781 



WOLCOTT, JOHN. 



WOLF, FRIEDRICH AUGUST. 



782 



1738. His father, a substantial yeoman, died about the time his son 

 attained his eleventh year. John received the rudiments of his edu- 

 cation at the free-school of Kingsbridge, a neighbouring market-town ; 

 and was, after his father's death, placed under the Rev. Mr. Fisher, 

 master of a grammar-school at Bodmin. He described himself, in 

 after life, as having been a dull scholar, but as having showed even at 

 that early age a turn for versifying. 



On leaving school he was removed to Fowey in Cornwall, to the 

 house of an uncle, who was a medical practitioner. This gentleman 

 eent his nephew to reside for a year in Normandy, with a view to 

 attain a command of the French language. On his return John 

 Wolcott became his uncle's apprentice for seven years. At the termi- 

 nation of his apprenticeship he completed his medical education by 

 the usual attendance in a London hospital. He appears to have 

 applied himself with sufficient diligence to obtain a knowledge of his 

 future profession ; but he annoyed his uncle and two aunts by culti- 

 vating his talents for versifying and painting. 



In 1767 Sir William Trelawney was appointed governor of Jamaica, 

 and Wolcott, who had some connection with the family, was invited to 

 accompany him. Before leaving England, Wolcott procured' the degree 

 of M.D. from the University of Aberdeen. His hopes of obtaining a 

 lucrative practice in Jamaica were soon dispelled The white popu- 

 lation was not numerous, and the coloured could not pay. The 

 incumbent of a valuable living in the island being dangerously ill, the 

 governor suggested to his young friend that he might obtain prefer- 

 ment in the church. Wolcott upon this hint proceeded to England, 

 and was ordained by the Bishop of London ; but on his return the 

 clergyman whom he was to succeed had recovered, and he was obliged 

 to remain contented with the curacy of Vere. His clerical duties he 

 is said to have utterly neglected : his real employment was officiating 

 as master of ceremonies to the governor. After the death of Sir 

 William Trelawney, in 1768, Wolcott accompanied his widow to Eng- 

 land, and never returned to the West Indies. 



The next twelve years of his life were spent in attempting to 

 establish himself as a physician at Truro, Helstone, and other towns 

 in Cornwall. In this he uniformly failed, apparently on account of 

 an invincible propensity to live as a practical humorist and satirise his 

 neighbours, but he probably had no great amount of knowledge or skill 

 in his profession. During his residence at Truro, some songs of his 

 composition were set to music by Mr. W. Jackson, of Exeter, and first 

 introduced him to general notice. In 1778 he published his first com- 

 position in that peculiar style which not long after obtained for him 

 such a high and continued popularity ' The Epistle to the Reviewers.' 

 It was during Wolcott's residence at Truro too that he detected the 

 talents of the self-taught artist Opie. With this protege he, in 1780, 

 transferred his residence to the metropolis. Wolcott's own account 

 of this adventure is as follows : " At length I proposed to him to go 

 first to Exeter and afterwards to London, and having lost an income 

 of 300Z. or 400?. by the change of scene, entered into a written engage- 

 ment, by which it was agreed we should ehare the joint profits in 

 equal divisions. We actually did so for a year ; but at the end of 

 that time my pupil told me I might return to the country, as he could 

 now do for himself." That his pupil, as he terms him, should have 

 done so is scarcely to be wondered at, for it does not appear that 

 Wolcott contributed anything to the 'joint profits ; ' or that he really 

 sustained any pecuniary loss by his change of residence. 



No opening offering itself in the metropolis, either in physic or 

 divinity, Wolcott was obliged to betake himself to his pen for support. 

 His satirical and artistical tastes suggested the subject of his first 

 publication : ' Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782, by 

 Peter Pindar, Esq., a distant relation of the Poet of Thebes, and 

 Laureate to the Academy,' took the town by surprise. The justice of 

 many of his remarks, the reckless daring of the personalities, the 

 quaintness of the style, were something so entirely new that the work 

 obtained immediate popularity. Encouraged by success the author 

 returned to the attack in 1783, 1785, and 1786. But he soon dis- 

 covered that, in order to keep alive the first impression, he must vary 

 his themes ; and that the more daring he was in the selection of his 

 objects of attack, the more would his works be run after, and the less 

 would he incur any real danger. The king, ministers, opposition 

 leaders, and authors, were assailed in succession. The latest public 

 gossip was sure to be versified by Peter Pindar, and to be sought after 

 with avidity. Partly by real talent, but far more by the most licen- 

 tious personality, his works, as they issued in succession from the 

 press, continued to be run after for a period of nearly forty years. A 

 collected edition of them was published in 1812, but it is defective, 

 for they were so numerous that the author himself could not retain' 

 them all in his memory. An imperfect list of Dr. Wolcott's works 

 printed at the end of his life in the 'Annual Biography' for 1819 

 enumerates no less than sixty-four. 



There is a fashion in the burlesque poetry of every age that is 

 palatable to the public of that age only. The subjects of Wolcott's 

 verses were ephemeral : they are now forgotten except by the students 

 of the memoirs, pamphlets, and forgotten literature of his time. 

 These circumstances will prevent their continuing generally popular. 

 But the few curious inquirers who have a taste for the obsolete will 

 acknowledge that Wolcott's popularity, though mainly, was not 

 entirely earned by his audacious personalities. His versification is 



nervous, though not varied in its modulation ; his language ia racy 

 and idiomatic; his wit, though often forced, is even more often 

 genuine ; and through all his puns and quaintnesses there runs a vein 

 of strong manly sense. 



The personal character of Wolcott ig very far from an amiable one. 

 His attempt to support himself by the labours of Opie has already 

 been noticed. After all his biting satires on George III. and Pitt, he 

 accepted a pension from the administration of which Pitt was 'the 

 head not to laud it (for praise was not in his nature) but to vitu- 

 perate its opponents. He took orders and even officiated as a clergy- 

 man, though an avowed and profane unbeliever. He had a shrewd 

 intellect ; some taste in the arts of design and music (a series of his 

 landscapes was engraved by Alken, and published in 1797 under the 

 title of ' Picturesque Views ; ' and some of his tunes have attained a 

 permanent popularity) ; and his literary compositions have the finish 

 of an artist. But his utter selfishness and entire want of principle 

 rendered these intellectual tastes scarcely more elevated in him than 

 his sensual appetites, which were equally regulated by taste and judg- 

 ment. He was the perfection of a self-indulgent voluptuary both in 

 physical and intellectual respects. 



Wolcott's constitution was probably naturally strong, for he attained 

 to the advanced age of eighty-one. But for many yeara previous to 

 his death he was the victim of asthma, very deaf, and almost entirely 

 blind. His mind however retained its full powers. He lived only for 

 himself; declined dinner invitations "to avoid the danger of loading 

 his stomach with more than nature required ; " lay in bed the greater 

 part of his time, because "it would be folly in me to be groping 

 around my drawing-room," and because " when up and in motion I 

 am obliged to carry a load of eleven stone, while here I have only a 

 few ounces of blankets to support;" and when out of bed he amused 

 himself with his violin, or examining, as well as his sight permitted, 

 his crayons and pictures. He showed no aversion to receive notoriety- 

 hunters who came to see and hear ' Peter Pindar,' but evinced no 

 desire for society. He left a considerable property to his relations. 

 John Wolcott died on the 14th of January 1819, and was interred in 

 the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. 



WOLF, FRIEDRICH AUGUST, the greatest of modern German 

 scholars, was born on the 15th of February 1759, at Hainrode, a 

 village in the county of Hohenstein, near Nordhausen, where his 

 father was organist, and from whence he was afterwards removed to 

 Nordhausen, and appointed teacher at one of the schools of the place. 

 Up to the seventh year, when he entered the gymnasium of Nord- 

 hausen, Wolf's education was conducted with great care and strictness 

 by his parents. Under the influence of Hake, the head of that insti- 

 tution, Wolf conceived that love of antiquity which never forsook 

 him, and the same teacher also implanted in his mind a habit which 

 characterises his whole literary life, the habit of thinking and judging 

 for himself without being swayed by any authority, and of pursuing 

 only one thing at a time. By following this system, and making con- 

 scientious use of his time, Wolf, even before he went to the university, 

 had read all the most important ancient, as well as German, French, 

 English, Italian, and Spanish writers. His father's intention was to 

 make him, as well as his brothers Georg Friedrich, a professional 

 musician ; and after he himself had given him all the theoretical and 

 practical instruction he was capable of, he sent both sons to the learned 

 organist Schroter, who also instructed them in mathematics, a science 

 to which Friedrich August had an aversion throughout life. But old 

 Wolf's plan was adopted only by Georg Friedrich ; for although 

 Friedrich August was fond of music, sang, and played several instru- 

 ments, yet he regarded the art only as an elegant amusement, and waa 

 resolved to follow the course of study which he had commenced at 

 the gymnasium. In 1777 he accordingly went to the University of 

 Gottingen to study philology exclusively. He always prized private 

 study more than any other ; and in consequence of this he was highly 

 irregular in his attendance in the lecture-rooms. Heyne observed this 

 inclination in Wolf, and on one occasion when Heyne was going to 

 lecture on Pindar, and Wolf wanted to enter his name as one of his 

 hearers, Heyne refused to admit him. From this moment Wolf 

 avoided Heyne, and did not even attempt to become a member of the 

 philological seminary, though in a financial point of view it would 

 have been a material assistance to him. But Wolf nevertheless lived 

 happy and retired at Gottingen, and he made up the deficiencies in 

 his finances by giving private lessons to other students in Greek and 

 English ; and it is a curious fact, that in order to have an English 

 book which he might read with his pupils, he published, in 1778, an 

 edition of Shakspere's 'Macbeth,' with explanatory notes. Heyne 

 was at the time a man of paramount influence in all scholastic matters 

 in Germany, and Wolf before leaving the university presented to him 

 a dissertation on Homer, in which he explained some points on which 

 he ventured to differ from Heyne ; but Heyne peremptorily refused to 

 read it. 



In 1779 Wolf left Gottingen, and was immediately after appointed 

 teacher in the paedagogium at Ilfeld. Here he made himself first 

 known to scholars by his edition of Plato's ' Symposium ' (8vo, Leipzig, 

 1782 ; a second edition appeared in 1828), with notes and a valuable 

 introduction in German. The manner in which Wolf treated his 

 author met with general approbation, and attracted the attention of 

 the Prussian minister, Baron von Zedlitz. In consequence of this pub- 



