242 



DISCOVliHY 



large an audience as he could collect. Ready as he was 

 at the outset for any amount of success, he must have 

 been surprised at the astonishing way his luck held and 

 his reputation spread. It has been said — ^and there is 

 truth in the remark — that, search where one will among 

 the annals of the last years of the eighteenth century, 

 one is certain sooner or later to run across the 

 pseudonym " Peter Pindar." When Richard Twining, 

 a quiet country gentleman, writes to Dr. Burney and 

 mentions that he is reading Pindar, his sense of gravity 

 allows him to add within a bracket " not Peter." 

 When Miss Burney, in her official capacity at Court, 



came for the first time into the presence of the King, 

 her recollection of the wicked verses of Peter Pindar 

 added to her confusion. There is a story that the 

 Duke of Kent, travelling at that period in America, 

 entered a cottage, and, seeing a girl with a book in her 

 hand, inquired the extent of her reading. The girl 

 replied, " Sir, the Bible and Peter Pindar ! " That 

 is too good a story not to be a story, but the evidence 

 of his immense vogue over a long stretch of time 

 remains. Burns says seriously in one of his letters that 

 he will never be able to write as well as Peter Pindar. 

 Byron of course read him, and took something more 

 than a hint from him for his Beppo, the immediate 

 precursor of Don Juan. Blake knew his works, and 

 more than once refers to him. Porson the scholar 



wrote an epigram on him. His works were imitated 

 widely and pirated. His style of verse tale was con- 

 tinued under the title of Peter Pindarics by James 

 and Horace Smith, the famous authors of Rejected 

 Addresses, in a volume entitled Gaieties and Gravities. 

 In most scholarly works on the literature of the time — 

 say 1782 to 1812 — contemporary allusions are generally 

 reinforced by footnotes containing extracts from 

 Wolcot's pamphlets. But no one tells us much about 

 the man. 



If, as Pope said, the proper study of mankind is man, 

 and not, as so many camp-followers of literature believe, 

 the close hunting of tendencies and allusions, thtn the 

 study of Wolcot himself is more to the point than close 

 reading of his works. A more truthful answer is that 

 the better the artist the more his works suffice, until he 

 " all expresses " himself in them. Henry James 

 develops this view in " The Death of the Lion." But 

 Wolcot — to speak truth — was only occasionally a 

 good artist : it is the history of the man himself, 

 including his writings, that makes him so interesting 

 a study. Few of his verses are of permanent worth, 

 but almost all are very much more alive and provoca- 

 tive than nine-tenths of the lesser verse of his time. He 

 attempts so much, so nearly " comes off " in so many 

 directions, is so versatile and ambitious and voluminous 

 that his readers are certain before long to want to know 

 something more about this man with the writing itch 

 and such a fund of energ}'. \\'hat was he like ? How 

 came he to write \-erse ? A very full answer is forth- 

 coming. 



All early mentions of him agree that he was a hea\'y, 

 unwieldy, clumsy boy, quick at repartee and fond of 

 sarcastic jokes. The son of a country doctor who 

 lived at Dodbrooke, in Devonshire, he was given an 

 unusually good education, and at the age of seventeen 

 went for a year to France. On his return he fell into 

 that state of unrest and discontent often engendered 

 in young people who have been " well educated " and 

 then left in the lurch. By this time a benevolent 

 uncle had taken him under his protection and set him 

 to a seven years' apprenticeship in the family pro- 

 fession. Wolcot, who had commenced writing verse 

 when at school, hated the work of an " apothecary," 

 and divided his time between music, poetry, painting — 

 and the young ladies of Fowey. The first published 

 verses of his that can be traced appeared in 1756 in 

 an obscure periodical called Martin's Magazine. They 

 were addressed to a lady of great beauty and charm, a 

 Miss Betsy Cranch. He proposed to her, and she 

 accepted him — if he would wait his turn ; she was four 

 deep already ! Next he transferred his affections to a 

 Miss Chubb, and then to a Miss Cory ton. But although 

 he wooed with fury, and always enclosed \erses in his 

 letters, none of the ladies of Fowey would have him. 



