Author: Lawler, C. F.
Biography:
LAWLER, C. F. (fl 1812-19)
Pseudonym Peter Pindar, Esq.
Possibly a ghost. The tremendous success of the satires of John Wolcot (q.v.) written under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar gave rise to many imitators (Paul Pindar, Polly Pindar, etc.) before and after Wolcot’s reign, which ended about 1803. C. F. Lawler was the only one brazen enough to use the same pen-name a decade later during the Regency period. His satires also did well, although his publishers, generally Fairburn or Johnston, may have inflated the number of editions to encourage buyers; no extant copies have been located of many of the presumed editions missing from this list. All the “Peter Pindar, Esq.” titles appear to have come from the same hand and their title-pages cross-reference one another, but the pseudonym could conceal a stable of hack writers. At the same time, John Agg (q.v.) was publishing as “Peter Pindar, Jr.,” and in consequence his works are often confused with Lawler’s in library catalogues although Agg’s publisher was normally Effingham Wilson. In this bibliography Lawler’s name appears as author with a question mark, both because the attributions are based on slender evidence and because of the absence of any proof of his existence in public records. Watkins outed Lawler in 1816 as “a poetaster of little or no wit” who had usurped Wolcot’s pseudonym purely for profit; but he also attributed to C. F. Lawler under his own name an “Oriental tale,” Selim, or, The Royal Wanderer (1803) that was actually by Dennis Lawler (q.v.). O’Donoghue includes C. F. Lawler as an Irish writer but gives no biographical details or evidence to justify his inclusion and mixes his works up with Agg’s. No entry for C. F. Lawler appears in the relevant genealogical sites. There is a record of the Catholic baptism of Charles Lawler, son of John and Rose Lawler, in Carlow, Co. Carlow, Ireland, on 16 Jul. 1778, and another in Dublin on 14 Nov. 1784 for Charles Lawlor, the son of Charles Lawlor (mother’s name not clear), but those are long shots, as are the Catholic baptism of Charles Lawler, son of John and Margarite (Devine) Lawler at the Sardinian Chapel of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, on 25 Oct. 1767, and the burial of Charles Lawler at the Anglican church of St. Sepulchre, London, on 7 Oct. 1831. (ancestry.com 9 Dec. 2023; findmypast.com 9 Dec. 2023; O’Donoghue; Watkins, 396) HJ