WOLCOT.

(PETER PINDAR.)

BORN, 1738-DIED, 1819.

WOLCOT was successively a clergyman, a physician, a pensioner on the booksellers, and, it is said, on government. He had a taste for painting; introduced his countryman Opie to the world ; and lived to a hale old age, mirthful to the last in spite of blindness. He was a genuine man of his sort, though his sort was not of a very dignified species. There does not seem to have been any real malice in him. He had not the petty spite and peevishness of his antagonist Gifford; nor, like him, could have constituted himself a snarler against his betters for the pay of greatness. He attacked greatness itself, because he thought it could afford the joke; and he dared to express sympathies with the poor and outcast. His serious poems, however, are nothing but common-places about Delias and the Muse. Nor have his comic ones the grace and perfection which a sense of the serious only can bestow. Wolcot had an eye for little that was grave in life, except the face-makings of absurdity and pretension; but these he could mimic admirably, putting on at one and the same time their most nonchalant and matter-of-course airs, while he fetched out into his countenance the secret nonsense. He echoes their words, with some little comment of approval, or change in their position; some classical inversion, or exaltation, which exposes the pretension in the very act of admitting it, and has an irresistibly ludicrous effect. But these points have been noticed in the Introductory Essay.

Peter wrote a good deal of trash, even in his humorous pieces: for they were composed, like the razors in one of his stories, "to sell." But his best things are surpassed by no banter in the language. I am sorry its coarseness prevents my repeating the story of the Pilgrims and the Peas; the same objection applies to passages of the Lousiad; and there are circumstances in the history of George the Third, which would render it unbecoming to extract even the once harmless account of his Majesty's Visit to Whitbread's Brewhouse. I have therefore confined myself to Pindar's other very best thing,-his versification of passages in Boswell and Thrale,-masterly for its facility and straightforwardness, which doubles the effect of the occasional mock-heroic inversions. To compare great things with small, and show that I commend nothing strongly which has not had a strong effect on myself, I can say, that Lear does not more surely move me to tears, or Spenser charm me, than I am thrown into fits of laughter when I hear these rhyming Johnsoniana. I can hardly, now this moment, while writing about them, and glancing at the copy which lies before me, help laughing to myself in private. This is not a good preface to a joke; but, if anybody can afford it, I think it is Peter.

CONVERSATION ON JOHNSON, BY MRS. PIOZZI (THRALE) AND MR. BOSWELL.

Madame Piozzi.-Dear Doctor Johnson was in size an ox,
And from his Uncle Andrew learn'd to box,

A man to wrestlers and to bruisers dear,

Who kept the ring in Smithfield a whole year.

The Doctor had an Uncle, too, ador'd

By jumping gentry, call'd Cornelius Ford;

Who jump'd in boots, which jumpers never choose,

For as a famous jumper jump'd in shoes.

Bozzy. When Foote his leg, by some misfortune, broke, Says I to Johnson, all by way of joke,

"Sam, sir, in paragraph will soon be clever,

And take off Peter better now than ever."

On which, says Johnson, without hesitation,
"George' will rejoice at Foote's depeditation."

On which, says I, a penetrating elf!

66

Doctor, I'm sure you coin'd that word yourself." The Doctor own'd to me I had divin'd it,

For, bonâ fide, he had really coin'd it.

"And yet, of all the words I've coin'd (says he), My Dictionary, sir, contains but three."

Mad. Piozzi.-The Doctor said, "In literary matters,

A Frenchman goes not deep-ne only smatters;
Then ask'd, what could be hop'd for from the dogs,
Fellows that liv'd eternally on frogs?

Bozzy. In grave procession to St. Leonard's College,
Well stuff'd with every sort of useful knowledge,
We stately walk'd as soon as supper ended;
The landlord and the waiter both attended;
The landlord, skill'd a piece of grease to handle,
Before us march'd, and held a tallow candle:
A lantern (some fam'd Scotsman its creator)
With equal grace was carried by the waiter.
Next morning from our beds we took a leap,
And found ourselves much better for our sleep.

Mad. Piozzi.-In Lincolnshire, a lady show'd our friend A grotto that she wish'd him to commend.

Quoth she, How cool in summer this abode !"

Bozzy-Between old Scalpa's rugged isle and Rasay's,
The wind was vastly boisterous in our faces;
'Twas glorious Johnson's figure to set sight on→
High in the boat he look'd a noble Triton!
But lo! to damp our pleasure Fate concurs,
For Joe, the blockhead, lost his master's spurs ;
This for the Rambler's temper was a rubber,
Who wonder'd Joseph could be such a lubber.

Mad. Piozzi.-I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down, As such a tale was current through the town :Says I, "Do tell me, Doctor, what befell."66 Why, dearest lady, there is naught to tell: I ponder'd on the properest mode to treat him→→ The dog was impudent, and so I beat him! Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs ; Others that I belabor'd, held their tongues."

Did any one that he was happy cry-
Johnson would tell him plumply, 't was a lie.
A lady told him she was really so;

On which he sternly answer'd, "Madam, no!
Sickly you are, and ugly-foolish, poor ;
And therefore can't be happy, I am sure.

'T would make a fellow hang himself, whose ear
Were from such creatures forc'd such stuff to hear."

Bozzy. I wonder'd yesterday, that one John Hay, Who serv'd as Ciceroné on the way,

Should fly a man-of-war-a spot so blest

A fool! nine months, too, after he was prest.

66

Quoth Johnson, No man, sir, would be a sailor,

With sense to scrape acquaintance with a jailor."

Mad. Piozzi.-I said I lik'd not goose, and mention'd why ;→

One smells it roasting on the spit, quoth I.

66

You, Madam," cry'd the Doctor, with a frown,

"Are always gorging-stuffing something down. Madam, 't is very nat'ral to suppose,

If in the pantry you will poke your nose,

Your maw with ev'ry sort of victuals swelling,
That you must want the bliss of dinner-smelling,

Bozzy.-Once at our house, amidst our Attic feasts, We liken'd our acquaintances to beasts;

As, for example, some to calves and hogs,

And some to bears and monkeys, cats and dogs;

We said (hich charm'd the Doctor much no doubt),

Hi ni dws like of elephants the snout,

That could pick pins up, yet possess'd the vigor

For trimming well the jacket of a tiger.

Mad. Piozzi.-Dear Doctor Johnson left off drinks fermented, With quarts of chocolate and cream contented;

Yet often down his throat's enormous gutter,
Poor man! he pour'd a flood of melted butter!

Bozzy. With glee the Doctor did my girl behold;

Her name Veronica, just four months old.
This name Veronica, a name though quaint,
Belong'd originally to a saint;

But to my old great grandam it was giv'n—
As fine a woman as e'er went to heav'n;

:

And what must add to her importance, much,
This lady's genealogy was Dutch.

The man who did espouse this dame divine
Was Alexander, Earl of Kincardine;
Who pour'd along my body, like a sluice,

The noble, noble, noble blood of Bruce!

And who that own'd this blood could well refuse
To make the world acquainted with the news?
But to return unto my charming child—
About our Doctor Johnson she was wild;

And when he left off speaking, she would flutter,
Squall for him to begin again, and sputter ;
And to be near him a strong wish express'd,
Which proves he was not such a horrid beast.
Her fondness for the Doctor pleas'd me greatly,
On which I loud exclaim'd, in language stately,
Nay, if I recollect aright, I swWORE,

I'd to her fortune add five hundred more.

Mad. Piozzi.-In ghosts the Doctor strongly did believe,
And pinn'd his faith on many a liar's sleeve.
He said to Doctor Lawrence, "Sure I am,
I heard my poor dear mother call out ' Sam,'
I'm sure," said he, " that I can trust my ears;
And yet, my mother had been dead for years."

Bozzy.-When young ('twas rather silly I allow),
Much was I pleas'd to imitate a cow.

One time at Drury Lane with Doctor Blair,
My imitations made the playhouse stare!

So very charming was I in my roar,

That both the galleries clapp'd and cried "Encore."
Blest by the general plaudit and the laugh,

I tried to be a jack-ass and a calf:

But who, alas! in all things can be great?

In short, I met a terrible defeat;

So vile I bray'd and bellow'd, I was hiss'd;

Yet all who knew me wonder'd that I miss'd.

Blair whisper'd me, "You've lost your credit now;

Stick, Boswell, for the future, to the Cow."

'Peter Garrick, who had a wooden leg. He was brother of the actor.

2 (6

George" was George Faulkner the printer, who prosecuted Foote for lampooning him.