Wolcot was so infuriated that he sought to meet Gifford. They happened to meet in Wright's shop in Piccadilly in the same year in which the epistle had appeared. A scuffle ensued, in which Wolcot was the aggressor, and got the worst of it. Peter retaliated with "A Cut at a Cobbler," but it fell flat.
The Prince of Wales, that "First Gentleman in Europe," had encouraged Peter, and is said to have had the poet's proof sheets forwarded to him before publication. Peter had licked the Prince's dirty boots, and hoped for his reward. But when the Prince became Regent he cooled towards the savage yet servile poet, and the indignant Peter gave vent to his feelings of disappointment and resentment in a poem in 1811, "Carlton House, or the Disappointed Bard."
In Wolcot's later years his sight was affected, and in May, 1811, he was almost totally blind. He still, however, continued to write and publish. Four volumes of his works had been published by Walker in 1794, a fifth was added in 1801. He died 14 January, 1819, in Somerstown, and was buried 21 January, in S. Paul's Church, Covent Garden. By his own expressed wish, his coffin was placed beside that of Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras.
In appearance Wolcot was "a thick, squat man, with a large dark and flat face, and no speculation in his eye." His portrait, by Opie, is in the National Portrait Gallery, where is also a miniature of him by Lethbridge.
He was never married. Indeed, he flouted at marriage. He was a sensualist. In an "Apology for Keeping Mistresses" he wrote:—
O Love! for heaven's sake, never leave my heart;
No! thou and I will never, never part:
Go, Wedlock, to the men of leaden brains,
Who hate variety, and sigh for chains.
