Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

The subject was inexhaustible, and these attacks on Royalty sold and brought in much money. Accordingly he worked indefatigably at it. He was supplied with plenty of information by the favourites of the Prince of Wales, who himself relished these attacks upon his father.

Peter Pindar jeered at the King’s little note-book in which he dotted down his observations.

Now Majesty, alive to knowledge, took
A very pretty memorandum-book,
With gilded leaves of asses’ skin so white;
And in it lightly began to write: —
Mem. A charming place beneath the grates
For roasting chestnuts or potates.
Mem. ’Tis hops that give a bitterness to beer —
Hops grown in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere.
Queen. Is there no cheaper stuff? where does it dwell?
Would not horse-aloes do as well?
Mem. To try it soon on our small beer —
’Twill save us sev’ral pounds a year.
Mem. To remember to forget to ask
Old Whitbread to my house one day.

To Whitbread now deigned Majesty to say,
“Whitbread, are all your horses fond of hay?”
“Yes, please your Majesty” – in humble notes,
The Brewer answer’d – “also, Sir, of oats;
Another thing my horses too maintains,
And that, an’t please your Majesty, are grains.”
“Grains, grains,” said Majesty, “To fill their crops?
Grains? Grains? – that come from hops – yes, hops, hops, hops?”
Here was the King, like hounds sometimes at fault —
“Sire” cry’d 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 it all the while.”
“Yes,” with the sweetest bow, rejoined the Brewer.
“An’t please your Majesty, you did I’m sure.”
“Yes,” answered Majesty, with quick reply,
“I did, I did, I did, I, I, I, I.”

Peter Pindar scoffed at the parsimony of George III. He scoffed at his personal appearance, his simple tastes, his attempt to enforce respect for the Sunday, his admiration for the music of Handel, above all his patronage of Benjamin West.

E’en with his painter let the King be blest;
Egad! eat, drink, and sleep, with Mister West.

Let the Court, the fashionables, the vulgar populace admire West and purchase his wretched pictures, Peter will have none of him or of them. Then he tells an amusing tale of a Toper and the Flies. A group of topers sat about the table drinking punch. Flies joined the party, sipped the grog, fell by hundreds into the bowl.

Wanting to drink – one of the men
Dipp’d from the bowl the drunken host,
And drank – then taking care that none were lost,
He put in ev’ry mother’s son agen.
Up jump’d the bacchanalian crew on this,
Taking it very much amiss —
Swearing, and in the attitude to smite:
“Lord!” cry’d the man with gravely lifted eyes,
“Though I don’t like to swallow flies,
I did not know but others might.”

The Queen had removed the cartoons of Raphael from Hampton Court to St. James’s, and had them cut down so as to fit the place which she designed them to occupy. This exasperated Peter to the last degree: it reminded him of a cutting story. In the last war the French prisoners died by scores, and the Mayor of Plymouth to accommodate a first cousin, a carpenter, gave him a contract for their coffins. The carpenter, thinking to save some pence on each coffin, made every one too short; and so as to accommodate the dead to the receptacles made for them, cut off the heads of the deceased prisoners and tucked them en chapeau bas under their arms.

To a Devonshire man one of the most amusing compositions of Peter Pindar is an account of the royal visit to Exeter in 1788, supposed to be written by a farmer of Moreton Hampstead to his sister Nan: —

Now meend me, Nan! all Ex’ter town
Was gapin’, rennin’ up and down,
Vath, just leek vokes bewitch’d!
Lord! how they laugh’d to zee the King;
To hear un zay zum marv’lous thing!
Leek mangy dogs they itch’d.

Leek bullocks sting’d by appledranes (wasps),
Currantin’ it about the lanes,
Vokes theese way dreav’d and that;
Zum hootin’, swearin’, scraimin’, bawlin’!
Zum in the muck, and pellum (dust) sprawlin’;
Leek pancakes all zo flat.

On the occasion of the visit of the King, Queen, and the Royal Princesses, the Bishop of Exeter, John Ross, begged to be excused the honour of entertaining Majesty – the palace was not roomy enough, he was infirm, and so on; accordingly their Royal Highnesses were received by Dean Buller at the Deanery. Ross seems to have been a screw, and he dreaded the expense of entertaining Royalty. It was said of him that when his clergy were entertained by him there was no wine on the table, and they begged to be allowed to taste “his charming water.” The King and Royal Family went to the cathedral for Morning Prayer, after which Dean Buller showed them over the church; the King looked about

And zoon beginn’d to speak;
Zo zaid, “Neat, neat – clean, very clean;
D’ye mop it, mop it Measter Dean;
Mop, mop it every week?

Wolcot adds in a note that the King actually did make this observation at Exeter, as well as at Salisbury some years later.

The royal entry into the city is most humorously described, and Mr. Rolle’s active attention to the King is hit off: —

Wipin’ his zweatty jaws and poull
All over dust we spy’d Squire Rolle,
Close by the King’s coach trattin’:
Now shovin’ in the coach his head,
Meaning, we giss’d, it might be zed,
The Squire and King be chattin’.

Now goed the Aldermen and May’r,
Zum wey cropp’d wigs, and zum wey hair,
The Royal Voke to ken;
When Measter May’r, upon my word,
Pok’d to the King a gert long sword,
Which he pok’d back agen.

It had been hoped that the King would make the round of the city and visit the Guildhall and Castle, but he declined to do this. The Mayor and Alderman had proposed a sumptuous repast at the Guildhall for His Majesty, but he declined to attend, much to their disappointment.