Kingsbridge may point with some degree of pride to her son’s sturdy independence, his dislike of jobbery and shams, his refusal to be blinded or muzzled in his denunciation of abuses by any powerful position or high rank.... Wolcot was a bad, sensual, vindictive man, yet a certain respect must, I think, be paid to one who in an age inclined to toadyism of big people, did not shrink from confronting the false idols of the day, even if sometimes he toppled them over with undue violence and contempt.—(Sketch of Wolcot read at Kingsbridge, July, 1887. _Transact. Devon. Association._) A writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ gives this most accurate appreciation:— Wolcot’s humour was broad, and he cared little whether he hit above or below the belt, but he had a keen eye for the ridiculous, and was endowed with a wondrous facility of diction. The same writer truly says that many of his serious pieces were marked by taste and feeling, and his translation of Thomas Warton’s Latin epigram on sleep dwells in the memory through its happy simplicity. The story is told of the bargain which he made with the London publishers, who, hearing that he proposed to sell his copyrights, told off one of their representatives to negotiate with him. The agent found the old Doctor quite ready for him, sitting up in bed with a fine churchyard cough in splendid development, and with a side-table furnished with an impressive array of medicines. At first a sum was offered which Peter considered contemptibly small. He asked at once a payment of some three hundred pounds a year, and amidst much painful coughing managed to say, “I shall not live, I know, to enjoy it long, as you may see, so there is no excuse for meanness in my case.” The agent was quite impressed by the scene, and the bargain was closed for two hundred and fifty pounds yearly for his life, with the condition that all future writing was to be for them alone. This was in 1795, and to the chagrin of his publishers he displayed the vitality so often seen in annuitants, and actually lived on for nearly a quarter of a century to enjoy their reluctant generosity. His minor poems are oftener quoted because they are freer from objectionable matter. _The Razor Seller_, and _The Pilgrim and the Peas_ are well known, and have been used as recitations, but his longer odes and letters had more than a passing notice, they were so strong in their satire, and so numerous as to have affected public opinion. The very Government were alarmed and pressed upon him a pension as a means of preventing further onslaughts upon the foibles and peculiarities of the king. Some preliminary payments were actually received by him, and all was at one time apparently settled in his favour when he suddenly returned the monies paid him, objecting to the conditions of silence and declining all further favours.