Lord Byron, in his Age of Bronze, thus characterises Canning:—

"Something may remain, perchance, to chime
With reason; and, what's stranger still, with rhyme.
Even this thy genius, Canning! may permit,
Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit,
And never, even in that dull house could tame
To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame.
Our last, our best, our only orator,
Even I can praise thee—Tories do no more.
Nay, not so much; they hate thee, man, because
Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes!"

[Peter] [Pindar.—Dr. Wolcot.]

This sarcastic versifier was a native of Devonshire, born about the year 1738. His father was a substantial yeoman, and sent him to Kingsbridge Free School; and after his father's death, young Wolcot was removed to the Grammar School at Bodmin. He is described as a clumsy, but arch-looking boy. He, at this early period, showed a degree of quickness in repartee and sarcastic jokes, which was the first dawning of that satiric humour which he afterwards displayed. He was not remarkable at school for anything so much as negligence of his dress and person. He described himself in after-life as having been a dull scholar, but as having showed even at that early age a turn for versifying.

On leaving school, he was removed to Fowey, in Cornwall, to the house of an uncle, who was a medical practitioner, whose apprentice he became for seven years. He completed his medical education in London, and applied himself with sufficient diligence to obtain a knowledge of his future profession; but he much annoyed his uncle and two aunts by cultivating his talents for versifying and painting. Some of his chalk drawings have been preserved, and are remarkable for their peculiarity. When seen near the eye, they seem to be composed only of random scratches and masses of black chalk, of different densities and depths, with here and there a streak and blot of white, and others of red. There does not appear to be any defined objects, such as a tree, house, figure, &c.; but when viewed as a whole, at a distance hanging on the wall of the room, each of them appears to be a landscape representing morning and evening, in which the dark and light of the sky, and the foreground, hills, trees, towers, &c., could be made out by the fancy, in the smallest space of time allowed for the imagination to come into play; and then the effect is surprisingly good. Wolcot became fond of art, eminently critical and learned in its elements, sketched many favourite places in Devonshire and Cornwall, and dabbled occasionally in oils.

He settled in London, obtained a Scotch diploma of M.D., and began to practise as a physician. In 1767, Sir William Trelawney was appointed Governor of Jamaica, and Wolcot, who had some connection with the family, accompanied him to that island as his physician, and he was appointed Physician-General. The Governor's regard for his lively medical friend was so great, that he intended to procure his appointment as Governor of the Mosquito territory; but the retirement from office of his best friend, Lord Shelburne, prevented its accomplishment.

Wolcot's practice in Jamaica was not extensive; the whites were not numerous, and the coloured could not pay. Governor Trelawney, however, thinking he could promote Wolcot's interest more effectually by his patronage in the Church, having then a valuable living in his gift likely to become vacant by the severe illness of the incumbent, he recommended his client to return to England, enter holy orders, and return and take possession. Although the Governor had no very sublime ideas of priesthood, it was the only way he had of serving the wit. "Away, then," he said, "to England, get yourself japanned. But remember not to return with the hypocritical solemnity of a priest. I have just bestowed a good living on a parson, who believes not all he preaches, and what he really believes he is afraid to preach. You may very conscientiously declare," said the conscientious Governor to his admiring pupil, "that you have an internal call, as the same expression will equally suit a hungry stomach and the soul." Having accomplished this praiseworthy object, the rev. (M.D.) doctor returned to his patron for induction; but "between the cup and the lip there is many a slip," for the ailing incumbent, whose living the doctor sought, became convalescent, proved a very incumbrance in his path, and the japanned medico was fain to take up with the living of Vere, a congregation exclusively of blacks, which he handed over to a curate, his real employment being master of ceremonies to the Governor. On his death, Wolcot returned to England with Lady Trelawney; and to carry on the metaphor, the black lobster was boiled, and came out in scarlet and gold.—(Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, vol. vii. pp. 381-383.)

The next twelve years of Wolcot's life were spent in attempting to establish himself as a physician in Cornwall, in which he failed, apparently on account of his invincible propensity to live as a practical humorist, and satirize his neighbours. He humorously tells us that the clinking of the bell-metal pestle and mortar seemed to him to say, "Kill 'em again, kill 'em again," and so frightened him from the profession. During his residence at Truro, some songs of his composition were set to music by Mr. W. Jackson, of Exeter, and first introduced him to general notice. In 1778, he published his first composition in that peculiar style which not long after obtained for him such a high and continued popularity—The Epistle to the Reviewers. At Truro, Wolcot discovered the genius of the self-taught artist, Opie, and with him came to London in 1780, they agreeing to share the joint profits of their adventure for one year. They did so for that term, when Opie told Wolcot he might return to the country, as he could now do for himself. Wolcot appears not to have contributed anything to the joint profits. There was now a split between the poet and the brushman. Opie would not, for he could not, praise Wolcot's sketches and paintings. "I tell ee, ye can't paint," said the blunt and honest Opie; "stick to the pen." This advice was too much for "the distant relation of the Poet of Thebes" to receive from "a painting ape," and the feud was never healed. The Doctor scarified and lanced, but Opie, in a more quiet way, was quite a match for the satirist, who, as he said:—

"Sons of the brush, I'm here again,
At times a Pindar, a Fontaine,
Casting poetic pearl (I fear) to swine."

Wolcot was the friend and pupil of Wilson, our great landscape painter, whose style he used to imitate not unsuccessfully. In his addenda to Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, he pays due honour to the memory of his old friend, Wilson.