Thomas Love Peacock (October 18, 1785 -
January 23, 1866) was an English satirist and author.
Peacock 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.
He worked for the British East India Company.
Early Life
Thomas Love Peacock was born in Weymouth, Dorset,
England. 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 attended a private school at Englefield Greenadfgf.
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. 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.
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
HMS 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.
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.
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, gradually faded out of his mind; and the writer who 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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:—
- 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 the favourite only of the
few is owing partly to the highly intellectual quality of his work, but mainly to his lack of 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 such as grace or beauty.
His comedy is Aristophanic. He suffers from that dramatist's faults and, though not as
daring in invention, shares many of his strengths.
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]
- Gryll 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
See also
External links
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.
Lists of Peacock's works from The Thomas Love Peacock Society.
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