Thomas Love Peacock (October 18, 1785 - January 23, 1866) was an English satirist and author. October 18 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in Leap years). ... 1785 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1866 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ...

Peacock was born in Dorset, England. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. He wrote satirical novels, each with the same basic setting — characters at a table discussing and criticizing the philosophical opinions of the day. Dorset (pronounced Dorsit, sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the southwest of England, on the English Channel coast. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822) was one of the major English romantic poets and is esteemed by some scholars the finest lyric poet in the English language. ...

He worked for the British East India Company. The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as John Company, was a joint-stock company of investors, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. ...

Early life

Thomas Love Peacock was born at Weymouth, October 18, 1785. His father was a glass merchant in London, partner of a Mr Pellatt, presumably founder of the celebrated firm; his mother was the daughter of Thomas Love, formerly master of a man-of-war. Of the father we know nothing but his calling, and that he left his son an orphan at the age of three. Mrs Peacock went to live with her father at Chertsey, and from eight to thirteen Peacock was at a school at Englefield Green. Weymouth Promenade in 1993 Weymouth is a coastal town in Dorset, England. ... A man of war (also man-of-war, man-o-war or simply man) is an armed naval vessel. ...

Peacock's juvenile compositions, some of which have been privately printed by Sir Henry Cole, exhibit just the sort of formal precocity which a schoolmaster would appreciate, while displaying nothing of the peculiar fancy and humour which have given him his abiding place in literature. More interesting is a prize contribution to "The Juvenile Library", a magazine for youth whose competitions excited the emulation of several other boys destined to celebrity, among them Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, and W. J. Fox. Peacock, in 1800, gained the eleventh prize for an essay on the comparative advantages of history and biography as themes of study. James Henry Leigh Hunt (October 19, 1784 - August 28, 1859) was an English essayist and writer. ... Thomas de Quincey from the frontispiece of Revolt of the Tartars, Thomas de Quincey (August 15, 1785 – December 8, 1859) was an English author and intellectual. ...

At the age of sixteen Peacock moved to London, and there is evidence in his papers of his having for a time followed some mercantile occupation, the exact nature of which is unknown. He began visiting the Reading Room of the British Museum, which he frequented for many years, a diligent student of the best literature in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian. His circumstances, though narrow, must have been independent, for in 1804 and 1806 he published two volumes of poetry, The Monks of St. Mark and Palmyra, from which profit could hardly have been expected. The domed ceiling of the Reading Room is particularly noted. ... The main entrance to the British Museum The British Museum in London is the United Kingdoms - and one of the worlds - largest and most important museums of human history and culture. ...

His friends, as he hints, thought it wrong that so clever a man should be earning so little money. In the autumn of 1808 he became private secretary to Sir Home Popham, commanding the fleet before Flushing. His preconceived affection for the sea did not reconcile him to nautical realities. "Writing poetry", he says, "or doing anything else that is rational, in this floating inferno, is next to a moral impossibility. I would give the world to be at home and devote the winter to the composition of a comedy". He did write prologues and addresses for dramatic performances on board the Venerable: his dramatic taste then and for nine years subsequently found expression in attempts at comedies and pieces of a still lighter class, all of which fail from lack of ease of dialogue and the over-elaboration of incident and humour. He left the Venerable in March 1809. Another of his longer poems, "The Genius of the Thames", which he had meditated in 1807, was published in 1810. Sir Home Riggs Popham (1762-1820) was a British admiral who saw service during the French Revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic Wars. ...

Friendship with Shelley

In 1812 Peacock published another elaborate poem, "The Philosophy of Melancholy", and in the same year made the acquaintance of Shelley: he says in his memoir of Shelley, that he "saw Shelley for the first time just before he went to Tanyrallt", whither Shelley proceeded from London in November 1812 (Hogg's Life of Shelley, vol. 2, pp. 174, 175.) The medium of introduction was no doubt Mr Thomas Hookham, the publisher of all Peacock's early writings, whose circulating library ministered to Shelley's intellectual hunger for many years. He had sent "The Genius of the Thames" to Shelley, and in the "Shelley Memorials", pp. 38-40, will be found a letter from the poet under date of August 18, 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. Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792 - 1862) was a British biographer. ...

For some years, the course of Peacock's life is only known from its connection with his illustrious friend. In the winter of 1813 he accompanies Shelley and Harriet to Edinburgh; throughout the winter of 1814-15 he is an almost daily visitor of Shelley and Mary at their London lodgings. In 1815 he shares their voyage to the source of the Thames. "He seems," writes Charles Clairmont, 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, fade gradually out of his mind; and the writer who had begun 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. Note: Hellen was not the same person as Helen of Troy or Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy. ... John Keats John Keats (October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets in the English Romantic movement. ... Walter Savage Landor (January 30, 1775 - September 17, 1864), English writer, eldest son of Walter Landor and his wife Elizabeth Savage, was born at Warwick. ...

In 1815 Headlong Hall was written, and it was published in the following year. With this book Peacock definitively takes the place in literature which he was to maintain throughout his life, without substantial alteration or development beyond the mellowing which wider experience and increasing prosperity would naturally bring.

In 1816 Shelley went abroad, and Peacock appears to have been entrusted with the commission of providing the Shelleys with a new residence. He fixed them near his own abode at Great Marlow. Melincourt was published at this time; and Nightmare Abbey and "Rhododaphne" written. Before these works were published in 1818, Shelley was again on the wing, and Peacock and he were never to meet again.

East India Company

On January 13, 1819, he writes from 5 York Street, Covent Garden: "I now pass every morning at the India House, from half-past 10 to half-past 4, studying Indian affairs. My object is not yet attained, though I have little doubt but that it will be. It was not in the first instance of my own seeking, but was proposed to me. It will lead to a very sufficing provision for me in two or three years. It is not in the common routine of office, but is an employment of a very interesting and intellectual kind, connected with finance and legislation, in which it is possible to be of great service, not only to the Company, but to the millions under their dominion." Covent Garden is a shopping and entertainment complex in central London. ...

It would appear that the East India Company had become aware that their home staff was too merely clerical, and had determined to reinforce it by the appointment of four men of exceptional ability to the Examiner's office, including Peacock and James Mill. The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as John Company, was a joint-stock company of investors, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. ... James Mill James Mill (April 6, 1773 - June 23, 1836), historian and philosopher, was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of Logie-Pert, Forfarshire, the son of James Mill, a shoemaker. ...

Mill's salary is said to have been £800 a year; we do not know whether Peacock received as much. The latter's appointment is said by Sir Henry Cole to have been owing to the influence of Peter Auber, the Company's secretary and historian, whom he had known at school, though probably not as a school-fellow. Mill appears to have undergone no probation: Peacock did, but the test papers which he drafted were returned to him with the high commendation, "Nothing superfluous, and nothing wanting".

We learn from Hogg that it was on July 1, 1819 that Peacock slept for the first time in "a house in Stamford Street (No 18) which, as you might expect from a Republican, he has furnished very handsomely".

In 1822 Maid Marian, begun in 1818, was completed and published. It was soon dramatised with great success by Planché, and enjoyed the honour of translation into French and German. Peacock's salary was now £1000 a year, and in 1823 he acquired the residence at Lower Halliford which continued his predilection to the end of his life. In 1829 came The Misfortunes of Elphin, and in 1831 Crotchet Castle, the most mature and thoroughly characteristic of all his works. James Robinson Planche (1796 - 1880), dramatist and miscellaneous writer, born in London of Huguenot descent, was in the Herald Office, and rose to be Somerset Herald, in which capacity he was repeatedly sent on missions to invest foreign princes with the Order of the Garter. ...

In 1836 his official career was crowned by his appointment as Chief Examiner of Indian Correspondence, in succession to James Mill. The post was one which could only be filled by someone of sound business capacity and exceptional ability in drafting official documents: and Peacock's discharge of its duties, it is believed, suffered nothing by comparison either with his distinguished predecessor or his still more celebrated successor, Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential azmat classical liberal thinker of the 19th century. ...

It is much to be regretted that so little is known of the old India House, or of its eminent occupants in their official capacity. It does not seem to have afforded an employment of predilection to any of them. Peacock has let in a little light in another direction:—

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.

Peacock's occupation seems to have principally lain with finance, commerce, and public works. The first clear glimpse we obtain of its nature is the memorandum prepared by him at the request of a Director respecting General Chesney's projected Euphrates expedition, and reprinted in the preface to the General's narrative as a tribute to its sagacity. The line of inquiry eventually resulted in the construction under his superintendence of iron steamboats designed to demonstrate his view of the feasibility of steam navigation round the Cape.

Later life

For many years after his appointment Peacock's authorship was in abeyance with the exception of the operatic criticisms which he regularly contributed to the "Examiner", and an occasional article in the Westminster Review or Bentley's Miscellany. This article is about publication entitled Examiner The Examiner The Examiner was a weekly paper founded by Leigh and John Hunt in 1808. ... The Westminster Review was founded in 1823 by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham as a journal for philosophical radicals, and was published from 1824 to 1914. ... Bentleys Miscellany was a literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. ...

In 1837, Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey, Maid Marian, and Crotchet Castle appeared together as vol. 57 of Bentley's Standard Novels. About 1852, taste or leisure for authorship returned, and he commenced a series of contributions to Fraser's Magazine with the first, and most interesting, paper of his Horae Dramaticae, a delightful restoration of the "Querolus", a Roman comedy probably of the time of Diocletian. Frasers Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal. ...

Peacock had in the interim retired from the India House on an ample pension (March 29, 1856). Throughout 1860 his last novel, Gryll Grange, continued to appear in Fraser's Magazine.

Peacock died at Lower Halliford, January 23, 1866, and is buried in the new cemetery at Shepperton. His grand-daughter remembered him in these words:— Shepperton is a small town in Middlesex in the borough of Spelthorne, in England. ...

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.

After he retired from the India House he seldom left Halliford; his life was spent among his books, and in the garden, in which he took great pleasure, and on the river.

Works

Peacock's own place in literature is pre-eminently that of a satirist. That he has nevertheless been only the favourite of the few is owing in a measure to the highly intellectual quality of his work, but chiefly to his lack of the ordinary qualifications of the novelist, all pretension to which he entirely disclaims. He has no plot, little human interest, and no consistent delineation of character. His personages are mere puppets, or, at best, incarnations of abstract qualities, or idealisations of disembodied grace or beauty.

It will not be the judgment of any capable of appreciating the Aristophanic comedy of which, restricted as their scale is in comparison, Peacock's fiction is, perhaps, the best modern representative. Nearly everything that can be urged against him can be urged against Aristophanes too; and save that his invention is far less daring and opulent, his Muse can allege most of "the apologies of Aristophanes". When he is depreciated, comparison with another novelist usually seems to be implied, but it would be as unfair to test him by the standard of Miss Austen or Miss Edgeworth, as to try Aristophanes by the rules of the New Comedy. Bust of Aristophanes Aristophanes (c. ... Jane Austen, in a portrait based on one drawn by her sister Cassandra Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 – July 18, 1817) was a prominent English novelist whose work is considered part of the Western canon. ... Maria Edgeworth (January 1, 1767-May 22, 1849) was an Irish novelist. ... Greek comedy is the name given to a wide genre of theatrical plays written, and performed, in Ancient Greece. ...

A master of fiction he is not, and he never claimed to be; a satirist, a humourist, a poet he is most undoubtedly. The literary historian would have to note in him the first appearance of a new type, destined to be frequently imitated, but seldom approached, and never exactly reproduced.

Novels

• Headlong Hall (published 1815 but dated 1816) [lightly revised, 1837]
• Melincourt (1817)
• Nightmare Abbey (1818) [lightly revised, 1837]
• Maid Marian (1822)
• The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829)
• Crotchet Castle (1831) [lightly revised, 1837]
• Grylllll Grange (1861) [serialised first in 1860]

Verse

• The Monks of St. Mark (1804?)
• Palmyra and other Poems (1805)
• The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810)
• The Genius of the Thames Palmyra and other Poems (1812)
• The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812)
• Sir Hornbook, or Childe Launcelot's Expedition (1813)
• Sir Proteus: a Satirical Ballad (1814)
• The Round Table, or King Arthur's Feast (1817)
• Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spirit (1818)
• Paper Money Lyrics (1837)

Essays

• The Four Ages of Poetry (1820)
• Recollections of Childhood: The Abbey House (1837)
• Memoirs of Shelley (1858-60)
• The Last Day of Windsor Forest (1887) [composed 1862]
• Prospectus: Classical Education

Plays

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

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)

References

• Garnett, R. (1891). Introduction. In T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, pp. 7–43. J. M. Dent & Co.
• The Thomas Love Peacock Society. Retrieved 2004-12

Richard Garnett (February 27, 1835 – April 13, 1906) was a scholar, librarian, biographer and poet. ...

See also

• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• British East India Company

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822) was one of the major English romantic poets and is esteemed by some scholars the finest lyric poet in the English language. ... The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as John Company, was a joint-stock company of investors, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. ...

External links

• Works by Thomas Love Peacock at Project Gutenberg
• The Thomas Love Peacock Society

Most of the text of this article was extracted from the Introduction written by Richard Garnett for the edition of Thomas Love Peacock's novels published by J. M. Dent & Co. in 1891. Project Gutenberg (often abbreviated as PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive, and distribute cultural works. ...

Lists of Peacock's works from The Thomas Love Peacock Society.