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,
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame;
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth
To eat Macpherson 'midst his native north;
To frighten grave professors with his roar,
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore,
All hail!
Triumphant thou through Time's vast gulf shalt sail,
The pilot of our literary whale;

Close to the classic Rambler shalt thou cling,
Close as a supple courtier to a king;
Fate shall not shake thee off with all its power;
Stuck like a bat to some old ivied tower.
Nay, though thy Johnson ne'er had blessed thy eyes,
Paoli's deeds had raised thee to the skies:
Yes, his broad wing had raised thee (no bad hack),
A Tom-tit twittering on an eagle's back.
In addition to this effusion, Wolcot levelled another
attack on Boswell, entitled Bozzy and Piozzi, or the
British Biographers. The personal habits of the
king were ridiculed in Peeps at St James's, Royal
Visits, Lyric Odes, &c. Sir Joseph Banks was an-
other 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. 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,
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!

[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,
Whate'er the flocks of fleas you keep,

"Tis badly copying them for goats and sheep;
And if you'll take the poet's honest word,
A bug must make a miserable bird.

A rushlight in a bottle's neck, or stick,
Ill represents the glorious orb of morn;
Nay, though it were a candle with a wick,
"Twould be a representative forlorn.

I think, too, that a man would be a fool,
For trees, to copy legs of a joint stool;

Or even by them to represent a stump:
Also by broomsticks-which, though well he rig
Each with an old fox-coloured wig,

Must make a very poor autumnal clump.
You'll say, "Yet such ones oft a person sces
In many an artist's trees;

And in some paintings we have all beheld
Green baize hath surely sat for a green field:
Bolsters for mountains, hills, and wheaten mows;
Cats for ram-goats, and curs for bulls and cows.'

All this, my lads, I freely grant;
But better things from you I want.
As Shakspeare says (a bard I much approve),
'List, list! oh list! if thou dost painting love.'

Claude painted in the open air!
Therefore to Wales at once repair,

Where scenes of true magnificence you'll find;
Besides this great advantage-if in debt,
You'll have with creditors no tête-à-tête;

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,
With something in their shoes much worse than gravel:
In short, their toes so gentle to amuse,
The priest had ordered peas into their shoes.

A nostrum famous in old popish times
For purifying souls that stunk with crimes,
A sort of apostolic salt,

That popish parsons for its powers exalt,
For keeping souls of sinners sweet,
Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat.

The knaves set off on the same day,
Peas in their shoes, to go and pray;
But very different was their speed, I wot:
One of the sinners galloped on,
Light as a bullet from a gun;

The other limped as if he had been shot.

One saw the Virgin, soon peccavi cried;
Had his soul whitewashed all so clever,
When home again he nimbly hied,

Made fit with saints above to live for ever,

Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear:
As for Loretto, I shall not get there;
No! to the devil my sinful soul must go,
For hang me if I ha'n't lost every toe!

But, brother sinner, do explain
How 'tis that you are not in pain-

What power hath worked a wonder for your toes-
Whilst I, just like a snail, am crawling,
Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling,

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
(The horse and rider wet as muck),
From his high consequence and wisdom stooping,
Entered through curiosity a cot,

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,
When lo! the monarch, in his usual way,
Like lightning spoke, 'What's this? what's this!
what, what?"

Then taking up a dumpling in his hand,
His eyes with admiration did expand;

And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple: he cried,
"Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed!
What makes it, pray, so hard!' The dame replied,
Low curtsying, Please your majesty, the apple.'

'Very astonishing indeed! strange thing!'
(Turning the dumpling round) rejoined the king.
Tis most extraordinary, then, all this is-
It beats Pinette's conjuring all to pieces:
Strange I should never of a dumpling dream!
But, goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam ?'
'Sir, there's no seam,' quoth she; 'I never knew
That folks did apple dumplings sew;"
'No' cried the staring monarch with a grin;
'How, how the devil got the apple in?'

On which the dame the curious scheme revealed
By which the apple lay so sly concealed,

Which made the Solomon of Britain start;
Who to the palace with full speed repaired,
And queen and princesses so beauteous scared
All with the wonders of the dumpling art.
There did he labour one whole week to show
The wisdom of an apple-dumpling maker;
And, lo! so deep was majesty in dough,

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!'
Thus sweetly said the king unto the queen!

Red hot with novelty's delightful rage,
To Mister Whitbread forth he sent a page,
To say that majesty proposed to view,
With thirst of wondrous knowledge deep inflamed,
His vats, and tubs, and hops, and hogsheads famed,
And learn the noble secret how to brew.

Of such undreamt-of honour proud,
Most rev'rently the brewer bowed;

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:
To majesty the welcome tidings brought,
How Whitbread, staring stood like any stake,
And trembled; then the civil things he said;
On which the king did smile and nod his head;
For monarchs like to see their subjects quake;
Such horrors unto kings most pleasant are,
Proclaiming reverence and humility:
High thoughts, too, all these shaking fits declare,
Öf kingly grandeur and great capability!
People of worship, wealth, and birth,
Look on the humbler sons of earth,

Indeed in a most humble light, God knows!
High stations are like Dover's towering cliffs,
Where ships below appear like little skiffs,

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,
To visit the first brewer in the land;
Who sometimes swills his beer and grinds his meat
In a snug corner, christened Chiswell Street;
But oftener, charmed with fashionable air,
Amidst the gaudy great of Portman Square.

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.
Some draymen forced themselves (a pretty luncheon)
Into the mouth of many a gaping puncheon:
And through the bung-hole winked with curious eye,
To view and be assured what sort of things
Were princesses, and queens, and kings,

For whose most lofty station thousands sigh!
And lo! of all the gaping puncheon clan,
Few were the mouths that had not got a man;

Now majesty into a pump so deep
Did with an opera-glass so curious peep:
Examining with care each wond'rous matter
That brought up water!

Thus have I seen a magpie in the street,
A chattering bird we often meet,
A bird for curiosity well known,
With head awry,

And cunning eye,

Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone.
And now his curious majesty did stoop
To count the nails on every hoop;

And lo! no single thing came in his way,
That, full of deep research, he did not say,
What's this? hae hae? What's that? What's this?
What's that?'

So quick the words too, when he deigned to speak,
As if each syllable would break its neck.

Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl,
Our sov'reign peeps into the world of small:
Thus microscopic geniuses explore

Things that too oft the public scorn;
Yet swell of useful knowledges the store,
By finding systems in a peppercorn.

Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare,
To make the majesty of England stare,
That he had butts enough, he knew,
Placed side by side, to reach to Kew;
On which the king with wonder swiftly cried,
'What, if they reach to Kew, then, side by side,
What would they do, what, what, placed end to end?'
To whom, with knitted calculating brow,
The man of beer most solemnly did vow,

Almost to Windsor that they would extend:
On which the king, with wondering mien,
Repeated it unto the wondering queen;
On which, quick turning round his haltered head,
The brewer's horse, with face astonished, neighed ;
The brewer's dog, too, poured a note of thunder,
Rattled his chain, and wagged his tail for wonder.

Now did the king for other beers inquire,

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,
Grating like arsenic on his host's digestion;
A kind of question to the Man of Cask
That even Solomon himself would ask.
Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took
A very pretty memorandum book,
With gilded leaves of asses'-skin so white,
And in it legibly began to write-

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-
"Twill save us several pounds a-year.
Mem.

To remember to forget to ask

Old Whitbread to my house one day.
Mem.

Not to forget to take of beer the cask,
The brewer offered me, away.

Now, having pencilled his remarks so shrewd,
Sharp as the point indeed of a new pin,
His majesty his watch most sagely viewed,
And then put up his asses'-skin.

To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say,
'Whitbread, are all your horses fond of hay?"
"Yes, please your majesty,' in humble notes
The brewer answered- Also, sire, of oats;
Another thing my horses, too, maintains,
And that, an't please your majesty, are grains.'
'Grains, grains!' said majesty,' to fill their crops?
Grains, grains!-that comes from hops-yes, hops,
hops, hops?'

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.'
Yes,' answered majesty, with quick reply,

'I did, I did, I did, I, I, I, I.'

Now did the king admire the bell so fine,
That daily asks the draymen all to dine;
On which the bell rung out (how very proper!)
To show it was a bell, and had a clapper.
And now before their sovereign's curious eye-

Parents and children, fine fat hopeful sprigs,
All snuffling, squinting, grunting in their stye-
Appeared the brewer's tribe of handsome pigs;
On which the observant man who fills a throne,
Declared the pigs were vastly like his own;
On which the brewer, swallowed up in joys,
Fear and astonishment in both his eyes,
His soul brimful of sentiments so loyal,
Exclaimed, 'O heavens! and can my swine
Be deemed by majesty so fine?

Heavens! can my pigs compare, sire, with pigs royal?'
To which the king assented with a nod;

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,
And then her lowest curtsy made

For such high honour done her father's swine.
Now did his majesty, so gracious, say

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;
You'll be lord-mayor-lord-mayor one day;
Yes, yes, I've heard so; yes, yes, so I'm told;
Don't, don't the fine for sheriff pay;

I'll prick you every year, man, I declare;
Yes, Whitbread, yes, yes, you shall be lord-mayor.
Whitbread, d'ye keep a coach, or job one, pray?

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.
What, what's the price now, hae, of all your stock?
But, Whitbread, what's o'clock, pray, what's o'clock ?'
Now Whitbread inward said, 'May I be curst
If I know what to answer first.'

Then searched his brains with ruminating eye;
But e'er the man of malt an answer found,
Quick on his heel, lo, majesty turned round,
Skipped off, and balked the honour of reply.

Lord Gregory.

[Burns admired this ballad of Wolcot's, and wrote another on the same subject.]

'Ah ope, Lord Gregory, thy door,
A midnight wanderer sighs;
Hard rush the rains, the tempests roar,

And lightnings cleave the skies.'

'Who comes with wo at this drear night,
A pilgrim of the gloom?

If she whose love did once delight,
My cot shall yield her room.'
Alas! thou heard'st a pilgrim mourn
That once was prized by thee:
Think of the ring by yonder burn

Thou gav'st to love and me.

But should'st thou not poor Marion know,
I'll turn my feet and part;
And think the storms that round me blow,
Far kinder than thy heart.'

May Day.

The daisies peep from every field,
And violets sweet their odour yield;
The purple blossom paints the thorn,
And streams reflect the blush of morn.
Then lads and lasses all, be gay,
For this is nature's holiday.

Let lusty Labour drop his flail,
Nor woodman's hook a tree assail ;
The ox shall cease his neck to bow,
And Clodden yield to rest the plough.
Then lads, &c.

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.