Transcript

of

Sketch of Wolcot (Peter Pindar)

Trans. Devon. Assoc.  1877, Vol IX, pp.331-335.

by

Rev. Treasurer Hawker, M.A.

Prepared by Michael Steer

Peter Pindar was the pseudonym of John Wolcot, (baptized May 9, 1738, Dodbrooke, died January 14, 1819, London), author of a running commentary in satirical verse on society, politics, and personalities, 1778–1817. After studying medicine at Aberdeen, Wolcot went to Jamaica in 1767 as physician to the governor. He was ordained in 1769 but then forsook the church. He returned to England in 1772 and practiced medicine in Cornwall until he settled in London in 1781. Despite blindness, he continued to write to the end of his life, producing more than 70 satirical works and some other poems. He was buried, at his own request, “close to the author of Hudibras,” the satirist Samuel Butler, in St. Paul’s Covent Garden.  The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

What George Morland was among painters, Peter Pindar, to adopt the name Wolcot took, and by which he is familiarly known, was among poets. Morland delighted in, and was at home with, rustic, convivial, farmyard scenes. Peter Pindar revelled in rollicking, low, often profane descriptions, the very reverse of kid-glove or drawing-room talk. Both were rough, coarse, vigorous; Wolcot probably the most original, and as a caricaturist in rhyme he can hardly be surpassed.

Morland was his own worst enemy, and cut short his life by his intemperate habits. Wolcot was so far his own enemy that he spoilt his own cause by his rancour and virulence against any one who thwarted or annoyed him; truth and fairness being quite disregarded in his unscrupulous attacks upon the best conducted person, if he was, or thought himself, ill-treated.

Yet Kingsbridge may point with some degree of pride to her son's sturdy independence, his; dislike of jobbery and shams, his refusal to be blinded or muzzled in his denunciations of abuses by any powerful position or high rank.

When once roused he could hit hard and straight without the least respect to persons. No doubt he was very troublesome, and as unpleasant to encounter as a chimney-sweeper in a crowd. His shafts of ridicule were not only keenly pointed, but were sent home to their aim with a force of satire that it was difficult either to elude or repel. Wolcot was a bad, sensual, vindictive man, yet a certain respect must, I think, be paid to one who, in an age inclined to toadyism of big people, did not shrink from confronting the false idols of the day, even if sometimes he toppled them over with undue violence and contempt.

Cowper, in his striking poem The Castaway, says that

"Tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead;"

but Peter Pindar never immortalized any one by poetic tears or pathetic scenes of any sort; he signally failed in such attempts; and he certainly has not immortalized himself by any magnificent lyrics like those his Greek namesake produced. No one, however, ever told a story better, or brought out with more breadth and effect the features of laughter and farce in a scene. The fare he offered was what our rustics in Devonshire call " bread and cheese and good family cider." And he will be most appreciated by those to his - well, not manner, but dialect born - by Devonians, who can take in and relish his provincialisms.

There is a recondite composition, peculiar to our dear county, called squab-pie, which, I should suppose, no one out of the county could ever like, from its medley of apples, onions, bacon, mutton, &c., and, judging from myself, not very many, although born and bred in the county, can really relish.

Peter Pindar's works may be, not unaptly, I think compared to this incongruous, somewhat unrefined production. Those who like the thing at all will like it very much indeed. Every one will be entertained by the humorous delineation of men and manners of a certain class and type, even if they do not quite appreciate the raciness of the provincialism; although I may say, by the way, that outsiders will not find half the difficulty in understanding Devonshire provincialisms that English people do in understanding the Scotticisms of even Sir Walter Scott's novels. For example, whatever may be thought of the wording, and some will hold that the subject-matter is enhanced by the setting, the humour of Brother Jan's Epistle to Zester Nan is irresistible, although it must be confessed that there is scant reverence paid to clergy, aristocracy, or even royalty. It is impossible, however, not to laugh.

The shifting scenes of George III.'s visit to Exeter, the absence of episcopal hospitality, the close attendance of Lord Rolle, the farmer's outspoken hope that there might be no return of the King's madness, are all brought vividly before us. There is a rollicking swing about the description, which keeps the whole narrative going like the steady onward pace of a racing eight-oar, or the vis vivida of a fast four-horse coach.

Listen to the introduction of the royal entry into Exeter -

"Well, in a come King George to town,
With doust and zweat as nutmeg brown,
The horses all in smoke:
Huzzain, trumpetin, and dringin,
Bed colours vleein, roarin, zingin;
So mad seem'd all the yoke."

Then the hit at Lord Rolle's active attention — 

"Now shovin in the coach his head;
Meaning, we giss'd, it might be zed,
‘The Squire and King be chattin’"-

and the rustic estimation of forms and ceremonies - 

"When Measter Mayor, upon my word,
Poked to the King a gert long sword.
Which he poked back agen."

There is no need to inquire as to the real grounds for the transference of the King's entertainment from the Palace to the Dean, although Peter Pindar declares that it was

“Becaze the Bishop zent mun word,
A could not meet and drink avoord,
A hadn't got the means;"

nor who was suficciently close to hear the royal questioning at sight of the cathedral interior, which, we may say by the way, is now fit for any eyes -

Zo said, “Neat, neat; clean, very clean;
D'ye mop it, mop it, Measter Dean,
Mop, mop it every week?"

But the most natural touch of humour is, I think, when the presentation comes -

“’And ‘Varmer Tab, I understand,
Drode his legs yore and catched the hand,
And shaked wey might and main
I 'm glad your Medjesty to zee.
And hope your Medjesty,' quoth he,
‘Wull ne'er be mazed again’ " —

with the King's supposed bewilderment at the word - 

“’Maz'd ! maz'd ! what 's maz'd ?' then zed the King,
‘I never heerd of zich a thing.
What 's maz'd? what, what, my lord ?'
‘Hem,' zed my lord, and blow'd his nose,
‘ Hem, hem, sur, 'tis, I do suppose.
Sir, an old Devonshire word.' "

And Jan Ploughshare's conclusion, if not very reverent, is extremely funny, when he sums up by declaring that, having found royalty of such ordinary materials, when he goes back to Moreton, and reads his Bible, he’ll henceforth "skep the books of kings."

For broad, farcical humour, Peter Pindar seems to me unrivalled; and he often uses it very happily to attack some abuse or absurdity, as when he exposes the booksellers who valued authors' works by the time they had been about them, and puts into the mouth of a rustic, charged a shilling for having a tooth out, the following remonstrance -

“To gee zo much Ize cursedly unwilling.
Why, Tor a tooth but yesterday old Slop
Did drag me by the head about his shop
Three times, poor man, and only ax'd a shilling."

His attempts at pathetic or descriptive poetry are, I should say, tame and poor. Occasionally he philosophises with something of Horatian discernment, as when he enlarges on the fact that it depends much on ourselves whether we are bright or dismal, happy or discontented grumblers -

"Each mortal is an actual Jove,
Can brew what weather he shall most approve,

Or wind, or calm, or foul, or fair.
But here's the mischief; man's an ass, I say;
Too fond of thunder, lightning, storm, and rain.
He hides the charming, cheerful ray
That spreads a smile o’er hill and plain.
Dark, he must court the scull and spade and shroud,
The mistress of his soul must be a cloud" -

and 

‘Even at a dinner some will be unbless'd;
However good the viands, and well dress'd.
They always come to table with a scowl;
Squint with a face of verjuice o'er each dish.
Fault the poor flesh, and quarrel with the fie
Curse cook and wife, and loathing eat, and growl!"

He had however none of Horace's genial, polished, courtier-like style; and his attacks on Gifford, Sir Joseph Banks, and others whom he disliked, or who had offended him, were savage in the extreme; nay, brutal, and, as far as appears quite unjustifiable.

Gifford's lines on him are crushing, and would have utterly abashed any one less hardened and impudent But the man who could as lightly repudiate his orders and clerical profession as he could relinquish his medical, and whose boast at eighty years of age was, that he had never denied himself a single sensual gratification, must have been tolerably thick-skinned. In fact, he was a sort of Thersites, who, if honest, was bitter and spiteful; hardly either more prepossessing in appearance than the foulmouthed Greek, if we may trust the disagreeable miniature of him in the National Portrait Gallery.

He must be credited, it should be said, with a true love for art, and was an independent and discerning critic. He thoroughly appreciated Turner, and compares him, amongst his fellows, to Eclipse amongst race-horses, summing up his merits in the terse, happy description -

‘Turner, whatever strikes thy mind,
Is painted well, and well designed."

When practising medicine at Truro, he discovered and encouraged the genius of John Opie, then a working carpenter in the neighbourhood. His first literary publication was Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians, in 1782. There is sound criticism on painting in general, and on the painters of the period in particular, in these and other odes to the Royal Academy. Wolcot too was never carried away by fashion or current reputations, as when he speaks of one Chamberlain, whose chief qualification was that of producing strong likenesses -

“Thy portraits, Chamberlain, may be
A likeness, far as I can see;
But faith! I cannot praise a single feature.
Yet when it so shall please the Lord
To make His people out of board.
Thy pictures will be tolerable nature."

But when this has been said, and his fearless independence of character acknowledged, all that is commendable has been said. There was nothing to love or admire in him. Quite late in life, when he was seventy years of age, he had a disgraceful action brought against him; and although he was acquitted, enough came out on the trial to stamp him a bad, coarse, hardened old man. He was what Coleridge called Shakspere's Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, the Caliban of demagogic life; a portrait of intellectual power deserted by all grace, all moral principle, all, not momentary impulse." And Pope's translation of the original lines, which, if free, is forcible, will not unfairly sum up Wolcot's character —

Thersites only clamour'd in the throng,
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue;
Aw'd by no shame, by no respect controul'd.
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold;
With witty malice studious to defame,
Scorn all his joy and laughter all his aim;
But chief he gloried, with licentious style,
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.