Henry Neele

The son of a London engraver, Henry Neele attended grammar school in Kentish Town before being articled to an attorney. He began publishing anonymously in the Monthly Magazine in 1814; a first volume of poems appeared three years later when Neele was only nineteen. While he practiced law for a living, Neele devoted much of his time to literature. He gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare at the age of twenty, and in 1826 delivered a series of lectures on the English poets at the Russell Institution that received acclaim when they were posthumously printed. Neele contributed to several of the annuals and edited Friendship's Offering. He died by suicide.

TEXT RECORDS:

1815[The Elizabethan Poets.]
1817Stanzas.
1817To Allegory.
1817To Despair.
1817To Horror.
1820Farewell, wild Harp!
1827Lectures the Second. Epic and Narrative Poetry.

PUBLICATIONS:

Odes and other poems. 1817, 1821.
Poems, dramatic and miscellaneous. 1823.
The Tempest [Shakespeare, ed. Neele]. 1824.
Poems. 2 vols, 1827.
Romance of history: England. 3 vols, 1827.
Lectures on English poetry: from the reign of Edward the Third, to the time of Burns and Cowper ... and other literary remains. 1829.
The Tales. 1830.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Dissenter

Dissenting academy

lawyer
poet
essayist
editor
novelist

The Monthly Magazine
The Literary Chronicle
The Literary Gazette
Pocket Magazine
Forget-Me-Not
Friendship's Offering
Literary Souvenir
The Amulet
Pledge of Friendship
The Bijou

John Britton
Barbara Hofland
William Jerdan

REFERENCE:

DNB; not NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).

Nathan Drake, "Critical Observations on the Odes of Henry Neele" Winter Evenings (1820) 2:70-101; "News from Parnassus" Monthly Magazine 50 (January 1821) 516-19; "Neele's Poems" Atheneum [Boston] 8 (15 March 1821) 450-53; "Literature" Talisman 2 (1821) 42; [Portrait in Poems (1827)]; "Henry Neele" Literary Chronicle NS 10 (16 February 1828) 108; "Recollections of Henry Neele" Literary Chronicle NS 10 (8 March 1828) 157; New-York Mirror 5 (5 April 1828) 306-07 [from Literary Gazette]; "Neele's Poems" Pocket Magazine NS 1 (April 1827) 209-16; "Henry Neele" La Belle Assemblee S3 5 (May 1827) 199-201; obituary in Literary Chronicle 10 (16 February 1828) 108; obituary in Literary Gazette (23 February 1828) 123-24; "Henry Neele, Esq." Pocket Magazine S2 1 (March 1828) 147-49; "Henry Neele" New England Galaxy [Boston] 11 (11 April 1828); "Henry Neele" Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 11 (1 March 1828) 152-53 [from Lit. Gazette]; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 98 (March 1828) 276-77; "Neele's Remains" The Athenaeum (26 November 1828) 899-900; Barbara Hofland, "Biographical Sketch of Mr. Henry Neele" 1828; in Hofland, Life and Literary Remains (1849) 77-83; "Henry Neele" Philadelphia Album 3 (25 February 1829) 307-08; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Henry Neele:

1.	1821  Anonymous, in Review of Neele, Odes and other Poems; The Port Folio S4 11 (May 1821) 150.
2.	1821  Anonymous, in Review of Neele, Odes and other Poems; New Monthly Magazine NS 3 (February 1821) 78.
3.	1821  Anonymous, "News from Parnassus" The Monthly Magazine 50 (January 1821) 516-19.
4.	1823  Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, in Gentleman's Magazine 93 (Supplement to Part I, 1823) 622-23.
5.	1823  Anonymous, Review of Neele, Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous; The Star (28 April 1823).
6.	1827  Anonymous, "Henry Neele" La Belle Assemblee S3 5 (May 1827) 199.
7.	1828  Anonymous, "Henry Neele" The Literary Chronicle NS 10 (16 February 1828) 108.
8.	1828  H. B., "Recollections of Henry Neele" The Literary Chronicle NS 10 (8 March 1828) 157.
9.	1828  John Neal, "Henry Neele" The Yankee [Portland] 1 (9 April 1828) 120.
10.	1828  J. A. G., "To the Memory of Henry Neele" The Athenaeum (18 April 1828) 397.
11.	1829  Anonymous, in Review of Neele, Remains; Gentleman's Magazine 99 (January 1829) 43.
12.	1829  M., in "Portraits of the Poets" Pocket Magazine NS 2 (November 1829) 259-60.
13.	1829  Nathaniel Parker Willis, in Review of Neele, Literary Remains; American Monthly Magazine [Boston] 1 (April 1829) 28-30.
14.	1830  Anonymous, in Edinburgh Literary Journal No. 60 (2 January 1830) 6.
15.	1851  David Macbeth Moir, in Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1856) 295.
16.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 533.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Henry Neele:

1.	1828  Anonymous, Obituary in Literary Chronicle NS 10 (16 February 1828) 108.
2.	1828  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 98 (March 1828) 276-77.
3.	1828  Barbara Hofland, "Biographical Sketch of Mr. Henry Neele" 1828; in Hofland, Life and Literary Remains (1849) 77-83.
4.	1828  Anonymous, "Henry Neele, Esq." Pocket Magazine S2 1 (March 1828) 147-49.
5.	1829  Anonymous, Memoir in Neele, Remains (New York, 1829) iii-xi.
6.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:587.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1817  John Dryden:   Henry Neele, in The Monthly Magazine 42 (January 1817) 495.
2.	1827  William Browne of Tavistock:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 115-16.
3.	1827  Samuel Butler:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 117-18.
4.	1827  Rev. John Donne:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 117.
5.	1827  Thomas May:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 48.
6.	1827  Alexander Pope:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 119-20.
7.	1827  Francis Quarles:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 136-37.
8.	1827  Rev. William Slatyer:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 138.
9.	1829  John Gay:   Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 33-34.