GEORGE

See also:

• GEORGE CROLY (1780-1860)

CROLY (1780-1860)  , British divine and author, son of a Dublin physician, was born on the 17th of August 1780 . He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and after ordination was appointed to a small curacy in the north of Ireland . About 18ro he came to London, and occupied himself with literary work . A man of restless energy, he claims attention by his extraordinary versatility . He wrote dramatic criticisms for a short-lived periodical called the New Times ; he was one of the earliest contributors to Blackwood's Magazine; and to the Literary Gazette he contributed poems, reviews and essays on all kinds of subjects . In 1819 he married Margaret Helen Begbie . Efforts to secure an English living for Croly were frustrated, according to the Gentleman's Magazine (Jan . 1861), because Lord Eldon confounded him with a Roman Catholic of the same name . Excluding his contributions to the daily and weekly press his chief works were:—Paris in 1815 (1817), a poem in imitation of Childe Harold ; Catiline (1822), a tragedy lacking in dramatic force; Salathiel: A Story of the Past, the Present and the Future (1829), a successful romance of the " Wandering Jew " type; The Life and Times of his late Majesty George the Fourth (183o); Marston; or, The Soldier and Statesman (1846), a novel of modern life; The Modern Orlando (1846), a satire which owes something to Don Juan; and some biographies, sermons and theological works . Croly was an effective preacher, and continued to hope for preferment from the Tory leaders, to whom he had rendered considerable services by his pen; but he eventually received, in 1835, the living of St Stephen's, Walbrook, London, from a Whig patron, Lord Brougham, with whose family he was connected . In 1847 he was made afternoon lecturer at the Foundling hospital, but this appointment proved unfortunate . He died suddenly on the 24th of November 186o, in London .

His Poetical Works (2 vols.) were collected in 183o . For a

list of his works see Allibone's Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1859) .