Life
1739-1777, b. Killarney [var. Dublin]; his father, Ferdinand Kelly, presumably
genteel, became impoverished and was ‘under the necessity of keeping
a tavern in Dublin’ (Cooke); Kelly trained as a staymaker; moved
to London, 1760, took work as copying-clerk; contrib. The Lady’s
Museum; edited The Court Magazine, 1761-65; m. 1761; issued
pamphlets in defence of Pitt, 1766, in response to the Almon-Temple charges;
wrote as ‘The Babler’ in Owen’s Weekly Chronicle,
1763-67; rep. by John Newbery as The Babler (2 vols., 1767), containing
the “Essay on Friendship” by Goldsmith; issued Thespis (1767),
a verse-satire on Drury Lane, with additional parts on Covent Garden (2nd
edn. 1967); issued a play False Delicacy, produced by Garrick at
Drury Lane, 23 Jan. 1768, to immediate acclaim, putting Goldsmith’s
Good Natur’d Man off the stage at rival Covent Garden; began
writing for the ministry of the day and said to have received a pension
of £200 from Lord North, editing the Public Ledger; issued A
Word to the Wise (1770), which was the object of a ‘patriotic’
riot in March 1770, causing him to appear on stage and offer to withdraw
it and forfeit his benefit, whereon Garrick played False Delicacy instead,
with Bickerstaffe’s Padlock as an afterpiece; attacked by
‘Atticus’ in Middlesex Journal for March 17-20; The
School for Wives (1773); Kelly was called to the English bar, 1774;
gave up income of £5,000 to write exclusively, died in poverty,
of an abcess in his side, 3 Feb.; obit. in Faulkner’s Dublin Journal
(8-11 Feb. 1777); his Works were edited in 1788. RR CAB
DNB PI JMC NCBE DIL DIW OCEL DIL FDA OCIL
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Works
Plays (Chronology), False Delicacy also A Word
to the Wise (Drury Lane, 3 March 1770), and a tragedy Clementina
(Covent Garden, 23 February, 1771), A School for Wives (Drury Lane,
10 December, 1773), the afterpiece The Romance of an Hour (Covent
Garden, 2 December, 1774). Kelly’s last comedy The Man of Reason
(Covent Garden, 9 February, 1776) failed.
Plays (Editions), L’Amour à la Mode, or Love à la Mode (1760) [unacted trans.]; False Delicacy (London 1768); School for Wives, (London: 1774), vi+88pp. [4 edns. 1774; another edn. 1775]; A Word to the Wise, with an address to the public in defence of the play (London 1770); Clementina (London 1771), vi+52pp.
Miscellaneous, The Babler: Containing a Careful selection from those Entertaining and interesting Essays, which have geven the publis so much Satisfaction under that Title, during a Course of Four Years, in Owen’s Chronicle, 2 vols. (London: Newbery 1767), Thespis, or a Critical Examination into the Merits of all the Principle Performers Belonging to Drury Lane Theatre (1767), and Do. [2nd edn.] with additions, viz, Thespis, A Critical Examination ... Covent Garden Theatre, 2 Vols. (1766-67). Memoirs of a Magdalen, the History of Louisa Mildmay, 2 vols. (London 1782) [as issued in Novelist’s Magazine]; Romance of an Hour (London 1774; Dublin: Exshaw 1775).
Translations, trans. in French by M.-J. Riccoboni as False Delicacy, ou la fausse delicatesse, in Oeuvres Comp., tome 6 (1818); also English Love, or Amour Anglais, imit. of False Delicacy (1778); Les Dangers d’un tête-à-tête ou l’Histoire L[ouisa] M[ilday], [being Memoirs of a Magdalen] trad. A Colleville, 2 tom. (Paris: Arr. VIII ?1818); F.L. Schroeder, Wie Man eine Hand umkehrt, oder flatterhafte Ehemann [School for Wives], Hamburger Th., Bd. 3 (1776);
Collected Editions, The Works of Hugh Kelly to which is prefixed the Life of the Author [by Edward Thompson] (London 1778), including Kelly’s ‘Address to the Public’ [orig. prefixed to A Word to the Wise], defending himself against charges of prostituting the Public Ledger; Reprint edns., Larry Carver & Mary J. H. Cross, eds., The Plays of Hugh Kelly (NY: Garland 1980).
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Criticism
[Obit. notice,] Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, No. 5654 (8-11 Feb. 1777).
‘Memoirs of the Late Hugh Kelly, Esq.’, in The Town and Country Magazine, IX (Feb. 1777), pp.85-86, rep. in Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, VI (March 19777), pp.175-77.
Thomas Cooke, ‘Hugh Kelly’, in ‘Table Talk’, The European Magazine, XXIV (Nov. 1793), pp.337-40.
‘Hugh Kelly, a Native of Ireland’, in Dodley’s Annual Register, XX (1777), p.171.
Gentleman’s Magazine, XLVII (Feb. 1777), p.95, and The Scots Magazine, XXXIX (Feb. 1777), p.380 [see O’Leary, 1965, infra.].
Ernest Bernbaum, The Drama of Sensibility (Cambridge Mass. 1915; rep. edn. Gloucester, Mass. 1958), pp.224-27, 234-37; 247-49.
Frederick S. Boas, An Introduction to Eighteenth Century Drama (Oxford 1953), pp.282-99.
Allardyce Nicoll, British Drama (NY 1925), pp.286-87.
Mark Shorer, ‘Hugh Kelly: His Place in the Sentimental School’, PQ, XII (1933), pp.389-401.
C. J. Rawson, ‘Some Remarks on Eighteenth Century “Delicacy” with a Note on Hugh Kelly’s False Delicacy (1768)’, in JEGP, LXI (1962), pp.1-13
Warburton (History of Dublin 1818) and Alfred J. Webb (Compendium of Irish Biography 1878).
Faulkner’s Dublin Journal (8-11 Feb. 1777).
James Prior, The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, Vol. II (London 1837), pp.176-78.
T. K. O’Leary, Hugh Kelly, 1965 [as infra], pp.3-4.)
Charles Dibdin, A Complete History of the Stage, Vol. V (London 1795), pp.277-78.
Michael Arnott, English Theatrical Literature, 1979).
G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman (1937).
Thomas Kenneth O’Leary, Hugh Kelly: Contributions Towards a Critical Biography [Ann Arbour Mich. Univ. Microfilms 65-9520] (PhD Fordham Univ., 1965).
Joseph Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (Amsterdam 1986), pp.161-62.
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Notes
Dictionary of National Biography; playwright and author,
came to London as staymaker, 1760; ed. Court Magazine; Ladies’
Museum, and later The Public Ledger; publ. Memoirs of a
Magdalen (1767), and dram. crit.; False Delicacy, prod. by
Garrick (DL 1768) in rivalry to Goldsmith, and later acted in Paris and
Lisbon; A Word to the Wise (1770; rev. with prologue by Johnson,
CG 1777); pension; barrister. See also Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica:
Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.349-51.
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary, (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912), lists Thespis, or A Critical Examination into the Merits of all the Principal Performers Belonging to the Drury Lane Theatre, (1766), verse; Do. [2nd edn. 2 vols.] (London 1768-67); False Delicacy (1768); A Word for the Wise, comedy (1770); Clementina (1771); The School for Wives (1774); The Romance of an Hour (1774); The Works of Hugh Kelly to which is prefixed the Life of the Author [... printed for the Author’s Widow] (1778) [plays and poems, with memoir and port., biographer unknown]; also cites The Man of Reason (1776), unprinted. [No date for False Delicacy; see JMC infra for revivals.]
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: selects False Delicacy, 556-66 [1st Dublin ed. of False Delicacy as 1768]; The School for Wives, 566-70; taking Dublin eds. as copy texts, 654; BIOG & COMM, adds Michel Lacroix, L’Oeuvre de Hugh Kelly, 1739-1777, contribution a L’Etude du Sentimentalisme Anglais, 2 vols. (Bordeaux: Univ. of Paris, thesis, 1978) [656]. Remarks at 686: In Memoirs of a Magdalen, or the History of Louisa Milmay (1767), Hugh Kelly, better known as a dramatist, produced a novel whose exploration of the contemporary double-standard in sexual morality is as engrossing as it is extreme. Like Frances Sheridan, Kelly was influenced by Richardson; later writers in the sentimental mode; such as the author of The Triumph of Benevolence (1772), would look to Goldsmith ... &c. Notes that there is no full biography and cites Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee 1946), pp.226-48.
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (1946), calls Kelly ‘the chief writer of sentimenal comedy [whose] most popular work, False Delicacy (Drury Lane, Jan 1768), of a high moral type, was written in rivalry to Goldsmith’; also The Goodnatur’d Man (Covent Garden 1768); gives bio-details: b. Kerry, nr. Lakes of Killarney; f. bought tavern in Dublin where actors were entertained; apprenticed to stay-maker; went to London in 1760; clerking jobs, as copying clerk to Attorney; ed. of Court Magazine and Ladies’ Magazine, 1761; issued Thespis, a satirical poem attacking actors, all except Garrick, who befriended him, while Goldsmith and Bickerstaffe treated him contemptuously. Lists works: L’Amour a la Mode, or Love a La Mode, com. (unacted trans.) 1760; False Delicacy, com. (DL 23 Jan 1768) 1768; A Word to the Wise, com. (Drury Lane, 3 March 1770) 1770; Clementina, trag. (Covent Garden, 23 Feb. 1771) 1771; The School for Wives, com. (Drury Lane, 11 Dec. 1773) 1774; The Romance of an Hour, com. (Covent Garden, 2 Dec. 1774) 1774; The Man of Reason, com. (Covent Garden, 9 Feb. 1776 not printed. Garrick put on False Delicacy six days before Goldsmith’s Good natur’d Man to upset him; Kelly made £700 pounds by it. A Word to the Wise was suspected of defending unpopular govt. measures, and caused riots reported in The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1770; revived 1777, with a prologue by Dr. Johnson. Clementina unsuccessful. To prevent riot, it was pretended that Addington was the author for eight successive nights. The plot of Romance borrowed from Marmontel. Kelly called to Bar 1774, and died of an abcess in his side 1777. A novel, Louisa Mildmay. Kelly though acknowledged the master of sentimental drama, also assailed it with pinpricks in his plays. [Kavanagh, 331].
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic University of America 1904); gives ‘Critic of the Stage’; b. either in Killarney or in Dublin; f. tavern-keeper; apprenticed staymaker; met actors at father’s estab.; induced to leave for London; first staymaker, then copy-clerk; Ladies’ Museum, and Court Magazine, and pamphlets for Pottinger; married for love at 22; essays for Owen’s Weekly Chronicle, afterwards printed as The Babbler [sic]; also Louisa Mildmay, or the History of a Magdalen, a successful novel; Thespis (1767), attracted Garrick; False Delicacy (DL 1768), earned £700; Middle Temple, 1769, at first refused admittance to the bar; A Word to the Wise (falsely) attacked each night as being written by one in government pay, and withdrawn; received £800 in subscriptions on being published; his name withheld when Clementina (1777) produced; also withheld in A School for Wives (1774); The Romance of an Hour, afterpiece [n.d.]; The Man of Reason failed; his writing had produced £5,000 p.a.; called to bar and retired from writing; health undermined, d. 3 Feb.
British Library holds L’Amour a la Mode, or Love a la Mode, farce, from French [?H.K] (1760); ed. Court Magazine; Works (1788) [prefixed life] port., 4o; The Babler [sic], etc. (1767); also The Babbler [sic], 3rd ed., 2 vols. (1770), 12o; The Babbler, another ed, in Harrison’s British Classics (1796); Clementina, trag., by H. [Kelly] (1771), vi+52; False Delicacy, com. 5 acts prose (London 1768), 8o; Do., Bell’s British Theatre ed. Vol. 30 (1797); False Delicacy, ou La Fausse Delicatesse, trans. MJ Riccoboni, in Oeuvres Comp., tome 6 (1818); also English Love, or Amour Anglais, imit. of False Delicacy (1778); Memoirs of a Magdalen, the History of Louisa Mildmay, 2 vols. (London 1782) [as issued in Novelist’s Magazine]; Do., Les Dangers [sic] d’un tête-à-tête ou l’Histoire LM, trad. A Colleville, 2 tom. (Paris: Arr. VIII ?1818); Romance of an Hour, 2 act com. (1774), prose; Do., new ed. 1774; Do., Dublin ed., (Exshaw &c 1775), 12o; Do., in British Stage, (1786); School for Wives, 5 act prose [H.K. (1774), 8o; 2nd ed. 1774; 3rd ed., 1774, vi+88pp.; 4th ed. 1774; Do., another edn., 1775; another edn. in Collection of New Plays, Vol. 4 (1774); another edn. in Bell’s Brit. Th., Vol. 7 (1797, etc.); another ed. in Mrs E. Inchbald, The Modern Theatre, Vol. 9 (1811); Comedy of the School for Wives, etc in British Drama a Collection by R. Cumberland, Vol. 2 (London: C. Cooke 1817), x+86pp.; another ed., London Stage, Vol. 4 (1824 &c.); another ed. British Drama Illustrated, Vol. 11 (1864); reissued in Dicks Standard Plays, No. 177 (London ?1875); F.L. Schroeder, Wie Man eine Hand umkehrt, oder flatterhafte Ehemann[?] [trans. of School for Wives], Hamburger Th., Bd. 3 (1776); Thespis, or a Critical Examination into the Merits of all the Principle Performers Belonging to Drury Lane Theatre [in verse] (1767), 8o.; also 2nd edn. with additions, viz Thespis, A Critical Examination ... Covent Gdn. Th., 2 books (1766-67), 4o; A Word to the Wise, com. 5 acts, with address to the public in defence of the play [MS ‘by the author’, BML catalogue note] (London 1770); new eds., 1773, 1775; another, Bell’s British Theatre, Vol. 30 (1797). [End.]
False Delicacy (1768) is a sentimental comedy involving
three couples, mediated by the sensible Mrs. Hartley (‘You people
of refined sentiments are the most troublesome creatures in the world
to deal with’) and satirising those with ‘too much sense to
be wise, and too much delicacy to be happy’ (V.i.).
Samuel Johnson, on being asked if he wished an introduction to Hugh Kelly, ‘No Sir, I never desire to converse wtih a man who has written more than he has read.’ (Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson.)
Thomas Campbell (Survey), quotes someone as saying in London that Kelly had ‘diarrhoea of the tongue’.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)