Wolcot now betook himself to his pen for support. His satirical and artistic tastes suggested his first publication, "Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782, by Peter Pindar Esq., a distant relation of the Poet of Thebes, and Laureate to the Royal Academy," which took the town by surprise, by the reckless daring of their personalities and quaintness of style. Thus he flayed the R.A.'s—from West to Dance, and from Chambers to Wyatt—not forgetting their Royal patron, King George III. In Ode III. of the second series, entitled More Odes to the Royal Academicians, after complaining that Gainsborough had kicked Dame Nature out of doors, he turns from the picture he censures to another, and exclaims:—
"Speak, Muse, who form'd that matchless head?
The Cornish boy,[43] in tin-mines bred;
Whose native genius, like his diamonds, shone
In secret, till chance brought him to the sun.[44]
'Tis Jackson's portrait—put the laurel on it,
Whilst to that tuneful swan I pour a sonnet."
Peter then drops the lash, resumes his neglected lyre, and pours out a sonnet to "Jackson of Exeter," worthy of the twain—the "enchanting harmonist and the lyric bard."
Peter's poems were very dear to the purchaser, being printed in thin quarto pamphlets, at 2s. 6d. each, and very little letter-press for the money. After the Royal Academicians, Peter attacked King George III. In 1785, Wolcot produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786, he published the Lousiad, a Heroic Comic Poem, founded on the fact that an obnoxious insect (either of the garden or the body) had been discovered on the King's plate of some green peas, which produced a solemn decree that all the servants in the Royal kitchen were to have their heads shaved. In the hands of an unscrupulous satirist, like Wolcot, this ridiculous incident was a stinging theme. He also mercilessly quizzed Boswell, the biographer of Johnson. Sir Joseph Banks was another subject of his satire:—
"A President, on butterflies profound,
Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises,
Went on a day to catch the game profound,
On violets, dunghills, violet-tops, and daisies," &c.
From 1778 to 1808, above sixty of these political pamphlets were issued by Wolcot. So formidable was he considered, that the Ministry, as he alleged, endeavoured to bribe him to silence; he also boasted that his writings had been translated into six different languages. His ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature sketch of Dr. Johnson's style.
"I own I like not Johnson's turgid style,
That gives an inch the importance of a mile;
Casts of manure a wagon-load around,
To raise a simple daisy from the ground.
Uplifts the club of Hercules—for what?
To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat!
Creates a whirlwind from the earth, to draw
A goose's feather, or exalt a straw!
Sets wheels on wheels in motion—such a clatter,
To force up one poor nipperkin of water!
Bids ocean labour with tremendous roar,
To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore;
Alike in every theme his pompous art,
Heaven's awful thunder or a rumbling cart."
Sometimes Peter himself got castigated for his satire on the sovereign. Here is an amusing instance. Those who recollect the figure of the satirist in his robust upright state, and the diminutive appearance of Mr. Nollekens, the sculptor, can readily picture to themselves their extreme contrast, when the former accosted the latter one evening at his gate in Tichfield Street, nearly in the following manner:—"Why, Nollekens, you never speak to me now; pray what is the reason?" Nollekens.—"Why you have published such lies of the King, and had the impudence to send them to me; but Mrs. Nollekens burnt them, and I desire you'll send no more. The royal family are very good to me, and are great friends to all artists, and I don't like to hear anybody say anything against them." Upon which the Doctor put his cane upon the sculptor's shoulders, and exclaimed, "Well said, little Nolly; I like the man who sticks to his friends; you shall make a bust of me for that!" "I'll see you d—d first," answered Nollekens; "and I can tell you this besides—no man in the Royal Academy but Opie would have painted your picture; and you richly deserved the broken head you got from Gifford in Wright's shop. Mr. Cook, of Bedford Square, showed me his handkerchief dipped in your blood; and so now you know my mind. Come in, Cerberus, come in." His dog then followed him in, and he left the Doctor at the gate, which he barred up for the night.
A severer castigation he received from a brother author. It appears that William Gifford had wielded his galled pen against the morals and poetry of Wolcot. It was so stringent and caustic that the Doctor sought his lampooner in the shop of Mr. Wright, a political publisher in Piccadilly, opposite Old Bond Street. Thither Peter repaired with a stout cudgel in hand, determined to inflict a summary and severe chastisement on his literary opponent. Gifford was a small and weak person; Wolcot was large and strengthened by passion; but he was a coward, and after a short personal struggle, was turned into the street by two or three persons then in the shop. Gifford afterwards wrote and printed An Epistle to Peter Pindar, in which he dealt out a most virulent tirade against the Doctor, who replied in A Cut at the Cobbler. Gifford had been apprenticed to a shoemaker.