Part 55

Whene’er he hunts, the Monarch is thrown out, As in his politics--a common thing! With searching eyes he stares at first about, Then faces the misfortune as a king. Hearing no news of nimble Mister Stag, He sits like Patience grinning on his nag. Thus, wisdom-fraught, his curious eye-balls ken The little hovels that around him rise: To these he trots--of hogs surveys the styes, And nicely numbers every cock and hen. Then asks the farmer’s wife or farmer’s maid, How many eggs the fowls have laid. What’s in the oven--in the pot--the crock; Whether ’twill rain or no, and what’s o’clock. Thus from poor hovels gleaning information, To serve as future treasure for the nation. There, terrier-like, till pages find him out, He pokes his most sagacious nose about; And scenes in Paradise--like that so fam’d; Looking like Adam too, and Eve so fair; Sweet simpletons! who, though so bare, Were (says the Bible) not asham’d. No man binds books so well as George the Third. By thirst of leather glory spurr’d, At bookbinders he oft is seen to laugh-- And wond’rous is the King in sheep or calf! _But see! the Prince upon such labour looks Fastidious down, and only readeth books. Here by the Sire the son is much surpast; Which fame should publish on her loudest blast!_ The King beats Monmouth-street in cast-off riches; That is, in coats, and waistcoats, and in breeches; Which, draughted once a year for foreign stations, Make fine recruits to serve some near relations. _But lo! the Prince, shame on him! never dreams Of petty Jewish, economic schemes! So very proud (I’m griev’d, O Tom, to tell it) He’d rather give a coat away than sell it!_ Fair justice to the Monarch must allow Prodigious science in a calf or cow; And wisdom in an article of swine. What most unusual knowledge for a King! Because pig-wisdom is a thing In which no Sov’reign e’er were known to shine. _Yet who will think I am not telling fibs? The Prince, who Britain’s throne in time shall grace, Ne’er finger’d, at a fair, a bullock’s ribs, Nor even ogled a pig’s face! O dire disgrace! O let it not be known That thus a Father hath excell’d a Son._

Peter Pindar spared few. Pitt he hated, because he had not bribed him; Sir Joseph Banks, Boswell--fair game--Hannah More, Bishop Porteus, who had ventured in a sermon to speak highly of Hannah; James Bruce, and many another.

To Lady Mount Edgcumbe he wrote a consolatory stanza on the death of her favourite pig.

O dry that tear, so round and big; Nor waste in sighs your precious wind! Death only takes a single Pig-- Your lord and son are still behind.

In 1793, Wolcot sold the copyright of his public works to J. Walker for an annuity of £200, and it was stipulated that any future work should be offered to the same publisher.

On this occasion he craftily overreached the publisher. When Walker made the proposition to the doctor by letter it was with an offer of an annuity of two hundred pounds. Wolcot replied by appointing the publisher to call on him, that day week. He received him in deshabille, even in his nightcap; and, from having purposely abstained from shaving for four days, together with the naturally cadaverous complexion, his appearance was unhealthy; added to which, he assumed a hollow sepulchral cough. Walker had determined not to make any advance on the sum he had named, but when the doctor was again taken with a fit of coughing he was induced to make it two hundred and fifty pounds. This Wolcot peremptorily refused, and was seized with an attack of coughing that nearly suffocated him. The publisher, thinking it impossible that he could last long, agreed to make the annuity three hundred. But some time after, Pitt having passed a Bill through both Houses to restrain such libellous writings as those of Peter Pindar, the publisher, considering that the restraint thereby imposed would militate against his profits, filed a bill in Chancery against him, and got the sum reduced to two hundred. Wolcot was furious, and vowed vengeance against Walker, which he eventually accomplished, by living nearly twenty years afterwards.

But he presently met his match, William Gifford, also a Devonshire man; in his “Anti-Jacobin,” Gifford fell upon the poet, and in a review of his life called him “his disgustful subject, the profligate reviler of his Sovereign and impious blasphemer of his God.” Peter Pindar was quite unable to stand his ground against Gifford, whose “Epistle to Peter Pindar” was savage and caustic in the extreme (1800).

Lo, here the reptile! who from some dark cell, Where all his veins in the native poison swell, Crawls forth a slimy toad, and spits and spews The crude abortions of his loathsome muse On all that genius, all that worth holds dear-- Unsullied rank, and piety sincere.

* * * * *

Lo, here the brutal sot! who drench’d with gin, Lashes his wither’d nerves to tasteless sin; Squeals out (with oaths and blasphemies between) The impious song, the tale, the jest obscene; And careless views, amidst the barbarous roar, His few grey hairs strew, one by one, the floor.

* * * * *

Oh! check, a moment check, the obstreperous din Of guilty joy, and hear the voice within; The small, still voice of Conscience, hear it cry: An atheist thou mayst live, but canst not die.

* * * * *

For me--why shouldst thou with abortive toil, Waste the poor remnant of thy spluttering oil In filth and falsehood? Ignorant and absurd! Pause from thy pains, and take my closing word; Thou canst not think, nor have I power to tell, How much I scorn and loathe thee--so--Farewell.

Wolcot was so infuriated that he sought to meet Gifford. They happened to meet in Wright’s shop in Piccadilly in the same year in which the epistle had appeared. A scuffle ensued, in which Wolcot was the aggressor, and got the worst of it. Peter retaliated with “A Cut at a Cobbler,” but it fell flat.

The Prince of Wales, that “First Gentleman in Europe,” had encouraged Peter, and is said to have had the poet’s proof sheets forwarded to him before publication. Peter had licked the Prince’s dirty boots, and hoped for his reward. But when the Prince became Regent he cooled towards the savage yet servile poet, and the indignant Peter gave vent to his feelings of disappointment and resentment in a poem in 1811, “Carlton House, or the Disappointed Bard.”

In Wolcot’s later years his sight was affected, and in May, 1811, he was almost totally blind. He still, however, continued to write and publish. Four volumes of his works had been published by Walker in 1794, a fifth was added in 1801. He died 14 January, 1819, in Somerstown, and was buried 21 January, in S. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. By his own expressed wish, his coffin was placed beside that of Samuel Butler, author of _Hudibras_.

In appearance Wolcot was “a thick, squat man, with a large dark and flat face, and no speculation in his eye.” His portrait, by Opie, is in the National Portrait Gallery, where is also a miniature of him by Lethbridge.

He was never married. Indeed, he flouted at marriage. He was a sensualist. In an “Apology for Keeping Mistresses” he wrote:--

O Love! for heaven’s sake, never leave my heart; No! thou and I will never, never part: Go, Wedlock, to the men of leaden brains, Who hate variety, and sigh for chains.

When Wolcot sought to be sentimental, he was unreal. One piece does show real tenderness of feeling, and that must be given in conclusion, to show that he had a glimmering now and then of better feelings than spite, envy, and resentment.

The old shepherd’s dog, like his master, was gray; His teeth all departed, and feeble his tongue; Yet where’er Colin went, he was follow’d by Tray. Thus happy through life did they hobble along.

When fatigued on the grass the shepherd would lie For a nap in the sun, ’midst his slumbers so sweet, His faithful companion crawl’d constantly nigh, Placed his head on his lap, and lay down at his feet.

When winter was heard on the hill and the plain, And torrents descended, and cold was the wind, If Colin went forth ’midst the tempests and rain, Tray scorned to be left in the chimney behind.

At length in the straw Tray made his last bed; For vain, against death, is the stoutest endeavour-- To lick Colin’s hand he rear’d up his weak head, Then fell back, clos’d his eyes, and, ah! clos’d them for ever.

Not long after Tray did the Shepherd remain, Who oft o’er his grave with true sorrow would bend; And, when dying, thus feebly was heard the poor swain, “Oh bury me, neighbours, beside my old friend.”

DR. J. W. BUDD

The Budd family was one of tenants under the earls of Bedford in Goodleigh, Landkey, and Swymbridge parishes. Parkham and Newton St. Petrock also contained Budds, the name occurring in the registers as far back as 1563. The name does not occur in the _Heralds’ Visitation_ of Devon as of a family possessing a right to bear arms. Nor does the name occur in Lysons’ _Devon_. A Budd was Master of Caius College in the time of James I. John Turnarine Budd lived at Tancreek, in the parish of St. Columb Minor. His father before him, the Rev. Richard Budd, was perpetual curate of St. Columb Minor, and married Gertrude, daughter of John Turnarine. He died in 1787. John Turnarine Budd was the father of Samuel Budd, educated at Truro Grammar School. Samuel settled as a doctor at North Tawton, and there brought up his nine sons, all intended by him for the medical profession. Five of them went to Cambridge, every one of whom became a Wrangler, and four obtained fellowships. The most famous of these was William Budd, born in 1811, who died in 1880. On one occasion typhoid fever broke out in North Tawton, and caused many deaths. Dr. Budd at once divined the cause; indeed, he was the first man thoroughly to trace the fever to its source, and he persisted in his urgency to have the water supply thoroughly overhauled, and, succeeding, put a stop to the fever. He published a work on typhoid fever in 1873, and proved beyond dispute how it originated, how it was communicated, and how alone it could be arrested. When the terrible rinderpest broke out in England in 1866, Budd was loud in his recommendations of “a poleaxe and a pit of quicklime” as the true solution of the difficulty, and although derided at first, this view was ultimately and successfully adopted.

Rarely has a whole family proved so able--and, what is more, proved the excellence of a home education, where the father is competent to give it. Samuel Budd, the surgeon of North Tawton, managed to teach his nine sons himself in the intervals of his professional calls; and he taught them so well that not one of his sons but made his mark in the world.

Samuel, the eldest son, was born in 1806. He was one of the seven who embraced the medical profession. He became a member of the College of Physicians in 1859. He died, aged seventy-nine, in 1885. George was born in February, 1808, and became a Fellow of the College in 1841. He died in March, 1882. Richard was born in April, 1809, became a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1863, and died in February, 1896. William has been already mentioned.

John Wreford, the subject of this memoir, was born in 1813, practised at Plymouth, and died 11 November, 1873. The other sons were Charles Octavius, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge; Dr. Christian Budd, of North Tawton; and Francis Nonus, born 1823, became eighth Wrangler in 1846, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, called to the Bar, Lincoln’s Inn, 1848, practised as barrister for many years at Bristol, bought a little property at Batworthy, Chagford, on the Teign, where he made a fine collection of flint weapons and tools found in his fields, where was once a “station” for their manufacture.

Doctor John Wreford Budd, as already said, practised in Plymouth. He was a man of rough manners, blunt and to the point in all he said. When Roundell Palmer was electioneering in Plymouth in 1847 he stayed with Budd, who was very proud of his guest. Meeting Mr. William Collier in the street, he stopped him, and without any preliminaries said: “Can your cook make soup as clear as sherry? Mine can, sir--soup like that every day, whilst Mr. Palmer was staying with me.”

Another time, when he had some friends to lunch, there was some delay. He took out his watch, placed it before him on the table, and turning to Mrs. Budd, said: “What a thing this onpunctuality is! If it be not brought to table in two minutes, I’ll dra’e it all out at the window,” spoken in the broadest Devonian dialect.

A gentleman writes: “An excellent cook came to us from the service of Dr. Budd. She was epileptic, and the Doctor’s violence increased her trouble. With us she remained for many years until age made her unfit for work. She told me that once preparations were well advanced for a dinner party, when the Doctor came down to the kitchen, as was his wont. She had been plucking a brace of pheasants, and some blood from the beaks had stained her apron. This defilement roused the Doctor to such frenzy that he seized and flung out of the window or smashed up all the prepared dishes. As the guests were due to arrive very shortly, Mrs. Budd, in a state of distraction, sent all over the town for such cold joints, sweets, etc., as could be obtained from hotels, confectioners, and other caterers. With this scratch meal she was obliged to regale her guests, without being able to explain the reason of the novelty. But some inkling of the truth came to be known or was guessed by her visitors.

“Dr. Stewart, of Plymouth, told me one day that a friend of his passing Dr. Budd’s house was startled by the sudden descent of a leg of mutton in the street, flung out of the window by the irate Doctor because either somewhat over-or underdone.

“Dr. Budd would often, when giving a dinner party, rise at the conclusion of the first courses, saying ‘I shan’t take any sweets,’ would go to the fireside and fill a long ‘churchwarden’ clay, then, leaning against the mantelpiece, calmly smoke and join in the conversation of the guests as they continued at table.

“He was a tall, heavily-built man, with a full, high-coloured face, not intellectual in appearance, and with warm brown hair and side whiskers.”

He was out shooting one day with Mr. Calmady. A pheasant rose, and both men raised their guns, and the bird came down like lead.

“That’s my burd,” shouted Budd.

“I really think not; I am sure I brought it down,” said Mr. Calmady.

“It’s my burd, I zay. I’ll swear to it. Never missed in my life, any more than blundered in my profession. It’s mine.”

“Very well. Yours it shall be.”

Up rose another pheasant. Each hastened to load, when it turned out that the Doctor’s gun had not been discharged at all.

A gentleman writes me: “My mother remembers travelling by train in the same carriage with the Doctor. Two other men also got in; and one, who may have been the worse for liquor, began grossly to insult the other; whereupon the Doctor interfered and took the part of the insulted man. ‘What business is this of yours?’ shouted the offender. At this moment the train drew up in the Plymouth station. Dr. Budd jumped out, turned up his sleeves, squared his fists, and shouted, ‘Now then, you blackguard, I’ll show you what I have to do with it,’ and knocked him down on the platform.”

A friend took Budd out in his yacht. As the vessel skimmed through the smooth waters of the Sound--“He’s a fool, a cursed fool,” said Budd, “he who has the means and don’t keep a yacht.”

Presently the boat shot out beyond the breakwater, and began to pitch. Budd turned livid, and his lips leaden. “He’s a fool, a cursed fool,” said he, after he had stooped over the side, “he who, having the means, keeps a yacht; and he’s a cursed fool who, having a friend that has a yacht, allows himself to be over-persuaded to go out with him.”

Mrs. Calmady was in a very poor way. The doctors had bled her and allowed her only slops, and the poor lady was reduced to death’s door. As a last resource Dr. Budd was called in. “Chuck the slops away, and chuck the doctors after them, with their pills and lancets,” roared Budd. “Give her three or four glasses of champagne a day, a bowl of beef-tea every three hours, beefsteaks, mutton-chops, and oysters.”

In fact, Dr. J. W. Budd broke through the wretched system that prevailed of bleeding and giving lowering diet for every kind of malady, which was the Sangrado system of the day.

A girl was shown to him in a sort of box, almost like a coffin. He had been called in to examine her, and he said that he would undertake to cure her if she were taken to his house and his treatment were not interfered with.

“But, oh! Doctor,” said the mother, “dearest Evangeline can eat nothing but macaroons.”

“In--deed!”

“And, oh! Doctor, she cannot bear the light; and the shutters have to be kept fast, and even the blinds down. The least ray of light causes her excruciating pain.”

“Ha! Humph!”

“And, Doctor Budd, she cannot stand; she lies always in that box; and, what is more, she can’t speak, only moans and mutters.”

“I understand. Send her to me.”

So the box was brought. To accommodate it a hearse was hired--no cab or carriage would contain it in a horizontal position.

The chest with the hysterical girl in it was carried into one of Budd’s rooms in his house, where the shutters were closed and the curtains drawn.

The weeping mother departed after giving strict injunctions to the Doctor not to allow any noise to be made in the house, no doors to be slammed, or poor darling Evangeline would go into convulsions--so highly strung were her sensitive nerves.

“Humph!” said Budd, and saw the good lady depart. He allowed ten minutes to elapse, and then he went upstairs, stamping on each step, threw open the door of the room in which his patient lay, and shouted--

“Halloo! What tomfoolery is this? I’ll soon make an end to it.” He went to the window, drew back the curtains, threw open the shutters, and let the sun stream into the apartment.

The girl began to moan and cry.

“Stop that nonsense!” said he. “I’m not like that fool of a mother of yours to believe in your whims. Get out of that box this instant.”

The girl began to tremble, but made no attempt to obey.

Budd went to a drawer and pulled out a pistol. Then to a cupboard and emptied a draught into a glass.

“Now, then,” said he, “which shall it be, pistol or poison? I’ll gripe you with the dose till you squeal with good reason, or put a bullet into you--whichever you prefer. It’s all one to me, but out of that box you jump.”

And jump she did, and fell on her knees before Dr. Budd.

“Oh! please, please, do not kill me!”

“I am not going to kill you if you do what you are told. Sit down there,” indicating a chair.

The girl complied. He rang the bell, and when a servant appeared he ordered a beefsteak and a small bottle of porter and bread. These were speedily brought into the room.

“Now, then,” said the Doctor, “eat and drink and enjoy yourself.”

“I--I--I can only eat macaroons.”

“Macaroons be d---- d. You eat that steak and you drink that porter,” roared Budd, “or”--and he proceeded to cock and present the pistol.

The girl tremblingly obeyed, but presently became interested in the succulent beef and some crisp potatoes, and the porter she sipped first, and then drank, and drained the tumbler.

“That will do for to-day,” said Budd. “I have sent for your out-of-door clothes, and to-morrow morning you shall trundle a hoop round Princess Square. Now I leave you a packet of illustrated books. You dine with me this evening at seven.”

Another hysterical girl he dealt with and cured even more expeditiously. He was shown into the room where she lay in bed, and was informed that she could not rise. The Doctor begged to be left alone in the room with her.

When all were gone forth, he locked the door; then proceeded to divest himself of his coat, next of his waistcoat, and when he began to unhitch his braces--

“Now, then, make room--I’m coming to bed!”

“Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” screamed the girl, and pulled violently at the bell.

“All right, madam,” said Budd when the mother arrived on the spot; “she’s cured now. Get this little maid up instantly, and vacate the bed for me. If there be any more nonsense, madam, send for me.”

A small girl had a tiresome nervous cough. Dr. Budd was called in. He heard her cough. Then he suddenly took her up in his arms and planted her on the mantelshelf.

“There!” said he. “Balance yourself here for half an hour.” He pulled out his watch. “If you cough you will infallibly tumble over among the fire-irons and cut your head. You are a nice little girl, you are an active little girl, you are a pretty little girl; but you have one cussed fault which makes every one hate you, and I’m going to cure you of that. No coughing. The fire is burning, and if you do fall I suspect your skirts will catch fire, and you will be frightfully burnt, besides having your cheek cut open by the fender.”

A young lady was one day brought to the Doctor by her parents, who were very anxious about her, as she was in a depressed condition of mind, out of which nothing roused her. Budd promised to give every attention to the case, and requested the parents to leave her with him at his residence in Princess Place. Soon afterwards he bade his coachman put to and take the young lady out for a drive. “And mind,” said the Doctor, “you upset the carriage.”

His orders were obeyed. The landau was upset in a ditch, and the young lady appeared screaming at the window to be extricated. “No more apathy now,” said Budd; and sent her home cured.

Budd, with all his roughness, was a kind-hearted and liberal man. His surgery was at the “Cottage,” in Westwell Street, and thousands streamed there every year full of implicit faith in Budd’s powers. A child was one day brought to the “Cottage,” a puny little sufferer. The Doctor, with his quick eye, saw that the case was critical; and although this was a free patient, he immediately had it sent to his own home in Princess Square, with strict orders that it was to be well fed and cared for; and it remained there for several days under his care without fee or reward.

A tradesman in Plymouth, living not long ago and in good circumstances, was at that time a man of straitened means. He was attacked by Asiatic cholera. Dr. Budd was called in, and saw that the case was severe and required every care; and he attended morning, noon, and night--on some days almost hourly--for a fortnight or three weeks, and at last the patient was cured. Then, with trembling lips, he asked Dr. Budd for his bill, thinking he would have to pay thirty or forty pounds. The Doctor replied: “You are a struggling tradesman, and cannot afford to pay much; if you cannot rake together five pounds, pay me what you can.”

A girl suffering from S. Vitus’s dance was brought to him. He looked hard at her. “Humph! Every time you make one of those jerks, I’ll force you to kiss me,” said the Doctor. This succeeded--for, according to the general opinion, Dr. Budd was “mortal ugly.”