Born to a modest family, Shebbeare was a cantankerous Tory polemicist in the 1740s and 50s (he was pilloried for libelling the Hanoverians) but came into favor with the accession of George III, who pensioned him. He also published novels and medical treatises, again with a strongly combattive flavor. His signed publications mention an M.D. (he claimed it was from Paris, according to DNB) but unclear if he made money practicing medicine. Only poetry is a political epitaph in 1739 GM and a verse epistle published in 1750s. An illustration of the decline of political poetry from the Walpole generation to the GIII generation? Or just an illustration of how verse was one tool in the box of midcentury political polemic?