been actually settled, Yorke acting as intermediary (ib.) But the arrangement came abruptly to an end, owing to a difference of opinion as to the amount in question and the duties involved (Taylor, Records of my Life, i. 228). Whether from fear of prosecution or promise of pension, he certainly in 1790 confined himself to smaller game, such as Sir Joseph Banks [q. v.], Sylvanus Urban, and James Bruce (1730–1794) [q. v.], the African traveller. The same year he vented his opinions on social matters in a ‘Rowland for an Oliver,’ but he returned in 1792 to the king as a more profitable subject for ridicule, and his verses addressed to Pitt from this time forward he contrived to make as offensive as possible. In 1793 he sold for an annuity of 250l. the copyright of his existing works to J. Walker, the publisher, and it was at the same time stipulated that the refusal of his future work should rest with the same publisher. Disputes and eventually litigation arose with respect to the agreement, but the poet was completely successful, and the annuity was paid him to the end of his long life.
After running a free course for twenty years the satirist was, however, to meet with more than his match. In vol. iv. art. xxvi. of the ‘Anti-Jacobin’ his ‘Nil admirari, or a Smile at a Bishop,’ was savagely considered, and a review of the author's life given, in which he was termed ‘this disgustful subject, the profligate reviler of his sovereign and impious blasphemer of his God.’ Peter was quite unable to stand his ground with Gifford, the savagery of whose ‘Epistle to P. Pindar’ (1800, 4to) was equalled only by its dexterity [see Gifford, William, 1756–1826]. Wolcot was so infuriated that he sought a personal encounter with the author. The two met in Wright's shop in Piccadilly, 18 Aug. 1800, when a scuffle took place, in which Wolcot was the aggressor, and undoubtedly got the worst of it (cf. The Battle of the Bards by Mauritius Moonshine; Peter's Æsop, a St. Giles's Eclogue, &c.) The commonplace offensiveness of Peter's ‘Cut at a Cobbler’ fell flat. But Peter was by no means silenced. The resignation of Pitt gave him an opportunity of expressing his rejoicing in ‘Out at Last! or the Fallen Minister,’ 1801. Canning also was specially singled out for abuse.
The appreciation once exhibited by the Prince of Wales, who is said to have had the poet's proof-sheets forwarded to him before publication (Jerdan, Autobiography, ii. 274), was not continued by the prince as regent, and the indignant Peter in 1811 expresses his feelings in being thus forsaken in ‘Carlton House Fête, or the Disappointed Bard.’ In 1807 a charge was made against him by his landlady which appears to have been entirely groundless, as on his trial before Lord Ellenborough on 27 June 1807, the jury found for him without leaving the box (Trial of Peter Pindar for Crim. Con. London, 1807). In Wolcot's later years he was afflicted by failure of sight, and in May 1811 was almost blind (Crabb Robinson, Diary, vol. i.); he, however, still continued to write and publish. His last work was an ‘Epistle to the Emperor of China,’ published in 1817 on the occasion of Lord Amherst's unfortunate embassy. Wolcot died on 14 Jan. 1819 at Montgomery Cottage, Somers Town, and was buried on 21 Jan. in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, where by his own wish his coffin was placed touching that of Samuel Butler (1612–1680) [q. v.], the author of ‘Hudibras.’
In appearance Wolcot was ‘a thick squat man with a large dark and flat face, and no speculation in his eye.’ He possessed considerable accomplishments, being a fair artist and good musician, and, despite the character of his compositions, his friends described him as of a ‘kind and hearty disposition.’ He was probably influenced in his writings by no real animosity towards royalty (Mrs. Robinson, Memoirs, 1801, vol. iv.), and himself confessed that ‘the king had been a good subject to him, and he a bad one to the king.’ His writings, despite their ephemeral interest, still furnish stock quotations.
In London he frequently changed his place of residence, living in 1793 in Southampton Row, Covent Garden; in 1794 at 13 Tavistock Row, Covent Garden; at 1 Chapel Street, Portland Place, in 1800; 8 Delany Place, Camden Town, in 1802; in 1807 he was at 94 Tottenham Court Road; and he moved to Somers Town in 1816.
There are at least eight portraits of Wolcot by Opie, one of which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London; one was engraved by C. H. Hodges in 1787, and by G. Kearsley in 1788. A miniature on ivory, painted by W. E. Lethbridge, is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Among other existing engravings may be mentioned a bust in oval by Corner, in the ‘European Magazine’ (vol. xii.); half-length by Ridley, 1792, in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine;’ bust as frontispiece to an edition of works in three volumes (1794); and bust by K. Mackensie to the fourth edition of ‘Tales of the Hoy,’ 1798.
The following is a list of Wolcot's works: 1. ‘Poetical Epistle to Reviewers,’ London, 1778, 4to. 2. ‘Poems on various Subjects,’
