Peter Pindar was the pseudonym of satirist and poet John Wolcot (1738-1819). He graduated as an M.D. at Aberdeen and accompanied Sir William Trelawny as physician to the governor of Jamaica. His peculiar medical treatments, which often consisted in encouraging his fever patients to drink cold water, and his opinion that a physician could do little more than watch nature and "give her a shove on the back if he sees her inclined to do right" often involved him in disputes with his fellow medical professionals. The poet's humour was generally coarse and often profane. He soon discovered a paying enterprise in ridiculing the private life of the king, but, after the government attempted to silence him by bestowing a pension, and the queen's solicitor got into action, he confined himself to smaller game, such as Sir Joseph Banks, Sylvanus Urban, and James Bruce the African traveller. He was buried in St.Paul's Church, Covent Garden, where by his own wish his coffin was placed touching that of Samuel Butler. He had many imitators, who wrote under the same and similar names. This volume consists of: "Sir Joseph Banks and the Emperor of Morocco. A Tale;" "A Poetical Epistle to a Falling Minister; also an Imitation of the Twelfth Ode of Horace;" "Subjects For Painters;" "Expostulatory Odes to a Great Duke and a Little Lord;" "A Benevolent Epistle to Sylvanus Urban, alias Master John Nichols, Printer, Common-Councilman of Farringdon Ward, and Censor General of Literature; Not Forgetting Master William Hayley: in which is added, An Elegy to Apollo; also Sir Joseph Banks and the Boiled Fleas, an ode;" "A Rowland for an Oliver; or a Poetical Answer to the Benevolent Epistle of Mr. Peter Pindar. Also the Manuscript Odes, Songs, Letters, &c. &c. of The above Mr. Peter Pindar, Now First Published By Sylvanus Urban;" "Advice to the Future Laureat: An Ode;" "A Complimentary Epistle to James Bruce, Esq. The Abyssinian Traveller;" "The Rights of Kings; or Loyal Odes to Disloyal Academicians;" "Odes to Mr. Paine, Author of "Rights of Man;" on the intended celebration of the Downfall of the French Empire, by a set of British Democrates, on the Fourteenth of July;" "The Remonstrance. To Which is Added, An Ode to my Ass: Also, The Magpie and Robin, A Tale; An Apology For Kings; and An Address to my Pamphlet;" "More Money! or, Odes of Instruction to Mr. Pitt; with A Variety of other Choice Matters;" Odes of Importance, &c;" "The Tears of St. Margaret: Also Odes of Condolence to the High and Mighty Musical Directors, On Their Downfall;" "A Pair of Lyric Epistles to Lord Macartney and His Ship;" "Odes to Kien Long, The Present Emperor of China; with The Quakers, A Tale; To A Fly, Drowned in a Bowl of Punch;" "A Poetical, Serious, and Possibly Impertinent, Epistle to the Pope. Also, A Pair of Odes to His Holiness, On His Keeping a Disorderly House".
