Constables came up for to take me into Stocks for a vagrant. I should be glad to drink your honour's health in With politics, sir. FRIEND OF HUMANITY. I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d- -d firstWretch whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded Spiritless outcast! [Kicks the Knife-Grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a This faded form! this pallid hue! niversity of Gottingen, There first for thee my passion grew, niversity of Gottingen, Sun, moon, and thou vain world, adieu, niversity of Gottingen, [During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison; and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen.] Lines on the Death of his Eldest Son. [By the Right Hon. George Canning.] Though short thy span, God's unimpeached decrees, And, since this world was not the world for thee, transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philan- By mortal sufferings now no more oppressed, thropy.] Mount, sinless spirit, to thy destined rest! Another satirical poem, which attracted much attention in literary circles at the time of its publication, was The Pursuits of Literature, in four parts, the first of which appeared in 1794. Though published anonymously, this work was written by Mr THOMAS JAMES MATHIAS, a distinguished scholar, who died at Naples in 1835. Mr Mathias was sometime treasurer of the household to her majesty Queen Charlotte. He took his degree of B. A. in Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1774. Besides the 'Pursuits of Literature,' Mr Mathias was author of some Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue, The Imperial Epistle from Kien Long to George III. (1794), The Shade of Alexander Pope, a satirical poem (1798), and various other light evanescent pieces on the topics of the day. Mr Mathias also wrote some Latin odes, and translated into Italian several English poems. He wrote Italian with elegance and purity, and it has been said that no Englishman, since the days of Milton, has cultivated that language with so much success. The Pursuits of Literature' contains some pointed satire on the author's poetical contemporaries, and is enriched with a vast variety of notes, in which there is a great display of learning. George Steevens said the poem was merely a peg to hang the notes on.' The want of true poetical genius to vivify this mass of erudition has been fatal to Mr Mathias. His works appear to be utterly forgotten. DR JOHN WOLCOT. DR JOHN WOLCOT was a coarse but lively satirist, who, under the name of 'Peter Pindar,' published a variety of effusions on the topics and public men of his times, which were eagerly read and widely circulated. Many of them were in ridicule of the reigning sovereign, George III., who was a good subject for the poet; though the latter, as he himself acknowledged, was a bad subject to the king. Wolcot was born at Dodbrooke, a village in Devonshire, in the year 1738. His uncle, a respectable surgeon and apothecary at Fowey, took the charge of his education, intending that he should become his own assistant and successor in business. Wolcot was instructed in medicine, and walked the hospitals' in London, after which he proceeded to Jamaica with Sir William Trelawney, governor of that island, who had engaged him as his medical attendant. The social habits of the doctor rendered him a favourite in Jamaica; but his time being only partly employed by his professional avocations, he solicited and obtained from his patron the gift of a living in the church, which happened to be then vacant. The bishop of London ordained the graceless neophyte, and Wolcot entered upon his sacred duties. His congregation consisted mostly of negroes, and Sunday being their principal holiday and market, the attendance at the church was very limited. Sometimes not a single person came, and Wolcot and his clerk (the latter being an excellent shot) used at such times, after waiting for ten minutes, to proceed to the sea-side, to enjoy the sport of shooting ring-tailed pigeons! The death of Sir William Trelawney cut off all further hopes of preferment, and every inducement to a longer residence in the island. Bidding adieu to Jamaica and the church, Wolcot accompanied Lady Trelawney to England, and established himself as a physician at Truro, in Cornwall. He inherited about £2000 by the death of his uncle. While resident at Truro, Wolcot discovered the talents of Opie The Cornish boy in tin mines bred whose genius as an artist afterwards became so distinguished. He also materially assisted to form his taste and procure him patronage; and when Opie's name was well established, the poet and his protegé, forsaking the country, repaired to London, as affording a wider field for the exertions of both. Wolcot had already acquired some distinction by his satirical efforts; and he now poured forth a series of odes and epistles, commencing with the royal academicians, whom he ridiculed with great success and some justice. In 1785 he produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786 he published The Lousiad, a Heroi-comic Poem, in five cantos, which had its foundation in the fact, that an obnoxious insect (either of the garden or the body) had been discovered on the king's plate among 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 an admirable theme. The publication of Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides afforded another tempting opportunity, and he indited a humorous poetical epistle to the biographer, commencing O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, Close to the classic Rambler shalt thou cling, 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. He had also Instructions to a Celebrated Laureate; Peter's Pension; Peter's Prophecy; Epistle to a Fallen Minister; Epistle to James Bruce, Esq., the Abyssinian Traveller; Odes to Mr Paine; Odes to Kien Long, Emperor of China; Ode to the Livery of London, and brochures of a kindred description on most of the celebrated events of the day. From 1778 to 1808 above sixty of these poetical 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. In 1795 he obtained from his booksellers an annuity of £250, payable half-yearly, for the copyright of his works. This handsome allowance he enjoyed, to the heavy loss of the other parties, for upwards of twenty years. Neither old age nor blindness could repress his witty vituperative attacks. He had recourse to an amanuensis, in whose absence, however, he continued to write himself, till within a short period of his death. His method was to tear a sheet of paper into quarters, on each of which he wrote a stanza of four or six lines, according to the nature of the poem: the paper he placed on a book held in the left hand, and in this manner not only wrote legibly, but with great ease and celerity.' In 1796 his poetical effusions were collected and published in four volumes 8vo., and subsequent editions have been issued; but most of the poems have sunk into oblivion. Few satirists can reckon on permanent popularity, and the poems of Wolcot were in their nature of an ephemeral description; while the recklessness of his censure and ridicule, and the want of decency, of principle, and moral feeling, that characterises nearly the whole, precipitated their downfall. He died at his house in Somers' Town on the 14th January 1819, and was buried in a vault in the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden, close to the grave of Butler. 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 serious effusions are tender and pleasing; but he could not write long without sliding into the ludicrous and burlesque. His critical acuteness is evinced in his Odes to the Royal Acade micians, and in various passages scattered throughout his works; while his ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature portrait of Dr Johnson's style : I own I like not Johnson's turgid style, Sets wheels on wheels in motion-such a clatter [Advice to Landscape Painters.] Whate'er you wish in landscape to excel, London's the very place to mar it; Believe the oracles I tell, There's very little landscape in a garret, "Tis badly copying them for goats and sheep; A rushlight in a bottle's neck, or stick, I think, too, that a man would be a fool, Or even by them to represent a stump: Must make a very poor autumnal clump. And in some paintings we have all beheld All this, my lads, I freely grant; Claude painted in the open air! Where scenes of true magnificence you'll find; So leave the bull-dog bailiffs all behind; Who, hunt you with what noise they may, Must hunt for needles in a stack of hay. The Pilgrims and the Peas. A brace of sinners, for no good, Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt in wax, stone, wood, And in a curled white wig looked wondrous fine. Fifty long miles had these sad rogues to travel, A nostrum famous in old popish times That popish parsons for its powers exalt, The knaves set off on the same day, The other limped as if he had been shot. One saw the Virgin, soon peccavi cried; Made fit with saints above to live for ever, Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear: But, brother sinner, do explain What power hath worked a wonder for your toes- Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes? How is't that you can like a greyhound go, Merry as if nought had happened, burn ye?' 'Why,' cried the other, grinning, 'you must know, That just before I ventured on my journey, To walk a little more at ease, I took the liberty to boil my peas.' The Apple Dumplings and a King. Once on a time, a monarch, tired with whooping, Whipping and spurring, Happy in worrying A poor defenceless harmless buck Where sat a poor old woman and her pot. The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, In this same cot, illumed by many a cranny, Had finished apple dumplings for her pot: In tempting row the naked dumplings lay, Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple: he cried, 'Very astonishing indeed! strange thing!' On which the dame the curious scheme revealed Which made the Solomon of Britain start; The palace seemed the lodging of a baker! Whitbread's Brewery visited by their Majesties. Full of the art of brewing beer, The monarch heard of Whitbread's fame; Quoth he unto the queen, My dear, my dear, Whitbread hath got a marvellous great name. Charly, we must, must, must see Whitbread brewRich as us, Charly, richer than a Jew. Shame, shame we have not yet his brewhouse seen!' Red hot with novelty's delightful rage, Of such undreamt-of honour proud, So humbly (so the humble story goes), He touched e'en terra firma with his nose; Then said unto the page, hight Billy Ramus, 'Happy are we that our great king should name us As worthy unto majesty to show How we poor Chiswell people brew.' Away sprung Billy Ramus quick as thought: Indeed in a most humble light, God knows! The people walking on the strand like crows. Muse, sing the stir that happy Whitbread made: Poor gentleman! most terribly afraid He should not charm enough his guests divine, He gave his maids new aprons, gowns, and smocks; And lo! two hundred pounds were spent in frocks, To make the apprentices and draymen fine: Busy as horses in a field of clover, Now moved king, queen, and princesses so grand, Lord Aylesbury, and Denbigh's lord also, His Grace the Duke of Montague likewise, With Lady Harcourt joined the raree show, And fixed all Smithfield's wond'ring eyes: For lo! a greater show ne'er graced those quarters, Since Mary roasted, just like crabs, the martyrs. Thus was the brewhouse filled with gabbling noise, Whilst draymen, and the brewer's boys, Devoured the questions that the king did ask; In different parties were they staring seen, Wond'ring to think they saw a king and queen! Behind a tub were some, and some behind a cask. For whose most lofty station thousands sigh! Now majesty into a pump so deep Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, And cunning eye, Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone. And lo! no single thing came in his way, So quick the words too, when he deigned to speak, Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl, Things that too oft the public scorn; Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare, Almost to Windsor that they would extend: Now did the king for other beers inquire, Dogs, cats, and chairs, and stools, were tumbled over, For Calvert's, Jordan's, Thrale's entire; Amidst the Whitbread rout of preparation, To treat the lofty ruler of the nation. And after talking of these different beers, Asked Whitbread if his porter equalled theirs. This was a puzzling disagreeing question, Memorandum. A charming place beneath the grates For roasting chestnuts or potates. Mem. 'Tis hops that give a bitterness to beer, Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere. Quære. Is there no cheaper stuff? where doth it dwell? Would not horse-aloes bitter it as well? Mem. To try it soon on our small beer- To remember to forget to ask Old Whitbread to my house one day. Not to forget to take of beer the cask, Now, having pencilled his remarks so shrewd, To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say, Here was the king, like hounds sometimes, at fault'Sire,' cried the humble brewer, 'give me leave Your sacred majesty to undeceive; Grains, sire, are never made from hops, but malt.' 'True,' said the cautious monarch with a smile, < From malt, malt, malt-I meant malt all the while.' Yes,' with the sweetest bow, rejoined the brewer, An't please your majesty, you did, I'm sure.' 'I did, I did, I did, I, I, I, I.' Now did the king admire the bell so fine, Parents and children, fine fat hopeful sprigs, Heavens! can my pigs compare, sire, with pigs royal?' On which the brewer bowed, and said, 'Good God!' Then winked significant on Miss, Significant of wonder and of bliss, Who, bridling in her chin divine, Crossed her fair hands, a dear old maid, For such high honour done her father's swine. To Mister Whitbread in his flying way, 'Whitbread, d'ye nick the excisemen now and then? | Hae? what? Miss Whitbread's still a maid, a maid? What, what's the matter with the men? D'ye hunt?-hae, hunt? No no, you are too old; I'll prick you every year, man, I declare; Job, job, that's cheapest; yes, that's best, that's best. You put your liveries on the draymen-hae? Hae, Whitbread! you have feathered well your nest. Then searched his brains with ruminating eye; Lord Gregory. [Burns admired this ballad of Wolcot's, and wrote another on the same subject.] 'Ah ope, Lord Gregory, thy door, And lightnings cleave the skies.' 'Who comes with wo at this drear night, If she whose love did once delight, Thou gav'st to love and me. But should'st thou not poor Marion know, May Day. The daisies peep from every field, Let lusty Labour drop his flail, Behold the lark in ether float, While rapture swells the liquid note! What warbles he, with merry cheer? "Let Love and Pleasure rule the year!' Then lads, &c. |