Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 - 23 January 1866) was an English poet and novelist.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) by Henry Wallis (1830-1916). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Love Peacock
Born	October 18, 1785(1785-Template:MONTHNUMBER-18) Weymouth, Dorset, England
Died	January 23, 1866(1866-Template:MONTHNUMBER-23) (aged 80) Lower Halliford, Shepperton, Surrey, England
Notable work(s)	Nightmare Abbey (1818), Crotchet Castle (1831)

Life

Overview

Peacock, born at Weymouth, the only child of a London merchant, was in boyhood at various schools, but from the age of 13 self-educated. Nevertheless, he became a learned scholar. He was for long in the India Office, where he rose to be Chief Examiner, coming between James Mill and John Stuart Mill. He was the author of several somewhat whimsical, but quite unique novels, full of paradox, prejudice, and curious learning, with witty dialogue and occasional poems interspersed. Among them are Headlong Hall (1816), Nightmare Abbey (1818), Maid Marian (1822), Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), Crotchet Castle (1831), and Gryll Grange (1860). He was a close friend of Shelley, memoirs of whom he contributed to Fraser's Magazine. He wrote satirical novels, each with the same basic setting: characters at a table discussing and criticising the philosophical opinions of the day.

Youth

Peacock was born in Weymouth, Dorset, the son of Sarah (Love) (daughter of Thomas Love, a retired master of a man-of-war in the Royal Navy) and Samuel Peacock, a glass merchant in London, partner of a Mr. Pellatt, presumed to be Apsley Pellatt (1763–1826).

Peacock went with his mother to live with her family at Chertsey in 1791 and in 1792 went to a school run by Joseph Harris Wicks at Englefield Green where he stayed for six and a half years. His father died in 1794 in "poor circumstances" leaving a small annuity.

His earliest known poem was an epitaph for a school fellow written at the age of 10; another, on his "Midsummer Holidays," was written when he was 13. Around that time in 1798 he was abruptly taken from school and from then on was entirely self educated.

He was the only son of a London glass merchant, who died soon after the child’s birth.

Early career

In February 1800, Peacock became a clerk with Ludlow Fraser Company, who were merchants in the City of London. He lived with his mother on the firm's premises at 4 Angel Court Throgmorton Street. He won the eleventh prize from the Monthly Preceptor for a verse answer to the question "Is History or Biography the More Improving Study?". He also contributed to The Juvenile Library, a magazine for youth whose competitions excited the emulation of several other boys including Leigh Hunt, Thomas de Quincey, and William Johnson Fox. He began visiting the Reading Room of the British Museum, which he frequented for many years, a diligent student of all the best literature in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian.

After a brief experience of business Peacock determined to devote himself to literature, while living with his mother on their private means. In around 1806 he left his job in the city and during the year made a solitary walking tour of Scotland. The annuity left by his father expired in October 1806. In 1807 he returned to live at his mother's house at Chertsey. He was briefly engaged to Fanny Faulkner, but it was broken off through the interference of her relations.

His earlist books were poetical, The Monks of St. Mark (1804), Palmyra (1806), The Genius of the Thames (1810), The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812) — works of no great merit. He also made several dramatic attempts, which were never acted.

He served for a short time as secretary to Sir Home Popham at Flushing, and paid several visits to Wales. In 1811, his mother's annuity expired and she had to leave Chertsey and moved to Morven Cottage, Wraysbury near Staines, with the help of some friends. In 1812 they had to leave Morven Cottage over problems paying tradesmen's bills.

Friendship with Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1812 Peacock became acquainted with Percy Bysshe Shelley. He says in his memoir of Shelley, that he "saw Shelley for the first time just before he went to Tanyrallt", where Shelley proceeded from London in November 1812. Thomas Hookham, the publisher of all Peacock's early writings, was possibly responsible for the introduction. It was Hookham's circulating library which Shelley used for many years, and Hookham had sent The Genius of the Thames to Shelley, and in the Shelley Memorials, pp. 38–40, is a letter from the poet dated 18 August 1812, extolling the poetical merits of the performance and with equal exaggeration censuring what he thought the author's misguided patriotism. Personal acquaintance almost necessarily ensued, and hence arose an intimacy not devoid of influence upon Shelley's fortunes both before and after his death.

For some years, the course of Peacock's life is only known in connection with Shelley. In the winter of 1813 he accompanies Shelley and his first wife Harriet to Edinburgh. Peacock was fond of Harriet, and in his old age defended her reputation from slanders spread by Jane, Lady Shelley, the daughter-in-law of Shelley's second wife Mary.

After Shelley deserted Harriet, Peacock throughout the winter of 1814–15 became an almost daily visitor of Shelley and his mistress, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), at their London lodgings. In 1815 he shares their voyage to the source of the Thames. "He seems", writes Charles Clairmont, Mary Godwin's stepbrother and a member of the party, "an idly-inclined man; indeed, he is professedly so in the summer; he owns he cannot apply himself to study, and thinks it more beneficial to him as a human being entirely to devote himself to the beauties of the season while they last; he was only happy while out from morning till night".

During the winter of 1815–16 Peacock was continually walking over from Marlow, where he had established himself some time in this year, to visit Shelley at Bishopgate. There he met Hogg, and "the winter was a mere Atticism. Our studies were exclusively Greek". The benefit which Shelley derived from such a course of study cannot be overrated. Its influence is seen more and more in everything he wrote to the end of his life. The morbid, the fantastic, the polemical, gradually faded out of his mind; and the writer who began as the imitator of the wildest extravagances of German romance would, had not his genius transcended the limits of any school, have ended as scarcely less of a Hellene than Keats and Landor.

In 1816 Shelley went abroad, and Peacock appears to have been entrusted with the task of finding the Shelleys a new residence. He fixed them near his own home at Great Marlow. By 1818, however, Shelley was again on the wing, and he and Peacock were never to meet again.

Novelist

In 1815 Peacock evinced his peculiar power by writing his novel Headlong Hall. It was published in 1816, and Melincourt followed in the ensuing year. During 1817 he lived at Great Marlow, enjoying the almost daily society of Shelley, and writing Nightmare Abbey and Rhododaphne, by far the best of his long poems.

In 1819 he was appointed assistant examiner at the India House. Peacock’s nomination appears to have been due to the influence of his old schoolfellow Peter Auber, secretary to the East India Company, and the papers he prepared as tests of his ability were returned with the comment, “Nothing superfluous and nothing wanting.” This was characteristic of the whole of his intellectual work.

Equally characteristic of the man was his marriage about this time to Jane Griffith, to whom he proposed by letter, not having seen her for 8 years. They had 4 children, only 1 of whom, a son, survived his father; a daughter was the 1st wife of George Meredith.

His novel Maid Marian appeared in 1822, The Misfortunes of Elphin in 1829, and Crotchet Castle in 1831; and he would probably have written more but for the death in 1833 of his mother. He also contributed to the Westminister Review and the Examiner.

East India Co.

A Day at the India House

From ten to eleven, have breakfast for seven;
From eleven to noon, think you've come too soon;
From twelve to one, think what's to be done;
From one to two, find nothing to do;
From two to three, think it will be
A very great bore to stay till four.
- Thomas Love Peacock

His services to the East India Company, outside the usual official routine, were considerable. He defended it successfully against the attacks of James Silk Buckingham and the Liverpool salt interest, and made the subject of steam navigation to India peculiarly his own. He represented the company before the various parliamentary committees on this question.

In 1839 and 1840 he superintended the construction of iron steamers, which not only made the voyage round the Cape successfully, but proved very useful in the Chinese War. He also drew up the instructions for the Euphrates expedition of 1835, subsequently pronounced by its commander, General F.R. Chesney, to be models of sagacity.

Somewhat sluggish and self-indulgent, incapable of enthusiasm or self-sacrifice, he yet possessed a deep undemonstrative kindliness of nature; he could not bear to see anyone near him unhappy or uncomfortable; and his sympathy, no less than his genial humour, gained him the attachment of children, dependants, and friends. In official life he was upright and conscientous; his judgment was shrewd and robust.

In 1836 he succeeded James Mill as chief examiner, and in 1856 he retired upon a pension.

Later years

File:Old T L Peacock.jpg

Peacock in old age

During his later years he contributed several papers to Fraser's Magazine, including reminiscences of Shelley, whose executor he was. He also wrote in the same magazine his last novel Gryll Grange (1860), inferior to his earlier writings in humor and vigor, but still a surprising effort for a man of his age.

His granddaughter remembered him in these words:

In society my grandfather was ever a welcome guest, his genial manner, hearty appreciation of wit and humour in others, and the amusing way in which he told stories made him a very delightful acquaintance; he was always so agreeable and so very witty that he was called by his most intimate friends the "Laughing Philosopher", and it seems to me that the term "Epicurean Philosopher", which I have often heard applied to him, describes him accurately and briefly. In public business my grandfather was upright and honourable; but as he advanced in years his detestation of anything disagreeable made him simply avoid whatever fretted him, laughing off all sorts of ordinary calls upon his leisure time.

He died on 23 January 1866 at Lower Halliford, near Chertsey, where, so far as his London occupations would allow him, he had resided for more than 40 years. He died from injuries sustained in a fire in which he had attempted to save his library, and is buried in the new cemetery at Shepperton.

Writing

Novels

Peacock’s position in English literature is unique. There was nothing like his type of novel before his time; though there might have been if it had occurred to Swift to invent a story as a vehicle for the dialogue of his Polite Conversation. Peacock speaks as well in his own person as through his puppets; and his pithy wit, and sense, combined with remarkable grace and accuracy of natural description, atone for the primitive simplicity of plot and character.

Of his 7 fictions, Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle are perhaps on the whole the best, the former displaying the most vis comica of situation, the latter the fullest maturity of intellectual power and the most skilful grouping of the motley crowd of “perfectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phrenologists, transcendentalists, political economists, theorists in all sciences, projectors in all arts, morbid visionaries, romantic enthusiasts, lovers of music, lovers of the picturesque and lovers of good dinners,” who constitute the dramatis personae of the Peacockian novel.

Maid Marian and The Misfortunes of Elphin are hardly less entertaining. Both contain descriptive passages of extraordinary beauty. Melincourt is a comparative failure, the excellent idea of an orangutang mimicking humanity being insufficient as the sole groundwork of a novel.

Headlong Hall, though more than foreshadowing the author’s subsequent excellence, is marred by a certain bookish awkwardness characteristic of the recluse student, which reappears in Gryll Grange as the pedantry of an old-fashioned scholar, whose likes and dislikes have become inveterate and whose sceptical liberalism, always rather inspired by hatred of cant than enthusiasm for progress, has petrified into only too earnest conservatism. Gryll Grange's quaint resolute paganism, however, is very refreshing in an age eaten up with introspection; it is the kindliest of Peacock’s writings, and contains the most beautiful of his poems, “Years Ago,” the reminiscence of an early attachment.

Poems

In general the ballads and songs interspersed throughout his tales are models of exact and melodious diction, and instinct with true feeling. His more ambitious poems are worth little, except Rhododaphne, attractive as a story and perfect as a composition, but destitute of genuine poetical inspiration.

Miscellaneous

His critical and miscellaneous writings are always interesting, especially the restorations of lost classical plays in the Horae dramaticae, but the only 1 of great mark is the witty and crushing exposure in the Westminister Review of Thomas Moore’s ignorance of the manners and belief he ventured to portray in his Epicurean. Peacock resented the misrepresentation of his favourite sect, the good and ill of whose tenets were fairly represented in his own person.

What Shelley justly termed “the lightness, strength and chastity” of his diction secures him an honorable rank among those English writers whose claims to remembrance depend not only upon matter but upon style.

Critical introduction

by Edmund Gosse

The fame of Peacock as a prose humorist of incomparable vivacity has tended to overshadow and stunt his reputation as a poet. It is time, however, that his claims in verse should be vindicated, and a place demanded for him as an independent figure in the crowded Parnassus of his age,— a place a little below the highest, and somewhat isolated, at the extreme right of the composition. He has certain relations, not wholly accidental, with Shelley, who stands above him, and with such minor figures as Horace Smith and Thomas Haynes Bayly, who stand no less obviously below him; but in the main he is chiefly notable for his isolation.

His ironical and caustic songs are unique in our literature, illuminated by too much fancy to be savage, but crackling with a kind of ghastly merriment that inspires quite as much terror as amusement. In parody he has produced at least 1 specimen, "There is a fever of the spirit," which does not possess its equal for combined sympathy and malice.

When we pass to his serious and sentimental lyrics, our praise cannot be so unmeasured. Peacock possessed too much literary refinement, too little personal sensibility to write with passion or to risk a fall by flying; yet his consummate purity of style seldom fails to give a subdued charm to the quietest of his songs. The snatches and refrains which are poured over the novel of Maid Marian, like a shower of seed pearl, are full of the very essence of spontaneous song, as opposed to deliberate lyrical writing; while the corresponding chants and ballads in The Misfortunes of Elphin show with equal distinctness Peacock’s limitations as a poetical artist. Once or twice he has succeeded in writing a lyric that is almost perfect; ‘I dug beneath the cypress shade’ would, for instance, be worthy of Landor in Landor’s best manner, but for a little stiffness in starting.

Twice in mature life Peacock attempted a long flight in poetry, and each time without attracting any serious attention from the public of his own time or from posterity. In 1 of these cases I hope to show that this neglect has been deeply unjust; for the other I find an excuse in the extreme langur which it has produced on myself to reread The Genius of the Thames. This poem, written just before the general revival of poetic style, may almost be called the last production of the 18th century. It contains all the wintry charms and hypocritical graces of the school of Collins in its last dissolution; it proceeds with mingled pomp and elegance along the conventional path, in the usual genteel manner, until suddenly the reader, familiar with the temperament of Peacock, starts and rubs his eyes to read an invocation of –

  ‘Sun-crowned Science! child of heaven!
To wandering man by angels given!
Still, nymph divine! on mortal sight
Diffuse thy intellectual light.’

– from the man to whom the whole spirit of scientific enquiry was entirely hostile.

Rhododaphne, which Peacock published 8 years later, is a performance of a very different kind. While somewhat indebted to Akenside for matter, to Byron for style, to Shelley for phraseology, the essential part of this poem is as original as it is delicate and fascinating. There is little plot or action in the piece. A youth Anthemion loves a mortal maiden Calliroë, but is courted and subdued by a supernatural being named Rhododaphne, who exercises over him the poisonous spell of the rose-laurel. Calliroë dies and Rhododaphne triumphs, but in the end the doom is reversed, Calliroë returns to life, and the charms of the rose-laurel are evaded. It is curious to compare Rhododaphne with Endymion, which was published in the same year. Peacock leaves Keats far behind in knowledge of English language and of Greek manners, in grace and learning of every kind, but Keats, as by a diviner instinct, is led by his very ignorance into a mood more truly antique than Peacock attains by such pedantries a s—

‘The rose and myrtle blend in beauty

Round Thespian Love’s hypæthric fane.’

Still Rhododaphne is a poem full of eminent beauties and touches of true art. It would be absolutely and not comparatively great were it not that the whole structure of the work is spoiled by a tone of Georgian sentiment which we should scarcely have expected from so genuine a Pagan as ‘Greeky-Peeky.’ The ethics of the poem are not merely modern, they are positively provincial. In short, Rhododaphne may be best compared to a series of charming friezes in antique story carved by some sculptor of the beginning of the present century, some craftsman less soft than Canova, less breezy than Thorwaldsen. The marble is excellently chosen, the artist’s touch sharp and delicate, the design flowing and refined, but the figures have the most provoking resemblance to those in the fashion-books of the last age but one.

Recognition

3 of his poems ("Love and Age," "The Grave of Love," and "Three Men of Gotham") were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

from "Palmyra". Courtesy Internet Archive.

Poetry

• The Monks of St. Mark. London: privately published,printed by T. Bensley, 1804.
• Palmyra, and other poems. London:T. Bensley for W.J. & J. Richardson, 1806.
• The Genius of the Thames: A lyrical poem, in two parts. London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham, 1810.
• The Genius of the Thames, Palmyra, and other poems. London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham / Gale & Curtis / Edinburgh: John Ballantyne, 1812.
• The Philosophy of Melancholy, a poem in four parts with a mythological ode. London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham / Gale & Curtis / Edinburgh: John Ballantyne, 1812.
• Sir Hornbook, or Childe Launcelot's expedition: A grammatico-allegorical ballad. London: Sharp & Hailes, 1814.
• Sir Proteus: A satirical ballad (as "P.M. O'Donovan, Esq."). London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham, 1814.
• The Round Table, or King Arthur's Feast. London: John Arliss, 1817.
• Rhododaphne; or, The Thessalian spell: A poem. London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham, 1818.
• Paper Money Lyrics and other poems. London: C. & W. Reynell, 1837.
• The Poems of Thomas Love Peacock (edited by Brimley Johnston). London: Routledge / New York: Dutton, 1906.

Plays

• The Plays of Thomas Love Peacock: Now published for the first time. London: David Nutt, 1910.

Novels

• Headlong Hall. London: T. Hookham Jr. & E.T. Hookham, 1816 [1815].
• Melincourt. (3 volumes), London: T. Hookham Jr. & Baldwin, Craddock, & Joy, 1817. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
• Nightmare Abbey. London: T. Hookham Jr. & Baldwin, Craddock, & Joy, 1818.
• Maid Marian. London: T. Hookham Jr. & Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1822.
• The Misfortunes of Elphin. London: T. Hookham Jr., 1829.
• Crotchet Castle. London: T. Hookham Jr., 1831.
• Gryll Grange. London: Parker, Son, & Bourn, 1861.
• Calidore, and miscellanea (edited by Richard Garnett). London: J.M. Dent, 1891.
• The Pleasures of Peacock: Comprising in whole or in part the seven novels of Thomas Love Peacock (edited by Ben Ray Redman). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1947.
• The Novels of Thomas Love Peacock. London: R. Hart-Davis, 1948.

Non-fiction

• "The Four Ages of Poetry" (1820), included in Peacock's Four Ages of Poetry; Shelley's Defence of poetry; Browning's Essay on Shelley (edited by Herbert Francis Brett Brett-Smith). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1923.
• Memoirs of Shelley, and other essays and reviews. London: Hart-Davis, 1970; New York: New York University Press, 1970.

Collected editions

• Works (edited by Henry Cole). (3 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1875. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Collected Works. London: Constable / New York: G. Wells, 1924.

Letters and journals

• Letters to Edward Hookham and Percy B. Shelley. Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1910.
• Letters (edited by Nicholas A. Joukovsky). London & New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Volume I: Volume II: 1828-1866

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Unfinished tales and novels

• Satyrane (c. 1816)
• Calidore (c. 1816)
• The Pilgrim of Provence (c. 1826)
• The Lord of the Hills (c. 1835)
• Julia Procula (c. 1850)
• A Story Opening at Chertsey (c. 1850)
• A Story of a Mansion among the Chiltern Hills (c. 1859)
• Boozabowt Abbey (c. 1859)
• Cotswald Chace (c. 1860)

List of Peacock's works courtesy The Thomas Love Peacock Society

Plays

• The Three Doctors
• The Dilettanti
• Gl'Ingannati, or The Deceived (translated from the Italian, 1862)

List of Peacock's works courtesy The Thomas Love Peacock Society

Poems by Peacock

The War Song of Dinas Vawr by Thomas Love Peacock

1. I dug, beneath the cypress shade

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Garnett, Richard (1911). "Peacock, Thomas Love". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-22. . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 19, 2018.

External links

Poems

• "Newark Abbey"
• Thomas Love Peacock at the Poetry Foundation
• Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) info & 3 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• Thomas Love Peacock in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900: "Love and Age," "The Grave of Love," "Three Men of Gotham"
• Selected Poetry of Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) (3 poems, "I Dug, Beneath the Cypress Shade," "Seamen Three," "The War-song of Dinas Vawr") at Representative Poetry Online*Peacock in A Victorian Anthology: "The Men of Gotham," "The War Song of Dinas Vawr," "Margaret Love Peacock"
• Peacock in The English Poets: An anthology: The War-Song of Dinas Vawr (from The Misfortunes of Elphin, The Men of Gotham (from Nightmare Abbey), The Flower of Love (from Melincourt), "The Grave of Love," Mr. Cypress’s Song in Ridicule of Lord Byron (from Nightmare Abbey)
  • Extracts from Rhododaphne: The Spell of the Laurel-Rose, The Vengeance of Bacchus
• A selection of poems from Melincourt (9 poems)
• a selection of shorter poems
• Thomas Love Peacock at PoemHunter (33 poems)
• Thomas Love Peacock at Poetry Nook (49 poems)

Books

• Works by Thomas Love Peacock at Project Gutenberg
• Thomas Love Peacock at Amazon.com

Audio / video

• Thomas Love Peacock poems at YouTube

About

• Thomas Love Peacock in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Thomas Love Peacock at NNDB
• Peacock, Thomas Love in the Dictionary of National Biography
• The Thomas Love Peacock Society

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Peacock, Thomaas Love