Hugh Kelly (poet)

Hugh Kelly (1739 – 3 February 1777) was an Irish dramatist and poet. From the 1760s he was employed as a propagandist for the British government, attacking members of the Opposition. 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. In 1766 he published Thespis, 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 and A Word to the Wise.

The son of a Dublin publican, Hugh Kelly was born at Killarney, County Kerry. 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 where he worked at his trade for some time, fairly unsuccessfully, and then became an attorney's clerk. He contributed to various newspapers, and wrote pamphlets for booksellers. Much of his early life remains uncertain and relies on anecdotes told by his contemporaries.

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

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