tura; or, the History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper. By John Evelyn. Second edition. Lond. 1755, 8vo. 2. History of the Art of Engraving in Mezzotinto. By Dr. James Chelsum. Winchester, 1786, 8vo. 3. Tabula Melanographica ad celeberrimorum Pictorum Archi-Typos. By John Smith. 3 vols. fol.]

Replies.

BISHOP TAYLOR'S WORKS.

(3rd S. xii. 201, 250, 290, 296.)

I do not concur with your valued correspondent EIRIONNACH (p. 201) in attaching so much importance to the reading of "Lazars" found in the edition of the Holy Dying of 1652 (chap. 1, sect. 3, §3), and which he thinks so felicitous an expression. On the contrary, that of "Lazarus" given in the edition of 1670, and subsequent ones, seems to me to have much more life and spirit, and to be much more in Taylor's manner, using the name as the representative type of wretchedness and misery. By a similar figure he just before speaks of Moses's chair. Either reading will make very good sense, and which is the correct text can only be determined by a careful examination of the different editions of the Holy Dying which came out between 1652 and 1670, and which in all probability would show whether "Lazarus" crept in by the printer's mistake or was substituted by Taylor himself.

Neither can I agree with your correspondent in his conjecture that "inconvenient" is the proper reading in Sermon XI. (p. 466, Eden's edition.) I see nothing in the context to call for the alteration; and surely the contrast between "a convenient lodging-room" and "a glorious country" is quite sufficient without its being necessary to heighten it by changing "convenient to inconvenient," for which none of the editions of the Sermons which I have seen afford any warrant.

"As flat as the noise of the Arcadian porter (Sermon XVI. vol. iv. p. 200, Eden's edit.), though it appears to puzzle your correspondent sorely, I should have thought would have been intelligible enough to any one who remembered-and it immediately occurred to me-the line in Persius (iii. 9), which MR. GANTILLON has quoted —

"Findor, ut Arcadia pecuaria rudere credas." Arcadia was famous for its breed of asses, as any one who consults the commentators on this passage will readily learn, and their bray was no doubt sufficiently discordant. As beasts of burden they might well be styled, in Taylor's peculiar diction, porters; and, without attempting authoritatively to decide the point, it seems most probable that "the noise of the Arcadian porter," which MR. SALA expounds so facetiously, and MR. GANTIL

LON would convert into "the noise of the Arcadian porker," without, as far as I can see, any local propriety to justify the change, is neither more nor less than the bray of the Arcadian ass. I am not a proficient in music, but I should say that "flat" is much more applicable to a bray than a grunt.

EIRIONNACH asks, what is the meaning of "Thick as the first juice of his country lard " (Sermon XVI., Eden, iv. 200.) MR. SALA replies that "lard" is clearly a misprint for "lord," and proceeds to explain the text on that supposition. It appears to me that the meaning is obvious enough without any alteration of the text. Taylor is merely referring to lard in its fluid state, after the melting process, before it cools and settles down into a solid mass. It is then a liquid sufficiently thick to answer the terms of Taylor's simile. This is a point on which a good housekeeper is the best expositor, unless Apicius is preferred as a classical authority, whose receipt, "Laridi (i. e. lardi) coctura," may be read in his book (p. 200, edit. Amst. 1709, 12mo.)

EIRIONNACH does not make sufficient allowance for the verba ardentia which he may consider as the splendida peccata of Taylor, otherwise he would scarcely denounce such an expression as "the soul of a tyrant feeling butcheries" (Sermon XIX.) as "barbarism" of style. He must be a bolder man than I am who will venture to quarrel with the poetical figures which are one of this great writer's characteristics, and which diversify in such a gorgeous sequence his striking pages; and he must certainly be very different in point of taste to myself who can read the grand passage in which this expression occurs, and wish to alter a single syllable in it.

In Sermon XXV. EIRIONNACH thinks that "leaned" in the passage, "We leaned upon rhubarb and aloes," is a misprint for "lived," but the text requires no alteration. "We leaned upon' is figuratively used for "we were supported by." Taylor has "leaned upon " in a similar sense in another part of his work, but I am unable at the moment to refer to the passage.

There can be no doubt that we yet want a well annotated and illustrated edition of Taylor, with a careful collation of the different editions of his works, and a list of the varia lectiones which would be afforded by it. In Mr. Eden's edition, the great point attended to seems to have been the verification of the quotations, which is all very well, but we want much more than that. In the meantime, and with all due respect to the correspondents of "N. & Q." who have contributed to this subject, I venture to enter my protest against conjectural alteration being so liberally applied to the received text of this Shakspeare of divines whenever the slightest apparent difficulty occurs, without such a case of negligence on the part of

the printer and author being first established as to justify the resort to what should always be considered as the last remedy when all attempts at explanation fail. JAS. CROSSLEY.

JOHN WOLCOT, M.D.

re

(3rd S. xii. 39, 94, 151, 235.) PHILALETHES does not alter the opinion that I have come to. The work of Mr. Polwhele quoted is one of the most desultory of books, and full of twaddle. To contradict what I have stated (3rd S. xii. 151) something more is wanted than Mr. Polwhele's " we are told," and "it is said," &c. With all Mr. P.'s pretended intimacy, "we are told" (? by whom), not that Wolcot ever denied his holy orders, but that "as to his clerical pretensions he was always reserved." Mr. P.'s " collection" amounts to mere "hearsay," which every old woman knows is no evidence. I knew a gentleman in Surrey who was a friend of Dr. Wolcot, having consulted him for ophthalmia; and he always said that the doctor was a clergyman. The late Mr. Scales always asserted the same thing. He was a most intimate friend of Pindar, and being a congenial spirit, was more likely to be well informed on such a matter than was the late Rev. Richard Polwhele. Wolcot had no great respect for "the cloth," and would more freely speak out to a facetious lay citizen of London and a bon vivant, than to a very orthodox Cornish clergyman. That Wolcot may, have been sent back on his first application for ordination, is very probable; but it does not follow that such application was the only one. There is one gentleman, the Rev. Percival Burton, M.A.,* who, if living, can settle the dispute, as he was for some years the incumbent of the same Jamaica living that was held by Wolcot. Mr. B. was not the immediate successor of Peter Pindar, but he knows the history of the parish. I repeat my assertion that Dr. Wolcot was in "holy orders." Let PHILALETHES prove the contrary. S. JACKSON.

In Kingsbridge and Salcombe with the intermediate Estuary (by Abraham Hawkins, of Alston, Esq.), Kingsbridge, 1819, Dr. Wolcot is thus noticed in connection with his birthplace, Pindar Lodge, Dodbrooke (adjoining the town of Kingsbridge), "where his respected ancestors for many generations resided":

"... Avi numerantur avorum.'

"John Wolcot, M.D., the celebrated lyrick and satirical poet, generally known by the name of Peter Pindar, Esq., first drew his breath within the precincts of these premises. He received his education at Kingsbridge under

Mr. Burton, after he left Jamaica, was Curate of Rendlesham, Suffolk, and afterwards Chaplain to the workhouse, Bermondsey, Surrey.

a gentleman of the name of Morris, a native of Ringwood in Hampshire, and a good classical scholar, beloved and for sound learning, virtuous worth, and unassuming respected through life by all his pupils and neighbours manners. Many of the early strokes of humour and smart repartees of the facetious author of the Lousiad are still recollected by a few of the companions of his schoolhours, who yet survive [1818] in Kingsbridge and its vicinity." Of these, Abraham Hawkins was himself one.]

"After a course of medical studies, and obtaining the degree of doctor of physick at the University of Aberdeen, young Wolcot embarked for Jamaica with the governor, Sir William Trelawney, baronet, of Trelawney in Cornwall, as his physician. But the short time which his patron survived the appointment having annihilated his West Indian expectations, the doctor returned to England and settled at Truro,* where he practised for several years as a physician with great success. His fondness, however, for exposing to ridicule those who, perhaps, merited the lash of his satirical pen, drew him into many bickerings. Some charming songs of his were at this period set to musick with superior taste by that celebrated composer Mr. William Jackson of Exeter, and attracted notice by their exquisite sweetness and beauty. At length Dr. Wolcot removed to Helstone, about seventeen miles further towards the Land's End. It was while he resided at Truro he met with that extraordinary genius, John Opie, R.A., the celebrated painter.

In the year

1780, Wolcot carried him to London, where Opie preLyrick Odes to the Royal Academicians, in which he sently got into practice; and the poetical patron, by his first assumed the title of Peter Pindar, Esq., a distant relation of the poet of Thebes, and laureate to the Royal Academy,' became as much the object of admiration for his witty invectives, † as the other for his powers in (Pp. 54-56.) giving life to the canvass."

*There does not seem as if there had been time for Dr. Wolcot to have returned to England for ordination, nothing of the kind; and in the account given by Dr. and again to have gone to Jamaica. Hawkins intimates Wolcot of his clerical avocations in Jamaica (as narrated to those from whom I heard it forty years ago), though there was a sufficiently irreverent description of his congregation, &c., yet he said nothing as to his having in the interim returned to England for ordination. It may have been said that, if Sir William Trelawney had lived, he would have done so. But MR. S. JACKSON, after informing us that he has "made a search," states very explicitly that "he was ordained priest and deacon by Bishop Porteus." If so, it could have no connection with his Jamaica life; for Beilby Porteus was not made Bishop of Chester till 1776, and did not hold the see of London till 1787.

All the truth seems to be that, in the absence of a

clergyman, Dr. Wolcot officiated; not so remarkable a thing on board ship, or in a colony, though it is to be wished that any who did this were not exactly of Dr. Wolcot's stamp.

Dr. Wolcot having been apprenticed to his uncle at Fowey, who was the family apothecary to the Trelawneys, was thus brought under their notice. Rather strange anecdotes used to be current as to his doings at Fowey during his apprentice days there.

On one point posterity has pretty fully agreed with Dr. Wolcot-as to his low estimate of Benjamin West as a painter. I see that a recent writer in "N. & Q." has conferred on West the dignity of knighthood-a thing which even the sovereign cannot do to a man after his decease (3rd S. xii. 104). Perhaps we shall next hear that he was an artist.

Abraham Hawkins (or, as he was commonly called in his day, Justice Hawkins) had the fullest opportunity for well knowing the facts about Dr. Wolcot. He dedicated his book to him; though, as he died January 14, 1819, he could hardly have survived its completion. Dr. Wolcot showed his interest in Hawkins's publications by communicating the poem inserted in pp. 174-6. Hawkins says:

"After the preceding pages had been printed off, the following additional Lyrick Ode was sent to the press by the Bard: To my Barn: an Elegy. By Doctor John Wolcot, olim Peter Pindar, Esq."

The olim is explained by the note appended to the Elegy:

"Dr. Wolcot's poetick name has for several years past been unwarrantably assumed by one Lawler, a poetaster of little or no wit, merely to deceive the public, and to bring some profit to the writer and his bookseller. This has induced our bard to publish since with his real name as prefixed to this Elegy."

Hawkins mentions how Dr. Wolcot sold his native place to the Rev. Nathaniel Wells; the house on the site still bears the name of Pindar Lodge. "On the east side of the road which passes behind this house is a barn belonging to the same tenement," which Peter Pindar in various ways celebrates in verse:

"Daughter of thatch and stone and mud, When I (no longer flesh and blood)

Shall join of lyrick bards some half-a-dozen;
Meed of high worth, and 'midst th' Elysian plains,
To Horace and Alcæus read my strains,

Anacreon, Sappho, and my great old cousin ;
On thee shall rising generations stare,
That come to Kingsbridge and to Dodbrook fair :
For such thy history and mine shall learn ;
Like Alexander shall they ev'ry one
Heave the deep sigh, and say, 'Since Peter's gone,
With rev'rence let us look upon his barn.'

Though Dr. Wolcot renounced the name of Peter Pindar when adopted by Lawler, who knew how to emulate or exceed his own coarseness, yet he retained the designation in verse. Thus, in the ninth stanza of the "Elegy on his Barn," he thus speaks with reference to "Justice" Hawkins:

"I, too, have felt the force of Slander's tongue,

And scorned her rage, her lying prose and metre :
While HAWKINS yields a plaudit to my song,
The snakes of Envy hiss in vain at PETER."

131, in which volume (pp. 11, 53, 72, 292, 315) the names of other prelates are adduced as among the first to lay aside the wig. I do not, however, find among them the name of Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, 1791-1826, whose motive for laying aside his episcopal wig is said to have been the undue heat which it caused him in summer. The admirable kneeling figure (by Chantrey) of this prince palatine, on his tomb in Durham Cathedral, represents his stately bald head uncovered. His successor, Bishop Van Mildert, wore the episcopal wig, and is so represented in his portraits and in Gibson's sitting figure on the tomb in the Nine Altars.

The mention of Bishop Barrington's motive for laying aside the wig recalls to memory the analogous circumstance that Bishop Warburton, who was a Prebend of Durham up to his death in 1779, was the first (in Durham Cathedral) to lay aside the use of the cope; and he did so because its high collar irritated both his skin and temper. The copes are carefully preserved in the cathedral library; and it is remarkable that the crimson silk cope presented to the cathedral by Charles I. is adorned with the subject of David cutting off the head of Goliath. CUTHBERT BEDE.

Permit me to supplement my note on the late Archbishop of Canterbury, by saying that there is a fine portrait of him in the hall of Durham University, in which he is habited in a gown and cassock, and wearing his own hair, not a wig. He held, in conjunction with the bishopric of Chester, a golden stall in Durham Cathedral, and consequently his portrait as a prebendary found a place in the College Hall. Engravings from this are well known.

Again, when Archbishop of Canterbury, the News of the World published an engraving of him in a series of portraits presented to their subscribers, in which he is again depicted as wearing his own hair. However, many years ago, when Bishop of Chester, he confirmed me, and then certainly he wore the episcopal wig.

It would seem though, from the instances cited, that he did not much admire that portion of the episcopal dress sanctioned by the authority of custom, and laid it aside when possible. An old Etonian told me the other day that he could well recollect him acting as wicket-keeper when one of the assistants there, and wearing shorts and silks, certainly not a wicketing costume adapted to the swift bowling of the present day, but tempora mutantur. OXONIENSIS.

Bushey Rectory, Watford, Herts.

Thanks to your correspondents for their communications. I regard this little chapter in the history of costume as an interesting one. However,