, vol. i. pp. 277-279).
William Gifford (1756-1826), a self-taught scholar, first a ploughboy, then boy on board a Brixham coaster, afterwards shoemaker's apprentice, was sent by friends to Exeter College, Oxford (1779-81). In the
Baviad
(1794) and the
Mæviad
(1795) he attacked many of the smaller writers of the day, who were either silly, like the Delia Cruscan school, or discreditable, like Williams, who wrote as "Anthony Pasquin." In his
Epistle to Peter Pindar
(1800) he succeeds in laying bare the true character of John Wolcot. As editor of the