Alike in every theme his pompous art, Heaven's awful thunder or a rumbling cart."

Sometimes Peter himself got castigated for his satire on the sovereign. Here is an amusing instance. Those who recollect the figure of the satirist in his robust upright state, and the diminutive appearance of Mr. Nollekens, the sculptor, can readily picture to themselves their extreme contrast, when the former accosted the latter one evening at his gate in Tichfield Street, nearly in the following manner:—"Why, Nollekens, you never speak to me now; pray what is the reason?" Nollekens.—"Why you have published such lies of the King, and had the impudence to send them to me; but Mrs. Nollekens burnt them, and I desire you'll send no more. The royal family are very good to me, and are great friends to all artists, and I don't like to hear anybody say anything against them." Upon which the Doctor put his cane upon the sculptor's shoulders, and exclaimed, "Well said, little Nolly; I like the man who sticks to his friends; you shall make a bust of me for that!" "I'll see you d—d first," answered Nollekens; "and I can tell you this besides—no man in the Royal Academy but Opie would have painted your picture; and you richly deserved the broken head you got from Gifford in Wright's shop. Mr. Cook, of Bedford Square, showed me his handkerchief dipped in your blood; and so now you know my mind. Come in, Cerberus, come in." His dog then followed him in, and he left the Doctor at the gate, which he barred up for the night.

A severer castigation he received from a brother author. It appears that William Gifford had wielded his galled pen against the morals and poetry of Wolcot. It was so stringent and caustic that the Doctor sought his lampooner in the shop of Mr. Wright, a political publisher in Piccadilly, opposite Old Bond Street. Thither Peter repaired with a stout cudgel in hand, determined to inflict a summary and severe chastisement on his literary opponent. Gifford was a small and weak person; Wolcot was large and strengthened by passion; but he was a coward, and after a short personal struggle, was turned into the street by two or three persons then in the shop. Gifford afterwards wrote and printed An Epistle to Peter Pindar, in which he dealt out a most virulent tirade against the Doctor, who replied in A Cut at the Cobbler. Gifford had been apprenticed to a shoemaker.

As each published his own story of the transaction, the one in his own name, the other by his aide-de-camp, Mr. Wright, it may not be unamusing to recapitulate the different statements of the transaction:—

Peter Pindar.—"Determined to punish a R— that dared to propagate a report the most atrocious, the most opprobrious, and the most unfounded, I repaired to Mr. Wright's shop in Piccadilly to catch him, as I understood that he paid frequent visits to his worthy friend and publisher. On opening the shop-door I saw several people, and among the rest, as I thought, Gyffard. I immediately asked him if his name was Gyffard? Upon his reply in the affirmative, without any further ceremony, I began to cane him. Wright and his customers and his shopmen immediately surrounded me, and wrested the cane from my hand. I then had recourse to the fist, and really was doing ample and easy justice to my cause, when I found my hands all on a sudden confined behind me, particularly by a tall Frenchman. Upon this Gyffard had time to run round, and with his own stick, a large one too, struck me several blows on the head. I was then hustled out of the shop, and the door was locked against me. I entreated them to let me in, but in vain. Upon the tall Frenchman's coming out of the shop, I told him that he was one of the fellows that held my hands. I have been informed that his name was Peltier. Gyffard has given out as a matter of triumph that he possesses my cane, and that he means to preserve it as a trophy. Let me recommend an inscription for it:—'The cane of Justice, with which I, William Gyffard, late cobbler of Ashburton, have been soundly drubbed for my infamy.'—I am, Sir, &c., J. WOLCOT."

Mr. Wright.—"Whoever is acquainted with the miscreant calling himself 'Peter Pindar,' needs not be informed, that his disregard and hatred of truth are habitual. He will not, therefore, be surprised to learn that the account this Peter has published in a morning paper is a shameless tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end.

"I was not in the shop when it happened; but I am authorized, by the only two witnesses of it, to lay before the public the following statement:—

"Mr. Giffard was sitting by the window with a newspaper in his hand, when Peter Pindar came into the shop, and saying, 'Is not your name Giffard?' without waiting for an answer, raised a stick he had brought for the purpose, and levelled a blow at his head with all his force. Mr. Giffard fortunately caught the stick in his left hand, and quitting his chair, wrested it instantly from the cowardly assassin, and gave him two severe blows with it; one of which made a dreadful impression on Peter's skull. Mr. Giffard had raised the stick to strike him a third time, but seeing one of the gentlemen present about to collar the wretch, he desisted, and coolly said, 'Turn him out of the shop.' This was literally and truly all that passed.

"After Peter was turned into the street, the spectacle of his bleeding head attracted a mob of hackney-coachmen, watermen, paviours, &c., to whom he told his lamentable case, and then, with a troop of boys at his heels, proceeded to a surgeon's in St. James's Street, to have his wounds examined, after which he slunk home.—J. WRIGHT."

Peter used to boast that he was the only author that ever outwitted or took in a publisher. His works were very popular, and produced the writer a large annual income. Walker, his publisher, in Paternoster Row, was disposed to purchase the copyrights, and print a collected edition. He first made the author a handsome offer in cash, and then an annuity. The poet drove a hard bargain for the latter, and said that "as he was very old and in a dangerous state of health, with a d—d asthma and stone in the bladder, he could not last long." The publisher offered 200l. a year; the Doctor required 400l. and every time the Doctor visited the Row, he coughed violently, breathed apparently in much pain, and acted the incurable invalid in danger so effectively that the publisher at last agreed to pay him 250l. annually for life. A collected edition of his works was printed in 1812, but it is defective, for they were so numerous that the author could not retain them all in his memory. An imperfect list in the Annual Biography for 1819 enumerates no less than sixty-four works. One of the portraits of the Doctor was published as a separate print, which did not sell to any extent; but its publisher derived a great profit by taking out the name of Peter Pindar and substituting that of "Renwick Williams the Monster," who was infamous for stabbing women in the street. This incident was told to Mr. Britton by Wolcot himself.

There is a fashion in the burlesque poetry of every age that is palatable to the public of that age only. The subjects of Wolcot's verses were ephemeral, and are now mostly forgotten. But his popularity was not entirely earned by his audacious personalities. His versification is nervous, his language racy and idiomatic, his wit often genuine; and through all his puns and quaintnesses there runs a strain of strong manly sense. Wolcot was equal to Churchill as a satirist, as ready and versatile in his powers, and possessed of a quick sense of the ludicrous, as well as a rich vein of fancy and humour. Some of his songs and effusions are tender and pleasing. Burns greatly admired his ballad of "Lord Gregory," and wrote another on the same subject. After all his biting satires on George III. and Pitt, he accepted a pension from the administration of which Pitt was the head—not to laud it, but to vituperate its opponents. He had a shrewd intellect, and his literary compositions have the finish of an artist; but he was utterly selfish, and was a self-indulgent voluptuary.

Peter lived to the age of eighty-one, much to the annoyance of his publisher, Walker. His last abode was in a small house in Montgomery's nursery-gardens, which occupied the site of the north side of Euston Square. Here he dwelt in a secluded, cheerless manner, the victim of an asthma, very deaf, and almost entirely blind, with only a female servant to attend him. His mind, however, retained its full power. He lived only for himself; declined dinner invitations, "to avoid the danger of loading his stomach with more than Nature required;" lay in bed the greater part of his time, because "it would be folly in him to be groping around his drawing-room," and because, "when up and in motion he was obliged to carry a load of eleven or twelve stone, while here he had only a few ounces of blanket to support." When out of bed, he amused himself with his violin, or examining, as well as his sight permitted, his crayons and pictures. He showed no aversion to "receive notoriety-hunters," who came to see and hear "Peter Pindar," but evinced no desire for society.