Lyric Odes, and the like. Sir Joseph Banks was not beyond the reach of his satire :

A president, in butterflies profound,

Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises,
Went on a day to hunt this game renowned,

On violets, dunghills, nettle-tops, and daisies. Bruce the Abyssinian gave him an exceptionally favourable chance: the importance of the marvellous is set out by allusions to Scriptural miracles on one hand, and to Psalmanazar, Mandeville, Pontoppidan, and Katerfelto on the other. Tom Paine and Mr Pitt, Pye the laureate, Count Rumford, Lord Macartney, and Kien Long, Emperor of China-all furnish subjects for clever but unmannerly comment. From 1778 to 1808 above sixty of these verse pamphlets were issued by Wolcot. So formidable was he, he alleged, that the Ministry endeavoured to bribe him to silence; and he 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 his booksellers, for twenty years. Neither old age nor blindness could repress his witty vituperative attacks. He had the regular help of an amanuensis, but in his absence continued to write himself. '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 productions were collected and published in four volumes, and several editions were issued ; but most of the 'poems' are forgotten. Few satirists can reckon on permanent popularity, and Wolcot's things were inevitably ephemeral; while the recklessness of his censure and ridicule, and the obvious lack of decency, principle, or good moral feeling, hastened oblivion. And in vituperative brutality he met more than his match in Gifford, whose Epistle to Peter Pindar (1800) provoked the hero of so many wordy wars to a personal assault on Gifford in a bookseller's shop. An unsuccessful action of crim. con. was brought against him in 1807; he died at his house in Somers' Town (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 as ready and versatile as Churchill, though usually ruder and more rugged in style, with a quick sense of the ludicrous, not a little real wit and humour, real critical acumen, and a command of stinging and epigrammatic phrases. He had great facility in a vast variety of styles, satirical, merely comic, and quite serious. He wrote 'new-old' ballads in pseudo-antique spelling, and verse-tales in the broadest Devonshire dialect. Some of the songs are good. The Beggar Man and

other serious pieces are actually tender: Burns admired his Lord Gregory, and wrote another ballad on the same subject; the love or courtesy verses to Chloe and Julia and Celia and Phillida are wonderfully like anybody else's; but he could not write long without sliding into the ludicrous and burlesque. Much of his work is still amusing; many passages that are now dreary enough reading were doubtless once sufficiently pointed; the easy command of rhymes and loose rhythms reminds one sometimes of Don Juan, sometimes of the Ingoldsby Legends. Extraordinary variety

and felicity of expression and illustration are almost everywhere in evidence, as in Peter's lively critique 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!

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.

'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 damme 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 toesWhilst 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 that 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 hooping, 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, illumined 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: "Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed,' he cried. ‘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 Pinetti'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 shew
The wisdom of an apple-dumpling maker;
And, lo! so deep was majesty in dough,

The palace seemed the lodging of a baker !

Their Majesties at Whitbread's Brew-house. 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 brew-house seen!' Thus sweetly said the king unto the queen. . . .

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,

Dogs, carts, and chairs, and stools were tumbled over, Amidst the Whitbread rout of preparation,

To treat the lofty ruler of the nation.

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 marvelling eyes: For lo! a greater show ne'er graced those quarters, Since Mary roasted, just like crabs, the martyrs.

Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl,
Our sovereign peeps into the world of small:

Thus microscopic geniuses explore

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

Now boasting Whitbread seriously did declare,
To make the majesty of England stare,
That he had butts enough, he knew,
Placed side by side, to reach along 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,
For Calvert's, Jordan's, Thrale's entire ;
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 not even Solomon himself would ask.

Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took
A very pretty memorandum-book,
With gilded leaves of ass's-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?

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 ass's-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.

'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 shew 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 sty,
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,
Tears 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 Mr Whitbread in his flying way:

'Whitbread, d'ye nick the exciseman now and then? Hae, Whitbread, when d' ye think to leave off trade? 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 'ill 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?'

'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 woe at this drear night,

A pilgrim of the gloom?

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

'But shouldst 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,'

...

The editions of Wolcot's works-1788, 1792, 1794-96 (4 vols.), and 1812 (5 vols.)—are none of them quite complete. Some of the last of his seventy separate publications only appeared in 1814-17. Selections were published in 1824 and 1834. Many verses published under the name of Peter Pindar,' 'Peter Pindar, jun.,' &c. were not Wolcot's, but by various imitators.

William Gifford (1756–1826) was born at Ashburton in Devonshire. His father, a ne'er-dowell glazier, died of drink in 1767; his mother died a year afterwards; and after some little education, the boy was at thirteen placed on board a coasting-vessel by his godfather, a man supposed to have benefited himself at the expense of Gifford's parents. 'It will be easily conceived,' he recorded, 'that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only "a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast," but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot; yet if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading: as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing, during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot! The cabinboy was often seen by the fishwives of his native town running about the beach in a ragged jacket and trousers, and thus their tale, often repeated, awakened Ashburton to pity for the orphan, as also to resentment against the man who had brought him so low. His godfather was concussed into taking him from the sea, and again he was put to school, where he made rapid progress, and soon hoped to succeed his old and infirm schoolmaster. But in 1772 his godfather, sure he had got learning enough, put him apprentice to a shoemaker; and this new profession Gifford hated with a perfect hatred. He had but one book in the world, and that was a treatise on algebra, a subject of which he had no knowledge; but meeting with Fenning's Introduction, he mastered both works. 'This was not done,' he remembered, without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one pen, ink, and paper, therefore, were for the most part as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was indeed a resource, but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl: for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.'

He next tried poetry, and some of his 'lamentable doggerel' fell into the hands of a surgeon of Ashburton, who raised money to buy him off from his apprenticeship; and in little more than two years Gifford had made such extraordinary progress in study that he was pronounced fit for Oxford. In 1779 a Bible clerkship was procured for him at Exeter College, and this, with occasional assistance from the country, enabled him to live till, in 1782, he took his B.A. He had been accustomed to correspond on literary subjects with a friend in London, his letters being enclosed in covers sent, to save postage, to Lord Grosvenor. The direction having been once inadvertently omitted, the franker, supposing the letter to be meant for himself, opened and read it. He was struck with the contents, and after seeing the writer, and hearing

his story, undertook his present support and future establishment; and meanwhile invited him to come and live with him. 'These,' the grateful scholar testified, 'were not words of course: they were more than fulfilled in every point. I did go and reside with him, and I experienced a warm and cordial reception, and a kind and affectionate esteem, that has known neither diminution nor interruption from that hour to this, a period of twenty years.' Part of this time was spent in attending his patron's son, Lord Belgrave, on a tour of Europe, which greatly informed the mind of the tutor. He appeared as author in 1794. His first production was a satirical poem, The Baviad, directed against a group of sentimental poetasters of that day, known from their hobbies as the Della Cruscan School-Mrs Piozzi, Mrs Robinson, Mr Greathead, Mr Merry, and some others (see page 473)-conspicuous for their affectation and bad taste, and their high-flown compliments to one another. 'There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics,' Gifford complained, which dazzled the native grubs, who had scarce ever ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose-tree grove; with an ostentatious display of "blue hills," and "crashing torrents," and "petrifying suns."' Gifford's vigorous exposure of the 'splay-foot madrigals' and 'nambypamby madrigals of love,' in Scott's phrase, 'squabashed the Della Cruscans at one blow.' Anna Matilda, Laura Maria, Edwin, Orlando, and the other high-flown heralds of log-rolling sank into instant and irretrievable contempt. The satire, in the form of a conversation between the author, Persius, represented by P., and a friend, F., was universally read and admired; now it seems often unreasonably savage and unfair. But lines like these can hardly be described as wholly temporary or antiquated in application:

Degeneracy of Modern Literature.

Oh for the good old times! when all was new,
And every hour brought prodigies to view,
Our sires in unaffected language told

Of streams of amber and of rocks of gold:

Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art,
And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.

Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves,
Less to display our subject than ourselves :
Whate'er we paint-a grot, a flower, a bird,
Heavens, how we sweat! laboriously absurd!
Words of gigantic bulk and uncouth sound,
In rattling triads the long sentence bound;
While points with points, with periods periods jar,
And the whole work seems one continued war!
Is not this sad?

F.-'Tis pitiful, Heaven knows;
'Tis wondrous pitiful. E'en take the prose :
But for the poetry-oh, that, my friend,
I still aspire-nay, smile not-to defend.
You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with force,
Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse ;
We want their strength-agreed; but we atone
For that and more by sweetness all our own.

And, envying the fame he cannot hope,
Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope.
Reptile accursed !-O 'memorable long,
If there be force in virtue or in song,'
O injured bard! accept the grateful strain,
Which I, the humblest of the tuneful train,
With glowing heart, yet trembling hand, repay,
For many a pensive, many a sprightly lay!
So may thy varied verse, from age to age,
Inform the simple, and delight the sage;
While canker'd Weston and his loathsome rhymes
Stink in the nose of all succeeding times.

Mrs Piozzi's share in this fantastic garland of exotic verse is hit off in one felicitous couplet :

See Thrale's gay widow with a satchel roam, And bring in pomp her laboured nothings home! Tasteless bibliomaniacs are sketched-those who On black-letter pore, And what they do not understand, adore; Buy at vast sums the trash of ancient days, And draw on prodigality for praise.