The best thing that Wolcot ever wrote, and one that provoked a laugh all over England, was “The King and the Apple-Dumplings,” in which he described George’s astonishment at first seeing a dumpling, one of which he took into his hand to examine:
“ ‘’Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed,’ he cried:
‘What makes it, pray, so hard?’ The Dame replied,
Low curtseying, ‘Please your Majesty, the Apple!’
‘Very astonishing indeed! Strange thing!’
(Turning the Dumpling round, rejoined the King).
‘’Tis most extraordinary then, all this is;
It beats Pinetti’s conjuring all to pieces:
Strange I should never of a Dumpling dream!
But, Goody, tell me where, where, where’s the seam?’