John Wolcot and “The Anecdotic Itch”: Peter Pindar, Biography, and Historiography in the 1780s

Abstract

Historiography in the 1780s John Wolcot, under his nom de plume of Peter Pindar, was one of the most widely read poets of the late eighteenth century: his 50 odd poetic satires on divers subjects were one of the publishing phenomena of the age, with William Wordsworth, who generally affected a low opinion of Wolcot, forced to consider him as one of the 'great names' of satire. 1 If the scale of his popularity was likely subject to some contemporary hyperbole, nevertheless Donald Kerr's analysis of Wolcot's papers bears out the notion of Peter Pindar as a highly profitable publishing enterprise in which the book trade had significant commercial confidence. 2 Despite (or in part because of) this ubiquity, Wolcot has been neglected by scholarship, written off as a commercially-motivated trimmer devoid of principle or any commitment to higher ideals; a 'literary gadfly', in the words of Jeanne Griggs, 'harmless but irritating' who expended his talent on unworthy matters at a time of national emergency. 3 Some, particularly more recent, accounts of Wolcot have sought a more sympathetic or complex response to his satiric method and output. 4 Efforts devoted to the critical rehabilitation of Wolcot have broadly fallen into two camps. The first, and larger, effort has looked to ascribe a politically meaningful and radical value to a satiric method that otherwise seems unduly invested in the treatment of trivial matters in a frivolous