Part 36

"Ye Diamond Queen Was one day seen So drunk she could not stand; Ye Diamond Knave He blushed, and gave Ye Queen a reprimand. Ye King, distrest That his dearest Should do so vile a thing, Says, 'By my wig She's like ye pig Of David, ye good king.'

"Ye Queen of Clubs Made syllabubs; Ye Knave came like Big Ben, He snatched the cup And drank it up-- His toast was, 'Rights of men.' With hands and eyes That marked surprise Ye King laments his fate: 'Alas!' says he, 'I plainly see Ye Knave's a Democrate.'"

Mr. Canning used habitually to designate the selfish and officious Duke of Buckingham as the "Ph.D.," an abbreviation which was understood to mean "the fat Duke." That bulky potentate had cautioned him on the eve of his expected voyage to India, against the frigate in which he was to sail, on the ground that she was too low in the water. "I am much obliged to you," he replies to Lord Morley, "for your report of the Duke of Buckingham's caution respecting the _Jupiter_. Could you have the experiments made _without_ the Duke of Buckingham on board? as that _might_ make a difference."

In a letter to Lord Granville, at a time when Prince Metternich was expected in Paris, he says, "You ask me what you shall say to Metternich. In the first place, you shall hear what I think of him; that he is the greatest r---- and l---- on the Continent, perhaps in the civilized world!"

Almost all the brilliant exceptions to the average trash of the _Anti-Jacobin_ appear to belong to Canning; though, if the authority of the most recent editor may be trusted, the best stanza of the best poem was added to the original manuscript by Pitt.

"Sun, moon, and thou, vile world, adieu! Which kings and priests are plotting in; Here doomed to starve on water gru- el, I no more shall see the U- niversity of Gottingen."

Canning's _Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder_ is well remembered as witty ridicule of the youthful Jacobin effusions of Southey, in which it was sedulously inculcated that there was a natural and eternal warfare between the poor and the rich; the Sapphic lines of Southey affording a tempting subject for ludicrous parody:--

"_Friend of Humanity._ "Needy Knife-grinder? whither art thou going? Rough is your road--your wheel is out of order. Bleak blows the blast--your hat has got a hole in't! So have your breeches!

"Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, 'Knives and Scissors to grind O!'

"Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire, or parson of the parish, Or the attorney?

"Was it the squire, for killing of his game, or Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining? Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little All in a lawsuit?

"(Have you not read the _Rights of Man_, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall, as soon as you have told Your pitiful story.

"_Knife-grinder._ "Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir. Only last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle.

"Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish Stocks for a vagrant.

"I should be glad to drink your honour's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part I never love to meddle With politics, sir.

"_Friend of Humanity._ "I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d----d first-- Wretch, whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance-- Sordid, unfeeling reprobate; degraded, Spiritless outcast!

[_Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._]

Again, the atrocious exaltation of the contemporary poet in the murder of Jean Bon St. André is still delightfully contagious:--

"'Twould have moved a Christian's bowels To hear the doubts he stated; But the Moors they did as they were bid, And strangled him while he prated."

The exquisite polish of the _Loves of the Triangles_ is enjoyed, while Darwin's grave absurdities are only remembered in Miss Edgeworth's admiring quotations, or by Lord Brougham's fidelity to the literary prepossessions of his youth. It is remarkable that an author who in literature can only be considered as an amateur, should have possessed that rare accomplishment of style which is the first condition of durable reputation. The humour of Canning's more ephemeral lampoons, as they exist in oral tradition, seems to have been not less admirable. When Mr. Whitbread said, or was supposed to say, in the House of Commons, that a certain day was memorable to him as the anniversary both of the establishment of his brewery and of the death of his father, the metrical version of his speech placed his sentiments in a more permanent form:--

"This day I will hail with a smile and a sigh, For his beer with an _e_, and his bier with an _i_."

Some of the diplomatic documents which have been published tend to justify the common opinion that Mr. Canning was liable to be misled by his facility of composition and his love of epigram. On one occasion, he wrote to Lord Granville, that he had forgotten to answer "the impudent request of the Pope," for protection to his subjects against the Algerine corsairs. He replies, with more point than relevancy, "Why does not the Pope prohibit the African Slave Trade? It is carried on wholly by Roman Catholic powers, and by those among them who acknowledge most subserviently the power and authority of the court of Rome.... Tell my friend Macchi, that so long as any power whom the Pope can control, and does not, sends a slave-ship to Southern Africa, I have not the audacity to propose to Northern Africans to abstain from cruising for Roman domestics--indeed, I think them justified in doing so." In a private conversation or a friendly letter, the fallacy of the _tu quoque_ would have been forgotten in the appropriateness of the repartee; but in a question of serious business, the argument was absurd, and a diplomatic communication ought never to be insulting. There might be little practical danger in affronting the Pope; but Mr. Canning himself would have admitted, on reflection, that his witticism could by no possibility conduce to the suppression of the Slave Trade.

Here is a more playful instance of humorous correspondence. When Mr. Canning was forming his ministry, he offered Lord Lyndhurst the Chancellorship, though he had recently attacked the new Premier in a speech which was said to be borrowed from a hostile pamphlet, written by Dr. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter. Canning offered Lord Lyndhurst the seals in a letter expressive of his goodwill, "_pace Philpotti_;" and the answer of acceptance was signed, "Yours ever, except for twenty-four hours."

Mr. Canning had a faithful college servant, who became much attached to him. Francis, for such was his name, was always distinguished by his blunt honesty and his familiarity with his master. During his master's early political career, Francis continued to live with him. Mr. Canning, whose love of fun was innate, used sometimes to play off his servant's bluntness upon his right honourable friends. One of these, whose honours did not sit very easily upon him, had forgotten Francis, though often indebted to his kind offices at Oxford. Francis complained to Mr. Canning that Mr. W. did not speak to him. "Pooh!" said Mr. Canning, "it is all your fault; you should speak first: he thinks you proud. He dines here to-day--go up to him in the drawing-room, and congratulate him upon the post he has just got." Francis was obedient. Surrounded by a splendid ministerial circle, Francis advanced to the distinguished statesman, with "How d'ye do, Mr. W. I hope you're very well--I wish you joy of your luck, and hope your place will turn out a good thing." The roar of course was universal. The same Francis afterwards obtained a comfortable berth in the Customs, through his kind master's interest. He was a stanch Tory. During Queen Caroline's trial, he met Mr. Canning in the street. "Well Francis, how are you?" said the statesman, who had just resigned his office, holding out his hand. "It is not well, Mr. Canning," replied Francis, refusing the pledge of friendship--"It is not well, Mr. Canning, that you should say anything in favour of that ----." "But, Francis, political differences should not separate old friends--give me your hand." The sturdy politician at length consented to honour the ex-minister with a shake of forgiveness. It is said that Mr. Canning did not forget him when he returned to power.

Canning and Lord Eldon were, in many respects, "wide as the Poles asunder," although they were in the same administration. Mr. Stapleton, in his _George Canning and his Times_, publishes a curious letter written in 1826 to Lord Eldon, who exhibited his unconcealed dislike to his brilliant and liberal colleague by steadily refusing to place any part of his vast patronage at his disposal. Complying with the importunity of Mr. Martin, of Galway, Mr. Canning formally transmitted a letter of application, reminding the Chancellor at the same time that in twenty-five years he had made four requests for appointments; "with one of which your lordship had the goodness to comply." The letter was placed in the private secretary (Mr. Stapleton's) hands, with directions to copy it and forward it immediately; but knowing the state of parties in the cabinet, and seeing that the letter had been written under the influence of irritation, Mr. Stapleton undertook the responsibility of keeping it back. A few hours afterwards, Mr. Stapleton said to Mr. Canning, "I have not sent your letter to old Eldon." "Not sent it," he angrily inquired; "and pray why not?" Mr. Stapleton replied, "Because I am sure that you ought to read it over again before you send it." "What do you mean?" Mr. Canning sharply replied. "Go and get it." Mr. Stapleton did as he was bid; Mr. Canning read it over, and then a smile of good-humour came over his countenance. "Well," he said, "you are a good boy. You are quite right; don't send it. I will write another."

When his obstinate old enemy stood beside him at the Duke of York's funeral, in St. George's Chapel, Mr. Canning became uneasy at seeing the old man standing on the cold, bare pavement. Perhaps he was more uneasy because he knew he was unfriendly; so to prevent the cold damp of the stones from striking though his shoes, he made him lay down his cocked hat, and stand upon it; and when at last he got weary of so much standing, he put him in a niche of carved wood-work, where he was just able to stand upon wood. Unfortunately, although the tough old Chancellor was saved by his constitution and his hat, Mr. Canning's health received, through the exposure to cold, a shock from which he never recovered. A few days afterwards he paid a last visit to Lord Liverpool, at Bath, and on the plea of entertaining Mr. Stapleton, as a young man, with the stories of their early years, they went on amusing each other by recounting all sorts of fun and adventure, which were evidently quite as entertaining to the old as to the young. The picture of the two time-worn ministers laughing over the scenes of their youth must have been a treat.

Sydney Smith ludicrously compared Canning in office to a fly in amber:--"Nobody cares about the fly; the only question is--How the devil did it get there? Nor do I attack him," continues Sydney, "from the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province. When he is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like Samson in a wig. Call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest metre, I do most readily admit. After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for the last half-century." Lord Brougham, however, asserts that Mr. Canning was not, by choice a diner-out.

Canning said of Grattan's eloquence that, for the last two years, his public exhibitions were a complete failure, and that you saw all the mechanism of his oratory without its life. It was like lifting the flap of a barrel-organ, and seeing the wheels; you saw the skeleton of his sentences without the flesh on them; and were induced to think that what you had considered flashes, were merely primings kept ready for the occasion.

Lord Byron, in his _Age of Bronze_, thus characterises Canning:--

"Something may remain, perchance, to chime With reason; and, what's stranger still, with rhyme. Even this thy genius, Canning! may permit, Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit, And never, even in that dull house could tame To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame. Our last, our best, our only orator, Even I can praise thee--Tories do no more. Nay, not so much; they hate thee, man, because Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes!"

Peter Pindar.--Dr. Wolcot.

This sarcastic versifier was a native of Devonshire, born about the year 1738. His father was a substantial yeoman, and sent him to Kingsbridge Free School; and after his father's death, young Wolcot was removed to the Grammar School at Bodmin. He is described as a clumsy, but arch-looking boy. He, at this early period, showed a degree of quickness in repartee and sarcastic jokes, which was the first dawning of that satiric humour which he afterwards displayed. He was not remarkable at school for anything so much as negligence of his dress and person. 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, whose apprentice he became for seven years. He completed his medical education in London, and applied himself with sufficient diligence to obtain a knowledge of his future profession; but he much annoyed his uncle and two aunts by cultivating his talents for versifying and painting. Some of his chalk drawings have been preserved, and are remarkable for their peculiarity. When seen near the eye, they seem to be composed only of random scratches and masses of black chalk, of different densities and depths, with here and there a streak and blot of white, and others of red. There does not appear to be any defined objects, such as a tree, house, figure, &c.; but when viewed as a whole, at a distance hanging on the wall of the room, each of them appears to be a landscape representing morning and evening, in which the dark and light of the sky, and the foreground, hills, trees, towers, &c., could be made out by the fancy, in the smallest space of time allowed for the imagination to come into play; and then the effect is surprisingly good. Wolcot became fond of art, eminently critical and learned in its elements, sketched many favourite places in Devonshire and Cornwall, and dabbled occasionally in oils.

He settled in London, obtained a Scotch diploma of M.D., and began to practise as a physician. In 1767, Sir William Trelawney was appointed Governor of Jamaica, and Wolcot, who had some connection with the family, accompanied him to that island as his physician, and he was appointed Physician-General. The Governor's regard for his lively medical friend was so great, that he intended to procure his appointment as Governor of the Mosquito territory; but the retirement from office of his best friend, Lord Shelburne, prevented its accomplishment.

Wolcot's practice in Jamaica was not extensive; the whites were not numerous, and the coloured could not pay. Governor Trelawney, however, thinking he could promote Wolcot's interest more effectually by his patronage in the Church, having then a valuable living in his gift likely to become vacant by the severe illness of the incumbent, he recommended his client to return to England, enter holy orders, and return and take possession. Although the Governor had no very sublime ideas of priesthood, it was the only way he had of serving the wit. "Away, then," he said, "to England, get yourself japanned. But remember not to return with the hypocritical solemnity of a priest. I have just bestowed a good living on a parson, who believes not all he preaches, and what he really believes he is afraid to preach. You may very conscientiously declare," said the _conscientious_ Governor to his admiring pupil, "that you have an internal call, as the same expression will equally suit a hungry stomach and the soul." Having accomplished this praiseworthy object, the rev. (M.D.) doctor returned to his patron for induction; but "between the cup and the lip there is many a slip," for the ailing incumbent, whose _living_ the doctor sought, became convalescent, proved a very incumbrance in his path, and the japanned _medico_ was fain to take up with the living of Vere, a congregation exclusively of blacks, which he handed over to a curate, his real employment being master of ceremonies to the Governor. On his death, Wolcot returned to England with Lady Trelawney; and to carry on the metaphor, the black lobster was boiled, and came out in scarlet and gold.--(_Notes and Queries_, 2nd Series, vol. vii. pp. 381-383.)

The next twelve years of Wolcot's life were spent in attempting to establish himself as a physician in Cornwall, in which he failed, apparently on account of his invincible propensity to live as a practical humorist, and satirize his neighbours. He humorously tells us that the clinking of the bell-metal pestle and mortar seemed to him to say, "Kill 'em again, kill 'em again," and so frightened him from the 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 composition in that peculiar style which not long after obtained for him such a high and continued popularity--_The Epistle to the Reviewers_. At Truro, Wolcot discovered the genius of the self-taught artist, Opie, and with him came to London in 1780, they agreeing to share the joint profits of their adventure for one year. They did so for that term, when Opie told Wolcot he might return to the country, as he could now do for himself. Wolcot appears not to have contributed anything to the joint profits. There was now a split between the poet and the brushman. Opie would not, for he could not, praise Wolcot's sketches and paintings. "I tell ee, ye can't paint," said the blunt and honest Opie; "stick to the pen." This advice was too much for "the distant relation of the Poet of Thebes" to receive from "a painting ape," and the feud was never healed. The Doctor scarified and lanced, but Opie, in a more quiet way, was quite a match for the satirist, who, as he said:--

"Sons of the brush, I'm here again, At times a _Pindar_, a _Fontaine_, Casting poetic pearl (I fear) to swine."

Wolcot was the friend and pupil of Wilson, our great landscape painter, whose style he used to imitate not unsuccessfully. In his addenda to Pilkington's _Dictionary of Painters_, he pays due honour to the memory of his old friend, Wilson.

Wolcot now betook himself to his pen for support. His satirical and artistic tastes suggested 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 Royal Academy," which took the town by surprise, by the reckless daring of their personalities and quaintness of style. Thus he flayed the R.A.'s--from West to Dance, and from Chambers to Wyatt--not forgetting their Royal patron, King George III. In Ode III. of the second series, entitled _More Odes to the Royal Academicians_, after complaining that Gainsborough had kicked Dame Nature out of doors, he turns from the picture he censures to another, and exclaims:--

"Speak, Muse, who form'd that matchless head? The Cornish boy,[43] in tin-mines bred; Whose native genius, like his diamonds, shone In secret, till chance brought him to the sun.[44] 'Tis Jackson's portrait--put the laurel on it, Whilst to that tuneful swan I pour a sonnet."

[43] Opie.

[44] Peter here meant himself, which is in part true.

Peter then drops the lash, resumes his neglected lyre, and pours out a sonnet to "Jackson of Exeter," worthy of the twain--the "enchanting harmonist and the lyric bard."

Peter's poems were very dear to the purchaser, being printed in thin quarto pamphlets, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each, and very little letter-press for the money. After the Royal Academicians, Peter attacked King George III. In 1785, Wolcot produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786, he published the _Lousiad, a Heroic Comic Poem_, founded on the fact that an obnoxious insect (either of the garden or the body) had been discovered on the King's plate of some green peas, which produced a solemn decree that all the servants in the Royal kitchen were to have their heads shaved. In the hands of an unscrupulous satirist, like Wolcot, this ridiculous incident was a stinging theme. He also mercilessly quizzed Boswell, the biographer of Johnson. Sir Joseph Banks was another subject of his satire:--

"A President, on butterflies profound, Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises, Went on a day to catch the game profound, On violets, dunghills, violet-tops, and daisies," &c.

From 1778 to 1808, above sixty of these political pamphlets were issued by Wolcot. So formidable was he considered, that the Ministry, as he alleged, endeavoured to bribe him to silence; he also boasted that his writings had been translated into six different languages. His ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature sketch of Dr. Johnson's style.

"I own I like not Johnson's turgid style, That gives an inch the importance of a mile; Casts of manure a wagon-load around, To raise a simple daisy from the ground. Uplifts the club of Hercules--for what? To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat! Creates a whirlwind from the earth, to draw A goose's feather, or exalt a straw! Sets wheels on wheels in motion--such a clatter, To force up one poor nipperkin of water! Bids ocean labour with tremendous roar, To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore; Alike in every theme his pompous art, Heaven's awful thunder or a rumbling cart."