| 262 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
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He could distinguish and divide
A hair ’twixt south and south-west side;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
He’d undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a Man no Horse.
He’d prove a Buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an Owl;
A Calf an Alderman—a Goose a Justice,
And Rooks Committee-men and Trustees.
All this, by syllogism, true
In mood and figure, he would do!!
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As my remarks on Peter Pindar, and the anecdote respecting his pension, which I related on the high and I should say unquestionable authority of the late Lord Farnborough, in my first volume, have excited some controversy, a few pages devoted to the clearing up of that affair, and establishing the character which I am so anxious my work should have for accuracy, will not be out of place here. A writer in the “Athenæum” having pertly impeached the veracity of the account, though the attack was hardly worth notice, I addressed the editor of that journal, who immediately inserted my letter, as follows:—
| PETER PINDAR. | 263 |
“Under this head, a correspondent in your last number has commented on the anecdote respecting Peter Pindar in my first volume of literary memoirs. Will you permit me to offer a few words in reply? I did not say, as ‘Young Mortality’ has put it into my mouth, that ‘Peter Pindar was a great rascal:’—nor did I allege that ‘he taught the public to believe that George the Good was a simpleton or a fool, only because the Government refused to avail themselves of his services, or, in other words, to give him a bribe.’ These words are his,—not mine. I merely related what I heard from a most honourable and distinguished man, whose letter on the subject to me I quoted, and which stated that Peter’s representative had offered support to the Government for a consideration, and that Peter claimed that consideration for being silent and desisting from his caricatures of the King. For aught else, I have nothing to state. Your correspondent’s suppositions and reasoning may safely be left to themselves; and his avoidance of any answer to the notorious, and not more creditable, ruse which Peter played upon the publishers,—and which I related on the authority of living parties,—may, I presume, settle this controversy. Will you permit me only to add, that I have undertaken my Autobiography in anticipation of a posthumous date, principally in order that anything which I state that is doubtful might be questioned, and anything erroneous contradicted whilst yet there are witnesses of the highest character in being who can vouch for my statements, however startling some of them may appear! Truth as regards myself and others is my sole object.
| 264 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
A much more respectable doubter of my statements, however, appeared in the same paper; and my old friend and fellow labourer in literature, Mr. Cyrus Redding (one of the earliest contributors to the “Literary Gazette” in prose and verse), attached his signature to the annexed letter:—
“In your number of the 8th instant some anecdotes
respecting Peter Pindar (Dr.
Wolcot) are extracted from the Autobiography of Mr. Jerdan. A
previous knowledge of the Doctor by my family induced me, when I came a youth
to London, to visit him. From the close of 1805, down to the time of his death
in 1819, I spent an evening weekly when I was in London at his house. I
remember his sisters also, who were alive in 1813. Mr.
Jerdan is not correct in his statements. The facts of his
alleged trick on the publishers are these:—Wolcot’s
works having a prodigious sale, Walker
the bookseller was deputed by some of the trade to offer the Doctor a sum of
money, or an annuity, for the copyright of them all. The Doctor chose the
annuity of 250l. He had suffered all his life from
asthma, but less in his latter years than before. A fit was on him on the day
when Walker called about the business,—and the
bibliopolist went away, and told (I think) his wife, that the Doctor could not
live long, and it might soon be too late to conclude the bargain. The Doctor
heard of this, and when Walker came with the draft of the
document, he coughed ‘double time,’ on purpose to play off the joke
upon him,—and the bookseller naturally hurried through the business. The Doctor
used to repeat the anecdote as a good joke against the booksellers. He was not
in a ‘dying condition.’ He never ‘wiped the chalk off his
face,’ which, with his mahogany complexion, chalk would hardly have
whitened,—
| PETER PINDAR. | 265 |
| 266 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
| PETER PINDAR. | 267 |
“‘To draw of deep astronomers the ken, The Georgium Sidus of the sons of men.’
|
| 268 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Mr. Redding’s version of the trick played off upon the publishers, by which Wolcot got and enjoyed for many years an annuity of 250l., differs only in a few unimportant details of colouring from mine. The Doctor thought it a good joke, and so it was for him; but the bibliopolists thought it a swindle; and whether he only coughed double time, or chalked his face, and pretended by other symptoms to be in a dying state (I didn’t say that he was really so, but the reverse), is of no consequence whatever to the truth of the allegation.
With regard to the pension, the story of which Mr. Redding had “from his own lips,” I must say that I place greater confidence in the statement of Lord Farnborough, who had no private or personal interest in the business, than I repose in the version of the Coughing Doctor.
With regard to the circumstantial evidence about the King—that as Pindar
came to town in 1782, and his Majesty’s first illness occurred in 1809, and the
second in 1811, after which he wrote little or nothing worth mentioning, his attacks could
not be desired to be silenced in order to prevent annoyance to the King and royal
family—whether Peter was more bitter against the Ministry than against
the King matters little, seeing that he was bitter enough against the latter to lampoon and
ridicule him in every possible way, and even to dedicate a whole volume, viz., the
mock-heroic poem of the “Lousiad,” in four cantos, to that especial object. His hostility to the
sovereign was imputed, I know not how truly, to some slight he fancied had been offered to
his protégé Opie, with whom he soon after fiercely quarrelled and violently abused, which
the artist returned by caricaturing him as a parsimonious bear, saving fuel by putting
lumps of dried Thames mud upon his fire. I do not therefore see any inconsistency in the
| PETER PINDAR. | 269 |
In the poem entitled “Peter’s Pension, a Solemn Epistle to a Sublime Personage,” it is somewhat curious that, between jest and earnest, he coquettes with the subject, and intimates his willingness to be pensioned. Whether the Treasury spoke upon this hint, I cannot tell, but I think it very likely that it did: and in this sense, and by this method, the poet absolutely did offer himself to be treated with by the government, which received the inuendo exactly in the manner it was meant—being more than met the ear.
The story of Mr. Yorke coming with the quarterly pension then due is so utterly incredible that I am surprised a gentleman of Mr. Redding’s experience could repeat it. I believe that he did receive and keep two quarters’ salary, and that it was the third quarter he rejected from Lord Farnborough (then Mr. Long), when, as he alleged, he was asked to lend his active co-operation to Ministers. At least he told the anecdote in this way to others, though he got up a more striking version for Mr. Redding.
But even according to his defender, although he said he would be d—d
rather than be a prostitute, I cannot so clearly perceive the vast difference between
selling your silence (“muzzling his muse” as he
expressed it) and writing for hire. The man who would consent to the one could hardly be so
indignant at being asked for his sweet voice for the other. On the whole, I trust I have
sustained the accuracy of my story; and when I remember the honourable and immaculate
character of the amiable and
| 270 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
|
But what is he, that, with a Mohawk’s air,
“Cries Havoc, and lets slip the dogs of war?”
A bloated mass, a gross, blood-battered clod,—
A foe to man, a renegade to God;
From noxious childhood, to pernicious age,
Separate to infamy in every stage.
Cornwall remembers yet his first employ,
And, shuddering, tells with what infernal joy
His little tongue in blasphemies was loosed,
His little hands in deeds of horror used;
While mangled insects strewed his cradle o’er,
And limbs of birds distained his bib with gore.
Anon, on stronger animals he flew,
For with his growth his savage passions grew;
And oft, what time his violence fail’d to kill,
He mix’d the insidious dose with wicked skill;
Saw, with wild joy, in pangs till then untried,
Cats—dogs—expire, and cursed them as they died.*
|
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* Wolcot was brought up as a surgeon. |
| PETER PINDAR. | 271 |
|
With riper years a different scene began,
And his hate turn’d from animals to man:
Then, letters—libels—flew on secret wings,
And wide around infixed their venom’d stings.
All fear’d, where none could ward the coming blow,
And each man eyed his neighbour as his foe;
Till, dragg’d to-day, the lurking caitiff stood—
The accursed cause of many a fatal feud—
And begg’d for mercy in so sad a strain,
So wept, so trembled, that the injured train—
Who, crawling at their feet, a miscreant saw,
Too mean for punishment, too poor for law—
O’erlook’d (’twas all they could) his numerous crimes,
And shipp’d him off “to ape and monkey climes.”*
|
|
There, while the negroes viewed, with strong disgust,
This prodigy of drunkenness and lust
Explore the darkest cells, the dirtiest styes,
And roll in filth at which their gorge would rise,
He play’d one master-trick to crown the whole,
And took, oh Heavens, the sacerdotal stole!
How shook the altar when he first drew near,
Hot from debauch, and with a shameless leer,
Pour’d stammering forth the yet unhallow’d prayers,
Mix’d with convulsive sobs and noisome airs!
Then rose the people, passive now no more,
And from his limbs the sacred vestments tore;
Dragged him with groans, shouts, hisses, to the main,
And sent him to annoy these realms again.†
|
|
False fugitive! back to thy vomit flee!
Troll the lascivious song, the fulsome glee;
Truck praise for lust, hunt infant genius down,
Strip modest merit of its last half-crown;
Blow from thy mildewed lips, on Virtue blow,
And blight the goodness thou canst never know.
|
|
Lo, here the wrinkled profligate! who stands
On nature’s verge, and, from his lep’rous hands,
Shakes tainted verse; who bids us, with the price
Of ranc’rous falsehoods, pander to his vice.
Give him to live the future as the past,
And in pollution wallow to the last!
|
| 272 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
I have mentioned the kindly interest taken by Lord Buchan at my outset with the “Gazette,” and his introduction of it, and its editor, to the notice of M. Millin and other French literati and savans. His Lordship was a remarkable character, and, like all the noble race of Erskine whom I have known, had a dash of that peculiar eccentricity about him which is not only allied to genius, but to the blood of certain Scottish families, from generation to generation. In my boyhood I had been a spectator of an anniversary meeting of the gentry around, founded by his Lordship to do honour to the memory of the Poet of the Seasons. It was held at Ednam, his birth-place, and in a small cottage on the Eden, much frequented by anglers, who, like myself, delighted in the sylvan beauties and admirable trout of that pastoral stream, which, from childhood to manhood, was my favourite haunt. I had my bluff and hearty uncle there too, and a few lively female cousins, who had often as young and fair and lively friends with them. I presume that they added to the attractions of the water, and the scenery, and the fish; and I beg it to be remarked, that such combinations are very seductive to youthful fishers. And then they were so good-natured: I have shot to them alone, during half a hot September day, and never was better pleased with any pointers, however well broken-in (which they were not) and stanch, which they were, though not particularly steady. By the by, I have been writing a great deal about poets in my later pages, but I am not aware that it ever occurred to any of them to paint the difference between loves in the country
coarsely, and speak most irreverently and profanely on religious subjects: as, for instance, it was told of him, in his curacy at Vere, that he would jocularly say that he offered up prayers to the Holy Trinity in the morning, and amused himself by shooting at the Holy Ghost (wood-pigeons, so called in the West Indies) in the afternoon. |
| LOVE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. | 273 |
“All the young maidens were blackbirds and thrushes, Oh, would not the young men go beating the bushes?” |
But turn to the dismal town: what has love to do there? What lane would
you wish to meet your sweetheart in (though there are Love Lanes, and a Little Love Lane,
besides a Lad Lane, in the City)? What street, from Wapping to Cheapside? What square;
Blooms-bury or Soho? Near what hospital; Bethlem or the Penitentiary? Under what tree; the
one in Wood Street, or the other in St. Paul’s Churchyard “as used to
be”? By what church, except St. Bride, Cripplegate, or St. Sepulchre? In what garden;
the Beastly Surrey, or the Brutal Zoological? In what field, Spital or Moor? Among what
hay; Hay Hill or the Haymarket? At what corner; Hyde Park or Amen? Alas! it is all the
same; the pastoral country is for loves, the city for such loves as business affords
leisure for, and those but queer? Then, as for the congenial sounds, you have insect life
enough to
| 274 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
It was here that the Earl of Buchan set up his tent for the Thomson anniversaries; and they were really most interesting; they made me, a young boy, who had nothing more to do than to hear about them, and see my father and others going to them, a student of the poet, and his cordial admirer through life, even to throw (as in my vol. i. Appendix) some light upon his memory.
| PETER PINDAR. | 275 |
As having viewed most things with literary tastes, appetites, and habits, I would pause here for a momentary commonplace, which cannot, however, be too often urged upon the consideration of teachers and parents. The effect upon children and youth, observant of every word, look, and motion of those to whom they look up from affection or custom, is the grand rule and principle to be thought of in education. “Without attention to this, all precepts and preachings and punishments are of small avail; and the easy overleaping of trouble, by bribing with rewards for conduct which ought to be good without, or hypocrisy taught to simulate deserving, is of all subterfuges the worst. The impressions stamped upon juvenile years are immortal; a mere trifle makes a future gentleman or a blackguard, an intellectual being or an ignorant ruffian, an honour or a pest to society and human nature! Apparently trifling incidents give a colour to a life; we cannot be fully and prophetically aware of the consequences, nor would they always follow if we were; but I have witnessed such dominant and lasting results flow from such matters as the Thomson anniversary, a school examination, or a mere conversation at a father’s table, that I would just like to leave my idea on the world, that—except one thing, a fine moral and religious up-bringing—there is nothing on this earth which merits more sedulous study than the force of actual example upon the future direction of the youthful mind and conduct. It is this which makes the mother’s first teaching so imperishable.
But Lord Buchan: he had his
oddities; and these, I am afraid, put a premature end to the Thomson anniversaries at my darling Widow Spinks’s; very much
“seconded” as they were by the general apathy of the surrounding squirearchy
and wealthy farmers, whose seasons agricultural
| 276 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
Lord Buchan was scholarly, gentlemanly, and estimable; hut his whimsicalities, as all such things are ill understood and ill-balanced by the commonalty around, procured him the erroneous repute of being systematically what he only was erratically. Thus, for a season, his lordship’s neighbour, Haig of Bemerside (see preceding volume), received from his spacious dove-cot pie-pigeons enow for weeks together, to spare the plentiful Bemerside larder from the neck-wringing of some fowls, if not the murder of muttons. Haig was rather distressed at this profusion, but was relieved at Christmas, when a regular poulterer’s bill was sent in—“— Haig, Esq., to the Earl of Buchan. Thirty dozen of pigeons, at 2s. 6d. per dozen, sum total 3l. 15s.,” which Haig gladly paid; but it made a story, and most probably the whole arose from some member of the Bemerside family having said to an upper servant of Lord Buchan’s, “I wish we could get some of your superabundant pigeons at the price we should pay (if we could get them) in Edinburgh or Kelso.” Of such materials are characters often made out, without a knowledge of all facts, and without the powers of discrimination. Princes, ministers, private individuals, and all—all are liable to the same sort of misinterpretation. I had a warm regard and cause to be grateful to Lord Buchan, for he was one of my youthful encouragers, and that was an honour then.
With Henry Erskine, his brother in
Edinburgh, it never
| THE ERSKINE FAMILY. | 277 |
Thomas, Lord Chancellor Erskine, was decidedly one of
the family. His poem in favour of the crows (see a preceding page), was a conclusive proof
of it. At his retirement, Buchan Hill, on the road to Brighton, where he bought an estate,
the chief produce of which was birch to make brooms, (and a large manufactory thereof was
established on the property), the natural history question respecting the livelihood of
rooks arose, on a farmer’s
| 278 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
“Instant this solemn oath I took: No hand shall rise against a Rook.” |
The reasoning by which this judgment is supported I need not quote, having given my readers a good dose of law already; and especially as I am not quite convinced that all the Chancellor’s argument would be backed by Yarrell or Waterhouse. A solitary, honest, and repentant wireworm, the last of millions, left sole monarch of all he surveyed, in consequence of the extirpation of his nation by the rooks, is the most pointed evidence in favour of rookeries, and, as wireworms seldom talk, its moralising for the benefit of Lord Erskine’s argument is really instructive. “Farewell!” the wireworm exclaims to his lordship—
“Farewell! for I have lived a day, And from this world must haste away.” |
(His lordship’s famed wireworms were ephemeral!?)
|
“Enjoy your longer, higher, life,
Set free, at last, from hourly strife.
Rush not into the toils again,
Nor wealth nor honours to attain.
Here happier prospects you may see;
Your guardian spirit speaks through me.
|
(Bravo, Wireworm!)
|
“’Tis not to us was reason given,
|
(A dangerous confession, when advising)
|
“Nor speech, by all-disposing Heaven.
Those ampler powers, and form divine,
Image of God, are only thine.
|
| LORD ERSKINE. | 279 |
(Accomplished flatterer! Wiry must have heard of his lordship’s humble confession—“I know I am a little lower than an angel.”)
|
“Yon radiant angel, still in view,
Was once a mortal man, like
you.’”
|
And so wire worm, interpleader, settled the plea in Farmer versus Rook.
Of Lord Erskine’s eloquence when at the bar there were frequent celebrated displays, and of his sparkling wit never-ending examples. The bar is indeed the patent field for such exercise of talent. Many causes offer fine opportunities for impressive oratory, and occasions for humorous remark constantly present themselves. For instance, it was told of Erskine, that on Garrow’s pressing his examination of a stiff and wiry witness of a certain age, in order to prove a tender of money, he wrote on a slip of paper and passed to the examiner—
“Garrow, forbear! that tough old
jade Will never ‘prove a tender made.’” |
I am not sure that the following lines on a florid pleader in face and speech (Serjeant Cockell), who was flushed with the heat of a long argument, are his; but they are worthy of him, and noting here:—
|
“The Serjeant see, with face on fire,
And all the Court may rue it;
His purple garments come from Tyre—
His arguments go to it.”
|
Lord Erskine’s advice to a young lawyer, now an
eminent judge, was, “read Blackstone till
you are sick of it,” and then “au
reste, learn law at the expense of my clients;” i.e. do as I have done in learning law at the expense of your
| 280 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
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