A certain cobbler whose shop was in the street leading to the Grammar School, a man disliked by the boys, and specially so by young Wolcot, was, to the amazement and horror of the whole township, reported to have been cruelly murdered whilst sitting at his stall. The neighbours, on looking in, were terror-stricken to find the man and his shop from floor to ceiling bespattered with blood. The cobbler was certainly living, but too terrified to speak of the nature of his wounds, his features being covered with gore. He was not, however, seriously injured; indeed he was much frightened and little hurt. What had happened was this. Young Wolcot, whose threats of vengeance against the offender had been somewhat mysterious for several days, had procured an old blunderbuss from his father’s house and had duly charged it with powder, but instead of shot had loaded it with _bullock’s blood_, and deliberately fired it in the cobbler’s face; of course in one moment transforming the whole appearance of things, and creating in the peaceful neighbourhood a great sensation. Such escapades no doubt made it desirable that he should change his quarters, and he was presently transferred to the care of an uncle practising as a surgeon at Fowey, in Cornwall. He attended the Grammar School for awhile at Liskeard, and after that at Bodmin, under the mastership of a clergyman named Fisher. After this he spent one year in completion of his education in France (1760). He failed to appreciate the French, and the dislike was quite mutual. Of them he said in one of his odes:— I hate the shrugging dogs, I’ve lived among them, ate their frogs. —_Coll. Works_, Vol. I., p. 107. On his return to England he became his uncle’s pupil and medical student for seven years. A reflection of his duties is cleverly given in one of his lyrics, apparently addressed to Opie, his pupil in art:— The lad who would a ’Pothecary shine, Should powder Claws of Crabs and Jalap fine, Keep the shop clean, and watch it like a Porter, Learn to boil glysters—nay, to give them too, If blinking nurses can’t the business do: Write well the labels, and wipe well the Mortar. —_Odes to Royal Academicians_, Ode iii., p. 8. Drawing, painting, and classical reading seem, however, to have claimed too much of his time, and his verse-making occupations were no doubt hindrances to his professional progress, for in them he was quite industrious, and from Fowey, in 1756, he sent his poem on the elder “Pitt’s recovery from Gout” to _Martin’s Magazine_.