HUGH

See also:

• KELLY, EDWARD (1854–188o)
• HUGH KELLY (1739–1777)
• KELLY, MICHAEL (1762–1826)
• KELLY, SIR FITZROY (1796–1880)

KELLY (1739–1777)  , Irish dramatist and poet, son of a Dublin publican, was born in 1739 at Killarney . He was apprenticed to a staymaker, and in 176o went to London . Here he worked at his trade for some time, and then became an attorney's clerk . He contributed to various newspapers, and wrote pamphlets for the booksellers . In 1767 he published Memoirs of a Magdalen, or the History of Louisa Mildmay (2 vols.), a novel which obtained considerable success . 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 obviouslydictated chiefly by personal prejudice . In 1767 he produced a second part, less scurrilous in tone, dealing with the Covent Garden actors . His first comedy, False Delicacy, written in prose, was produced by Garrick at Drury Lane on the 23rd of January 1768, with the intention of rivalling Oliver Goldsmith's Good-Natured Man . It is a moral and sentimental comedy, described by Garrick in the prologue as a sermon preached in acts . Although Samuel Johnson described it as " totally void of character," it was very popular and had a great sale . In French and Portuguese versions it drew crowded houses in Paris and Lisbon .

Kelly was a journalist in the pay of Lord North, and therefore hated by the party of John Wilkes, especially as being the editor of the Public Ledger . His Thespis had also made him many enemies; and Mrs Clive refused to act in his pieces . The production of his second comedy, A Word to the Wise (Drury Lane, 3rd of March 1770), occasioned a riot in the theatre; repeated at the second performance, and the piece had to be abandoned . His other plays are: Clementina (Covent Garden, 23rd of 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 (Drury Lane, xlth of 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, 2nd of December 1774), borrowed from Marmontel's tale L'Amitie a l'epreuve; and an unsuccessful comedy, The Man of Reason (Covent Garden, 9th of February 1776) . He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1774, and determined to give up literature . He failed in his new profession and died in poverty on the 3rd of February 1777 . See The Works of Hugh Kelly, to which is prefixed the Life of the Author (1778) ; Genest, History 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 .