tinguished. He also materially assisted to form his taste and procure him patronage; and when Opie's name was well established, the poet and his protégé, forsaking the country, repaired to London, as affording a wider field for the exertions of both. Wolcot had already acquired some distinction by his satirical efforts; and he now poured forth a series of odes and epistles, commencing with the royal academicians, whom he ridiculed with great success and some justice. In 1785 he produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786 he published The Lousiad, a Heroi-comic Poem, in five cantos, which had its foundation in the fact, that an obnoxious insect-either of the garden or the bodyhad been discovered on the king's plate among 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 an admirable theme. The publication of Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides afforded another tempting opportunity, and he indited a humorous poetical epistle to the biographer, commencing: A satirical poem, which attracted much attention whose genius as an artist afterwards became so disin literary circles at the time of its publication, was the Pursuits of Literature, in four parts, the first of which appeared in 1794. Though published anonymously, this work was written by Mr THOMAS JAMES MATHIAS, a distinguished scholar, who died at Naples in 1835. Mr Mathias was sometime treasurer of the household to her majesty Queen Charlotte. He took his degree of B.A. in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1774. Besides the Pursuits of Literature, Mr Mathias was author of some Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue, The Imperial Epistle from Kien Long to George III. (1794), The Shade of Alexander Pope, a satirical poem (1798), and various other light evanescent pieces on the topics of the day. Mr Mathias also wrote some Latin odes, and translated into Italian several English poems. He wrote Italian with elegance and purity, and it has been said that no Englishman, since the days of Milton, has cultivated that language with so much success. The Pursuits of Literature contains some pointed satire on the author's poetical contemporaries, and is enriched with a vast variety of notes, in which there is a great display of learning. George Steevens said the poem was merely a peg to hang the notes on.' The want of true poetical genius to vivify this mass of erudition has been fatal to Mr Mathias. His works appear to be utterly forgotten. DR JOHN WOLCOT. O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, Triumphant thou through Time's vast gulf shalt sail, Close to the classic Rambler shalt thou cling, Fate shall not shake thee off with all its power; Nay, though thy Johnson ne'er had blessed thy eyes, In addition to this effusion, Wolcot levelled another A president, on butterflies profound, Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises, DR JOHN WOLCOT was a coarse but lively satirist, who, under the name of 'Peter Pindar,' published a variety of effusions on the topics and public men of his times, which were eagerly read and widely circulated. Many of them were in ridicule of the reigning sovereign, George III., who was a good subject for the poet; though the latter, as he himself acknowledged, was a bad subject to the king. Wolcot was born at Dodbrooke, a village in Devonshire, in the year 1738. His uncle, a respectable surgeon and apothecary at Fowey, took the charge of his education, intending that he should become his own assistant and successor in business. Wolcot was instructed in medicine, and 'walked the hospitals' in London, after which he proceeded to Jamaica with Sir William Trelawney, governor of that island, who had engaged him as his medical attendant. The social habits of the doctor rendered him a favourite in Jamaica; but his time being only partly employed by his professional avocations, he solicited and obtained from his patron the gift of On violets, dunghills, violet-tops, and daisies, &c. a living in the church, which happened to be then He had also Instructions to a Celebrated Laureate; vacant. The bishop of London ordained the grace- Peter's Pension; Peter's Prophecy; Epistle to a Fallen less neophyte, and Wolcot entered upon his sacred Minister; Epistle to James Bruce, Esq., the Abyssinian duties. His congregation consisted mostly of negroes, Traveller; Odes to Mr Paine; Odes to Kien Long, and Sunday being their principal holiday and mar-Emperor of China; Ode to the Livery of London, and ket, the attendance at the church was very limited. brochures of a kindred description on most of the Sometimes not a single person came, and Wolcot celebrated events of the day. From 1778 to 1808, and his clerk-the latter being an excellent shot-above sixty of these poetical pamphlets were issued used at such times, after waiting for ten minutes, to proceed to the sea-side, to enjoy the sport of shooting ring-tailed pigeons! The death of Sir William Trelawney cut off all further hopes of preferment, and every inducement to a longer residence in the island. Bidding adieu to Jamaica and the church, Wolcot accompanied Lady Trelawney to England, and established himself as a physician at Truro, in Cornwall. He inherited about £2000 by the death of his uncle. While resident at Truro, Wolcot discovered the talents of Opie The Cornish boy in tin-mines bred by Wolcot. So formidable was he considered, that He had short period of his death. His method was to tear a sheet of paper into quarters, on each of which he wrote a stanza of four or six lines, according to the nature of the poem: the paper he placed on a book held in the left hand, and in this manner not only wrote legibly, but with great ease and celerity.' In 1796, his poetical effusions were collected and published in four volumes 8vo, and subsequent editions have been issued; but most of the poems have sunk into oblivion. Few satirists can reckon on permanent popularity, and the poems of Wolcot were in their nature of an ephemeral description; while the recklessness of his censure and ridicule, and the want of decency, of principle, and moral feeling, that characterises nearly the whole, precipitated their downfall. He died at his house in Somers' Town on the 14th January 1819, and was buried in a vault in the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden, close to the grave of Butler. Wolcot was equal to Churchill as a satirist, as ready and versatile in his powers, and possessed of a quick sense of the ludicrous, as well as a rich vein of fancy and humour. Some of his songs and serious effusions are tender and pleasing; but he could not write long without sliding into the ludicrous and burlesque. His critical acuteness is evinced in his Odes to the Royal Academicians, and in various passages scattered throughout his works; while his ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature portrait of Dr Johnson's style: I own I like not Johnson's turgid style, Sets wheels on wheels in motion-such a clatter [Advice to Landscape Painters.] Whate'er you wish in landscape to excel, London's the very place to mar it; Believe the oracles I tell, There's very little landscape in a garret. Whate'er the flocks of fleas you keep, 'Tis badly copying them for goats and sheep; And if you'll take the poet's honest word, A bug must make a miserable bird. A rushlight in a bottle's neck, or stick, Ill represents the glorious orb of morn; Nay, though it were a candle with a wick, "Twould be a representative forlorn. I think, too, that a man would be a fool, Or even by them to represent a stump: Must make a very poor autumnal clump. You'll say: 'Yet such ones oft a person sees In many an artist's trees; And in some paintings we have all beheld Green baize hath surely sat for a green field: What power hath worked a wonder for your toesWhilst I, just like a snail, am crawling, Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling, Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes? Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, With head awry, And cunning eye, Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone. And now his curious majesty did stoop And lo! no single thing came in his way, So quick the words too, when he deigned to speak, Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl, Things that too oft the public scorn; Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare, On which the king with wonder swiftly cried: What, if they reach to Kew, then, side by side, What would they do, what, what, placed end to end?' To whom, with knitted calculating brow, The man of beer most solemnly did vow, Almost to Windsor that they would extend: Now did the king for other beers inquire, This was a puzzling disagreeing question, Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took Memorandum. A charming place beneath the grates For roasting chestnuts or potates. Mem. "Tis hops that give a bitterness to beer, Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere. Quære. Is there no cheaper stuff? where doth it dwell? Would not horse-aloes bitter it as well? Mem. To try it soon on our small-beer "Twill save us several pounds a year. Mem. To remember to forget to ask Old Whitbread to my house one day. Mem. Not to forget to take of beer the cask, The brewer offered me, away. Now, having pencilled his remarks so shrewd, To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say: And that, an't please your majesty, are grains.' 'Grains, grains!' said majesty, 'to fill their crops? Grains, grains!—that comes from hops—yes, hops, hops, hops?' Here was the king, like hounds sometimes, at fault— 'Sire,' cried the humble brewer, 'give me leave Your sacred majesty to undeceive; Grains, sire, are never made from hops, but malt.' True,' said the cautious monarch with a smile, 'From malt, malt, malt-I meant malt all the while.' Now did the king admire the bell so fine, On which the bell rung out-how very proper !- Appeared the brewer's tribe of handsome pigs; Exclaimed: 'O heavens! and can my swine Heavens can my pigs compare, sire, with pigs royal?' On which the brewer bowed, and said: 'Good God!' Who, bridling in her chin divine, Crossed her fair hands, a dear old maid, And then her lowest curtsy made For such high honour done her father's swine. Now did his majesty, so gracious, say To Mister Whitbread in his flying way: 'D' ye hunt?-hae, hunt? No no, you are too old; I'll prick you every year, man, I declare; 'Whitbread, d'ye keep a coach, or job one, pray? best. You put your liveries on the draymen-hae ? Hae, Whitbread, you have feathered well your nest. Then searched his brains with ruminating eye; 81 POETESSES. CHARLOTTE SMITH. Several ladies cultivated poetry with success at this time. Among these was MRS CHARLOTTE SMITH (whose admirable prose fictions will afterwards be noticed). She was the daughter of Mr Turner of Stoke House, in Surrey, and born on the 4th of May 1749. She was remarkable for precocity of talents, and for a lively playful humour that shewed itself in conversation, and in compositions both in prose and verse. Being early deprived of her mother, she was carelessly though expensively educated, and introduced into society at a very early age. Her father having decided on a second marriage, the friends of the young and admired poetess endeavoured to establish her in life, and she was induced to accept the hand of Mr Smith, the son and partner of a rich West India merchant. The husband was twenty-one years of age, and his wife fifteen! This rash union was productive of mutual discontent and misery. Mr Smith was careless and extravagant, business was neglected, and his father dying, left a will so complicated and voluminous that no two lawyers understood it in the same sense. Lawsuits and embarrassments were therefore the portion of this ill-starred pair for all their after-lives. Mr Smith was ultimately forced to sell the greater part of his property, after he had been thrown into prison, and his faithful wife had shared with him the misery and discomfort of his confinement. A numerous family also gathered around them, to add to their solicitude and difficulties. In 1782, Mrs Smith published a volume of sonnets, irregular in structure, but marked by poetical feeling and expression. They were favourably received by the public, and at length passed through no less than eleven editions, besides being translated into French and Italian. After an unhappy union of twentythree years, Mrs Smith separated from her husband, and, taking a cottage near Chichester, applied herself to her literary occupations with cheerful assiduity, supplying to her children the duties of both parents. In eight months she completed her novel of Emmeline, published in 1788. In the following year appeared another novel from her pen, entitled Ethelinde; and in 1791, a third under the name of Celestina. She imbibed the opinions of the French Revolution, and embodied them in a romance entitled Desmond. This work arrayed against her many of her friends and readers, but she regained the public favour by her tale, the Old Manor House, which is the best of her novels. Part of this work was written at Eartham, the residence of Hayley, during the period of Cowper's visit to that poetical retreat. It was delightful,' says Hayley, 'to hear her read what she had just written, for she read, as she wrote, with simplicity and grace.' Cowper was also astonished at the rapidity and excellence of her composition. Mrs Smith continued her literary labours amidst private and family distress. She wrote a valuable little compendium for children, under the title of Conversations; A History of British Birds; a descriptive poem on Beachy Head, &c. She died at Tilford, near Farnham, on the 28th of October 1806. The poetry of Mrs Smith is elegant and sentimental, and generally of a pathetic cast. Her sketches of English scenery are true and pleasing. But while we allow,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'high praise to the sweet and sad effusions of Mrs Smith's muse, we cannot admit that by these alone she could ever have risen to the height of |