As "Peter Pindar," John Wolcot produced an extraordinary quantity of topical verse satires during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Taking as his subjects the Royal Academy exhibitions, political events, social scandals, and such notable individuals as Thomas Paine, William Pitt, James Boswell, Sir Joseph Banks, and, most memorably, George III, "Peter Pindar" painted a vivid and often highly amusing picture of his age. At the height of his fame Wolcot commanded a large readership and provoked wildly disparate responses. Robert Burns called him a "delightful fellow, & first favorite of mine." Samuel Taylor Coleridge swore "that my flesh creeps at his name." And William Wordsworth wrote, "[Nicholas] Boileau and [Alexander] Pope and the more redoubted Peter. These are great names."

The date of Wolcot's birth in Dodbrooke, Devonshire, is unknown; but he was baptized in neighboring Kingsbridge on 9 May 1738. The son of Alexander Wolcot, a surgeon, and...