Hugh Kelly (1739 – 3 February 1777) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. From the 1760s he was employed as a

propagandist Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

for the

British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

, attacking members of the

Opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * ''The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Comed ...

. After arriving in London in 1760 to work as a staymaker, he soon turned to become a writer and made a living as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

. In 1766 he published ''

Thespis Thespis (; grc-gre, Θέσπις; fl. 6th century BC) was an Ancient Greek poet. He was born in the ancient city of Icarius (present-day Dionysos, Greece). According to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, he was the first pe ...

'', a long poem about the acting profession, which gained him wide attention. He followed up this success with the novel '' Memoirs of a Magdalen'' in 1767. He ultimately became known for his stage plays such as ''

False Delicacy ''False Delicacy'' is a 1768 comic play by the Irish playwright Hugh Kelly, with some assistance by David Garrick. It premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre on 23 January. The play was a major success for Kelly, being performed over twenty times ...

'' and '' A Word to the Wise''.

Early life

The son of a

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

publican In antiquity, publicans (Greek τελώνης ''telōnēs'' (singular); Latin ''publicanus'' (singular); ''publicani'' (plural)) were public contractors, in whose official capacity they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the ...

, Hugh Kelly was born at

Killarney Killarney ( ; ga, Cill Airne , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Ross Castl ...

County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...

. He enjoyed a reasonable education but was forced to drop out following his father's financial difficulties. He was apprenticed to a staymaker, and in 1760 went to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

where he worked at his trade for some time, fairly unsuccessfully, and then became an attorney's clerk. He contributed to various

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s, and wrote pamphlets for

booksellers Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

. Much of his early life remains uncertain and relies on

anecdotes An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous, ...

told by his contemporaries.

Writer

First success

In 1766 he published anonymously ''Thespis; or, A Critical Examination into the Merits of All the Principal Performers belonging to

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. Notable landmarks ...

Theatre'', a poem in the heroic couplet containing violent attacks on the principal contemporary actors and actresses. The poem opens with a panegyric on

David Garrick David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Sa ...

, however, and bestows foolish praise on friends of the writer. This satire was partly inspired by Churchill's ''Rosciad'', but its criticism is obviously dictated chiefly by personal prejudice. In 1767 he produced a second part, less scurrilous in tone, dealing with the

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

actors. This part includes some genuine praise, including that of Mary Wilford (later

Mary Bulkley Mary Bulkley, née Wilford (1747/8 – 1792), known professionally as Mrs Bulkley, Miss Bulkley, and later Mrs Barresford, was an English eighteenth-century dancer and comedy stage actress. She performed at various theatres, especially Covent G ...

) "blest with a person wholly without fault." In 1767 he published '' Memoirs of a Magdalen'' a novel which enjoyed considerable success. The

William Kenrick William Kenrick may refer to: *William Kenrick (Member of Barebone's Parliament), MP for Kent (UK Parliament constituency) *William Kenrick (writer) (1725–1779), English novelist, playwright and satirist *William Kenrick (nurseryman) (1795&nda ...

play ''

The Widowed Wife ''The Widowed Wife'' is a 1767 comic play by William Kenrick. It premiered at Drury Lane Theatre on 5 December 1767. It closely resembled the plot of '' Memoirs of a Magdalen'' a novel by Hugh Kelly.Bataille p.46 The play enjoyed a fairly succe ...

'', staged the same year, was largely based on it.

False Delicacy

His first play, the comedy ''

'', written in prose, was produced by Garrick at Drury Lane on 23 January 1768, with the intention of rivalling

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...

's ''

The Good-Natur'd Man ''The Good-Natur'd Man'' is a play written by Oliver Goldsmith in 1768. The play was written in the form of a comedy and premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre in 1768, with Mary Bulkley as Miss Richland. It was a middling success for Goldsmith ...

'' which it successfully did. It is a moral and sentimental comedy, described by Garrick in the

prologue A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ...

as a

sermon A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. El ...

preached in act. Although

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

described it as totally void of character, it was very popular. It was translated into several languages and its French and Portuguese versions drew crowded houses in Paris and Lisbon.

Journalism and politics

Kelly was a journalist in the pay of

Lord North Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...

, and therefore hated by the supporters of the radical journalist and politician

John Wilkes John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fo ...

, especially as being the editor of ''

The Public Ledger ''The Public Ledger'' is one of the world's longest continuously running magazines. Today it provides agricultural commodity news, analyses and prices. When established in 1760, however, it not only contained prices of commodities in London, but ...

''. His ''Thespis'' had also made him many enemies; and

Mrs Clive Catherine Clive (née Raftor; 5 November 1711 – 6 December 1785) Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive (1711-1785, active 1728-1769) was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English ...

refused to act in his pieces.

Further plays

The production of his second comedy, '' A Word to the Wise'' (Drury Lane, 3 March 1770), occasioned a riot in the theatre, repeated at the second performance, and the piece had to be abandoned. There was still ill-feeling regarding Kelly's defence of the government using force against Wilkes' followers during a recent clash at St George's Field. His other plays are: '' Clementina'' (Covent Garden, 23 February 1771), a blank verse tragedy, given out to be the work of a young American clergyman in order to escape the opposition of the Wilkites; ''

The School for Wives ''The School for Wives'' (french: L'école des femmes; ) is a theatrical comedy written by the seventeenth century French playwright Molière and considered by some critics to be one of his finest achievements. It was first staged at the Palai ...

'' (Drury Lane, 11 December 1773), a prose comedy given out as the work of Major (afterwards Sir William) Addington; a two-act piece, '' The Romance of an Hour'' (Covent Garden, 2 December 1774), borrowed from Marmontel's tale ''L'amitié à l'épreuve''; and an unsuccessful comedy, ''

The Man of Reason ''The Man of Reason: "Male" and "Female" in Western Philosophy'' (1984; second edition 1993) is a book about the association between maleness and reason in western philosophy by the Australian philosopher Genevieve Lloyd. The work received positi ...

'' (Covent Garden, 9 February 1776).

Lawyer

He was called to the bar at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

in 1774, and determined to give up literature. He failed in his new profession and died in poverty. See ''The Works of Hugh Kelly'', to which is prefixed the ''Life of the Author'' (1778); Genest, ''The story of the Stage'' (v. 163, 263, 269, 308, 399, 457, 517). Pamphlets in reply to Thespis are: ''Anti-Thespis'' (1767); ''The Kellyad...'' (1767), by Louis Stamma; and ''The Rescue or Thespian Scourge...'' (1767), by John Brown-Smith. He is mentioned in the unfinished

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

play ''Human Wishes.''

Major works

Plays

* ''

'' (1767) * '' A Word to the Wise'' (1770) * '' Clementina'' (1771) * ''

'' (1773) * '' The Romance of an Hour'' (1774) * ''

'' (1776)

Novels

* '' Memoirs of a Magdalen'' (1767)

Bibliography

* Bataille, Robert R. ''The Writing Life of Hugh Kelly: Politics, Journalism and Theater in Late-Eighteenth Century London''. Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Hugh 1739 births 1777 deaths Irish male dramatists and playwrights British male dramatists and playwrights People from Killarney Members of the Middle Temple 18th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 18th-century British dramatists and playwrights 18th-century Irish novelists Irish male novelists 18th-century Irish male writers