Author: Morley, Thomas
Biography:
MORLEY, Thomas (fl 1794-1801)
Although he boldly put his name to his satirical poems, although they show some skill and originality, and although The Mechanic had two editions in the same year and was noticed by the London reviewers, Morley does not seem to have ventured into print again. Nothing can be said with certainty about his origins and career, but one of his satires of 1794, the “Lecture for the National Convention in France,” declares itself to have been “spoken with great applause at the theatre, Plymouth-Dock”—apparently by the author. He may have been the Thomas Morley, son of Elizabeth and William Morley, who was baptised at Stoke Damerol, Devon, on 9 Oct. 1762. The association with Plymouth-Dock strengthens the possibility that he was the Thomas Morley, shipwright, who married a widow, Mary Williams, at St. Andrews, Plymouth, on 26 Mar. 1784. All the poems are written in rhyming couplets. The preface to The Mechanic admits that the author does not have the advantage of “a Learned Education, Patronage, or Fortune,” but in the poem singing “the heroes, whose precarious doom/ Is want! Drear want! From childhood to the tomb,” he advocates learning as a way of gaining independence and sturdy self-respect. MR called the poem a “severe and angry satire on the higher ranks”—as it is—but Morley was a patriot who, like many, was disappointed by what had proved to be the empty promises of the Jacobins. No public record has been found of the date or place of his death. (ancestry.com 19 Feb. 2024; findmypast.com 19 Feb. 2024; British Critic 19 [1802], 83; MR [1802], 212)