his life, his _History of the Sufferings of the Church
of Scotland 1660 to 1688_. W. wrote when the memory of the persecutions
was still fresh, and his work is naturally not free from partisan feeling
and credulity. It is, however, thoroughly honest in intention, and is a
work of genuine research, and of high value for the period with which it
deals. It was _pub._ in two folio vols. in 1721 and 1722. W. made large
collections for other works which, however, were not _pub._ in his
lifetime. _The Lives of the Scottish Reformers and Most Eminent
Ministers_ and _Analecta, or a History of Remarkable Providences_, were
printed for the Maitland Club, and 3 vols. of his correspondence in 1841
for the Wodrow Society. The _Analecta_ is a most curious miscellany
showing a strong appetite for the marvellous combined with a hesitating
doubt in regard to some of the more exacting narratives.

WOLCOT, JOHN (1738-1819).--Satirist, _b._ near Kingsbridge, Devonshire,
was _ed._ by an uncle, and studied medicine. In 1767 he went as physician
to Sir William Trelawny, Governor of Jamaica, and whom he induced to
present him to a Church in the island then vacant, and was ordained in
1769. Sir William dying in 1772, W. came home and, abandoning the Church,
resumed his medical character, and settled in practice at Truro, where he
discovered the talents of Opie the painter, and assisted him. In 1780 he
went to London, and commenced writing satires. The first objects of his
attentions were the members of the Royal Academy, and these attempts
being well received, he soon began to fly at higher game, the King and
Queen being the most frequent marks for his satirical shafts. In 1786
appeared _The Lousiad, a Heroi-Comic Poem_, taking its name from a legend
that on the King's dinner plate there had appeared a certain insect not
usually found in such exalted quarters. Other objects of his attack were
Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, and Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller.
W., who wrote under the _nom-de-guerre_ of "Peter Pindar," had a
remarkable vein of humour and wit, which, while intensely comic to
persons not involved, stung its subjects to the quick. He had likewise
strong intelligence, and a power of coining effective phrases. In other
kinds of composition, as in some ballads which he wrote, an unexpected
touch of gentleness and even tenderness appears. Among these are _The
Beggar Man_ and _Lord Gregory_. Much that he wrote has now lost all
inter