Devon (England) -- Antiquities; Devon (England) -- History
Of his personal appearance much has been said. He has been described as
“a thick, squat man with a large, dark and flat face and no speculation
in his eye.” There are many portraits of him published, most of them by
his _protégé_, Opie, the “Cornish boy,” as he calls him, whom he both
educated and boomed in the press, a genius of undoubted merit as a
painter. Unless these pictures outrageously flatter him, his must have
been a fine physiognomy. We have seen eight or nine portraits, taken at
different periods of his life, and in all he appears like a well-bred
and handsome man of the style and period of George the Fourth. There is
a miniature of him, however, in the National Portrait Gallery, which is
said with candour to express many of the disagreeable features of his
character. Our own portrait appended to this sketch is from a painting
by Opie, engraved by C. H. Hodges, and reproduced in photography by
Bailey, of Kingsbridge. One of his most faithful portraits is a
miniature by Lethbridge, a Kingsbridge artist of some fame, who was born
at Goveton, a little hamlet not far from the town.
Probably the last public compliment ever received by Peter Pindar was
the dedication by his scholarly neighbour to him of the well-known
_History of Kingsbridge_, published in 1819 (the year of Pindar’s death)
by A. Hawkins, Esq., F.H.S. With the terms of that dedication we might
fitly close our notice:—
To JOHN WOLCOT, M.D., long accredited at the Court of Apollo as Peter
Pindar, Esq., these pages commemorative of the History and Topography
of the vicinity of his native earth, are by his permission dedicated
as a mark of sincere respect for his superior genius and talents.
If in our sketch of Peter Pindar we have “extenuated aught,” we have
been wishful to “set down naught in malice,” and can only endorse the
universal opinion as to his talent, with the unconcealed wish that such
great power had been allowed to exert itself on a higher plane and to a
nobler purpose.
O quantum est in rebus inane!
—_Pers. I._ 1.
How vain are all his cares!
And oh! what bubbles, his most grave affairs.
—_Gifford._
WILLIAM THOMAS ADEY.
HONITON LACE.
BY MISS ALICE DRYDEN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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