Opie's having passed disparaging criticism on some of Wolcot's paintings; but this was, if it took place, only one element in the contention that caused a final breach. Wolcot had indeed laid the foundation of Opie's success, by introducing him to Mrs. Boscawen, and extolling his merits in verse.
Speak, Muse, who formed that matchless head,
The Cornish Boy, in tin mines bred;
Whose native genius, like diamonds shone
In secret, till chance gave him to the sun?
'Tis Jackson's portrait—put the laurel on it.
In 1782 appeared "Lyric Odes to the Royal Academy, by Peter Pindar, Esq., a distant relative of the Poet of Thebes, and Laureat of the Academy." They were clever and discriminating. Wolcot recognized the splendid genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the merits of Gainsborough and Wilson. He made merry over a picture by Gainsborough in the Academy that year; but it was good-humouredly done.
And now, O Muse, with song so big,
Turn round to Gainsborough's Girl and Pig,
Or Pig and Girl I rather should have said;
The pig is white, I must allow,
Is really a well-painted sow:
I wish to say the same thing of the maid.
The success of these lyrics was immediate, and induced Wolcot to continue the publication in 1783, 1785, and 1786. Having hit out at the Academicians and finding that this paid, he now struck at higher game. He knew that any miserable back-stairs gossip about the King and the Court would be greedily devoured. There was in London and in the country a sentiment of Jacobitism. The cause of the Stuarts was dead as Herod, but the prejudice against the House of Hanover continued strong. The German proclivities of George I and George II, who never liked England and the English, had alienated
