John, better known as Peter Pindar, was born at Dodbrooke, a small village of Devonshire, in 1738. He was educated for the medical profession, at the charge of his uncle, a surgeon in a neighbouring town; and after the usual course of study in the London hospitals, he proceeded to Jamaica, as the medical attendant of the governor, Sir William Trelawny. Finding his time hang heavy on his hands, he, as a means of beguiling his superabundant leisure, solicited the gift of a vacant living, which the governor bestowed on him, and the Bishop of London having ordained him, he entered on the duties of his new calling. It is unnecessary to add that he performed them in a very perfunctory manner. His flock consisted chiefly of negroes, who seldom came to church; and it is said, that on more than one occasion, after waiting in vain for his congregation to appear, he adjourned with the clerk to the shore, where they joined in the more congenial occupation of pigeon-shooting. On the death of the governor, Wolcot returned to England, and established himself as a physician in Truro. He was conscious, however, of poetical powers which required a wider field than could be afforded by a small, remote county town; and he accordingly removed, in 1780, to the metropolis, and entered on his career as a satirical poet. The chief objects of his ridicule were the Royal Academicians, whose ignorance of art he satirized in his Lyric Odes; for he was a connoisseur in painting, and was the first to discover the talents of Opie. But his muse spared none. Even royalty was not exempt from the attacks of his ridicule; and the many whimsical peculiarities of George III. offered too tempting a theme for satire for a poet so daring as Wolcot to omit them. Of the poems directed against royalty, the chief are, "Peeps at St James's," "Royal Visits," and above all, the "Lousiad," an exquisitely ludicrous poem, founded upon the fact that the disagreeable insect from which the poem derives its name was discovered among some green pease on the king's plate. His poetical effusions, amounting to upwards of sixty, were collected in 4 vols. in 1796, and have been reprinted since. Wolcot died in 1819, and his works, which had even then lost much of their fame, are now known mainly by reputation.