Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock (October 18, 1785 - January 23, 1866) was an English satirist and author.

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.

Related Topics:
Weymouth - Man-of-war

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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.

Related Topics:
Leigh Hunt - De Quincey

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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.

Related Topics:
Reading Room - British Museum

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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.

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