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,