History of English Humour Volume II Part 14

CHAPTER X.

Wolcott--Writes against the Academicians--Tales of a Hoy--"New Old Ballads"--"The Sorrows of Sunday"--Ode to a Pretty Barmaid--Sheridan--Comic Situations--"The Duenna"--Wits.

Wolcott, a native of Devons.h.i.+re, was educated at Kingsbridge, and apprenticed to an apothecary. He soon discovered a genius for painting and poetry, and commenced to write about the middle of the last century as Peter Pindar. He composed many odes on a variety of humorous subjects, such as "The Lousiad," "Ode to Ugliness," "The Young Fly and the Old Spider," "Ode to a Handsome Widow," whom he apostrophises as "Daughter of Grief," "Solomon and the Mouse-trap," "Sir Joseph Banks and the Boiled Fleas," "Ode to my a.s.s," "To my Candle," "An Ode to Eight Cats kept by a Jew," whom he styles, "Singers of Israel." Lord Nelson's night-cap took fire as the poet was wearing it reading in bed, and he returned it to him with the words,

"Take your night-cap again, my good lord, I desire, For I wish not to keep it a minute, What belongs to a Nelson, where'er there's a fire, Is sure to be instantly in it."

In "Bozzi and Piozzi" the former says:--

"Did any one, that he was happy cry, Johnson would tell him plumply 'twas a lie; A lady told him she was really so, On which he sternly answered, 'Madam, no!

Sickly you are, and ugly, foolish, poor, And therefore can't be happy, I am sure.'"

UPON POPE.

"'Grant me an honest fame, or grant me none,'

Says Pope, (I don't know where,) a little liar, Who, if he praised a man, 'twas in a tone That made his praise like bunches of sweet-briar, Which, while a pleasing fragrance it bestows, Pops out a pretty p.r.i.c.kle on your nose."

He seems to have gained little by his early poems, many of which were directed against the Royal Academicians. One commences:--

"Sons of the brush, I'm here again!

At times a Pindar and Fontaine, Casting poetic pearl (I fear) to swine!

For, hang me, if my last years odes Paid rent for lodgings near the G.o.ds, Or put one sprat into this mouth divine."

Sometimes he calls the Academicians, "Sons of Canvas;" sometimes "Tagrags and bobtails of the sacred brush." He afterwards wrote a doleful elergy, "The Sorrows of Peter," and seems not to have thought himself sufficiently patronized, alluding to which he says--

"Much did King Charles our Butler's works admire, Read them and quoted them from morn to night, Yet saw the bard in penury expire, Whose wit had yielded him so much delight."

Wolcott was a little restricted by a due regard for religion or social decorum. He reminds us of Sterne, often atoning for a transgression by a tender and elevated sentiment. The following from the "Tales of a Hoy,"

supposed to be told on a voyage from Margate gives a good specimen of his style--

_Captain Noah._ Oh, I recollect her. Poor Corinna![14] I could cry for her, Mistress Bliss--a sweet creature! So kind! so lovely! and so good-natured! She would not hurt a fly! Lord! Lord! tried to make every body happy. Gone! Ha! Mistress Bliss, gone! poor soul.

Oh! she is in Heaven, depend on it--nothing can hinder it. Oh, Lord, no, nothing--an angel!--an angel by this time--for it must give G.o.d very little trouble to make _her_ an angel--she was so charming! Such terrible figures as my Lord C. and my Lady Mary, to be sure, it would take at least a month to make such ones anything like angels--but poor Corinna wanted very few repairs. Perhaps the sweet little soul is now seeing what is going on in our cabin--who knows? Charming little Corinna! Lord! how funny it was, for all the world like a rabbit or a squirrel or a kitten at play. Gone! as you say, Gone! Well now for her epitaph.

CORINNA'S EPITAPH.

"Here sleeps what was innocence once, but its snows Were sullied and trod with disdain; Here lies what was beauty, but plucked was its rose And flung like a weed to the plain.

"O pilgrim! look down on her grave with a sigh Who fell the sad victim of art, Even cruelty's self must bid her hard eye A pearl of compa.s.sion impart.

"Ah! think not ye prudes that a sigh or a tear Can offend of all nature the G.o.d!

Lo! Virtue already has mourned at her bier And the lily will bloom on her sod."

He wrote some pretty "new-old" ballads--purporting to have been written by Queen Elizabeth, Sir T. Wyatt, &c., on light and generally amorous subjects. Much of his satire was political, and necessarily fleeting.

In "Orson and Ellen" he gives a good description of the landlord of a village inn and his daughter,

"The landlord had a red round face Which some folks said in fun Resembled the Red Lion's phiz, And some, the rising Sun.

"Large slices from his cheeks and chin Like beef-steaks one might cut; And then his paunch, for goodly size Beat any brewer's b.u.t.t.

"The landlord was a boozer stout A snufftaker and smoker; And 'twixt his eyes a nose did s.h.i.+ne Bright as a red-hot poker.

"Sweet Ellen gave the pot with hands That might with thousands vie: Her face like veal, was white and red And sparkling was her eye.

"Her shape, the poplar's easy form Her neck the lily's white Soft heaving, like the summer wave And lifting rich delight.

"And o'er this neck of globe-like mould In ringlets waved her hair; Ah, what sweet contrast for the eye The jetty and the fair.

"Her lips, like cherries moist with dew So pretty, plump, and pleasing, And like the juicy cherry too Did seem to ask for squeezing.

"Yet what is beauty's use alack!

To market can it go?

Say--will it buy a loin of veal, Or round of beef? No--no.

"Will butchers say 'Choose what you please Miss Nancy or Miss Betty?'

Or gardeners, 'Take my beans and peas Because you are so pretty?'"

He wrote a pleasant satire on the tax upon hair-powder introduced by Pitt, and the s.h.i.+fts to which poor people would be put to hide their hair. He seems to have been as inimical as most people to taxation. He parodies Dryden's "Alexander's Feast:"

"Of taxes now the sweet musician sung The court and chorus joined And filled the wondering wind, And taxes, taxes, through the garden rung.

"Monarch's first of taxes think Taxes are a monarch's treasure Sweet the pleasure Rich the treasure Monarchs love a guinea clink...."

He was, as we may suppose, averse to making Sunday a severe day. He wrote a poem against those who wished to introduce a more strict observance of Sunday, and called it, "The Sorrows of Sunday." He says:

"Heaven glorieth not in phizzes of dismay Heaven takes no pleasure in perpetual sobbing, Consenting freely that my favourite day, May have her tea and rolls, and hob-and-n.o.bbing; Life with the down of cygnets may be clad Ah! why not make her path a pleasant track-- No! cries the pulpit Terrorist (how mad) No! let the world be one huge hedge-hog's back."

He wrote a great variety of gay little sonnets, such as "The Ode to a Pretty Barmaid:"

"Sweet nymph with teeth of pearl and dimpled chin, And roses, that would tempt a saint to sin, Daily to thee so constant I return, Whose smile improves the coffee's every drop Gives tenderness to every steak and chop And bids our pockets at expenses spurn.

"What youth well-powdered, of pomatum smelling Shall on that lovely bosom fix his dwelling?

Perhaps the waiter, of himself so full!

With thee he means the coffee-house to quit Open a tavern and become a wit And proudly keep the head of the Black Bull.

"'Twas here the wits of Anna's Attic age Together mingled their poetic rage, Here Prior, Pope, and Addison and Steele, Here Parnel, Swift, and Bolingbroke and Gay Poured their keen prose, and turned the merry lay Gave the fair toast, and made a hearty meal.

"Nymph of the roguish smile, which thousands seek Give me another, and another steak, A kingdom for another steak, but given By thy fair hands, that shame the snow of heaven...."

He seems to have some misgivings about conjugal felicity:--

"An owl fell desperately in love, poor soul, Sighing and hooting in his lonely hole-- A parrot, the dear object of his wishes Who in her cage enjoyed the loaves and fishes In short had all she wanted, meat and drink Was.h.i.+ng and lodging full enough I think."