John Wolcot

John Wolcot ( born May 9, 1738 in Dodbrooke in Devonshire; † January 13, 1819 in Somerstown ) was an English satirist, who appeared under the pseudonym Peter Pindar.

Life

John Wolcot attended school in Bodmin, then came to his uncle, a surgeon in Fowey ( Cornwall), in the doctrine, formed in London in 1768 and followed on from the Governor, Sir William Trelawey as personal physician to Jamaica. Soon he returned to England, could be ordained a priest and was given a parish on that island.

After the death of the governor, he accompanied his widow to England, where he settled as a physician in Truro ( Cornwall). Here he tried first in satire, but complicated by the fact in inconvenience this caused him in 1778 to move to London, where he soon became a formidable satirist. In old age he became blind. He was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral.

Works

Wolcot directed his attacks first against the royal academician ( Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians, 1782 ), but then also made the weaknesses of King George III. ridiculous, especially in the Lousiad (1787 ), a comic epic, which was caused by the fact that the king, when he once discovered a louse in a court of young peas, ordered them all kitchen staff cut the hair.

From 1778 to 1808 Wolcot wrote over 60 poetic pamphlets and was so feared that the Ministry should have tried to get him through bribery to silence. Collected published his satires, which in England their often indecent language be read because hardly today, London 1794 - 1801 and 1816 in 5 volumes.