Robert Lloyd

The son of a second master of Westminster School, Robert Lloyd was educated by his father and at Trinity College Cambridge (B.A. 1755, M.A. 1758). At Westminster he knew George Colman the elder, Charles Churchill, Richard Cumberland, and William Cowper; he later returned briefly as an usher. Lloyd reviewed poetry for the Monthly Review and edited the ambitious St. James Magazine (1762-64) which proved an expensive failure. He was friends with Garrick and Wilkes and knew Thomas Warton. He was arrested for debt and died in the Fleet Prison in 1764.

TEXT RECORDS:

1751The Progress of Envy. A Poem.
1751The Progress of Envy: Preface.
1755Connoisseur No. 67 [On Imitation.]
1756Connoisseur No. 125 [Letter from a Gentleman of Cambridge.]
1760Two Odes. To Oblivion.
1761Prologue, intended to have been spoken at Drury-Lane Theatre, on His Majesty's Birthday, 1761.
1762The Poetry Professors.
1763A Dialogue between the Author and his Friend.
1763An Ode. Secundam Artem.
1763 ca.On Rhyme. A Familiar Epistle to a Friend.
1763Review of Charles Churchill's Prophecy of Famine.
1764The Temple of Favour.

PUBLICATIONS:

The actor: a poetical epistle. 1760.
Shakespeare: an epistle to Garrick, with an ode to genius. 1760.
The tears and triumphs of Parnassus. 1760.
Two odes [with Colman]. 1760.
Arcadia, or the shepherd's wedding: a dramatic pastoral. 1761.
An epistle to Churchill. 1761.
Poems. 1762.
The St. James magazine [ed. Lloyd]. 1762.
The death of Adam: a tragedy from Klopstock. 1763.
The New-river head: a tale in the manner of C. Denis. 1763.
The capricious lovers: a comic opera. 1764.
Moral tales [Marmontel, trans.] 3 vols, 1764.
Poems, ed. Kenrick. 2 vols, 1774.
Familiar poems. 1804.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Westminster School
Trinity College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts

schoolmaster
poet
essayist

The Library
The Monthly Review
The Connoisseur
St. James's Magazine
Public Advertiser

Rev. Charles Churchill
George Colman
William Cowper
Richard Cumberland
Rev. John Delap
Charles Emily
David Garrick
Edward Moore
Rev. John Seally
Rev. Richard Shepherd
Bonnell Thornton
Rev. Thomas Warton
John Wilkes
William Woty

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

William Rider, Living Authors of Great Britain (1762); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 34 (December 1764) 603; David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play-House (1764); Annual Register for 1765 (1765) 111; Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); "Memoirs of Robert Lloyd and Charles Churchill written by a sincere Friend" Westminster Magazine 1 (March 1773) 181-85 [portrait]; Life by William Kenrick in Poems (1774); "Genuine Anecdotes of the Life and Writings of Rober Lloyd" Universal Magazine 55 (September 1774) 116-18; John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Bell's Fugitive Poetry (1789-97) 3:173-74; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15) 2:330-32n; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Southey, in Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Austin Dobson, "Robert Lloyd" in At Prior Park and Other Papers (1912) 210-42; Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Old Westminsters (1928); Irving McKee, The Literary Career of Robert Lloyd (Dissertation, Yale University, 1935); Robert Halsband, "The Poet of the North-Briton" Philological Quarterly 17 (1938) 389-95; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); Charles Ryskamp, William Cowper of the Inner Temple (1959); Butt, OHEL (1979); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Robert Lloyd:

1.	1754  William Cowper, in "Epistle to Robert Lloyd" 1754; Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37) 8:15.
2.	1761  Anonymous, in "All in the Wrong. A Poetical Essay" London Chronicle (26 November 1761) 508.
3.	1762  Anonymous, Review of Lloyd, Poems; The Critical Review 13 (March 1762) 244.
4.	1762  John Langhorne, Review of Lloyd, Poems; The Monthly Review 26 (May 1762) 385.
5.	1762  Thomas Gray to William Mason, 17 March 1762; Correspondence of Gray and Mason ed. John Mitford (1853) 287-88.
6.	1763  George Colman, "The Cobler of Cripplegate's Letter to Robert Lloyd, A.M." St. James's Magazine 2 (April 1763) 113-18.
7.	1763  Richard Shepherd, in "Epistle to Robert Lloyd" St. James's Magazine 2 (May 1763) 197-98.
8.	1764  H. S., "Epitaph" St. James's Chronicle (20 December 1764).
9.	1764  H. S., "Answer to the Epitaph on Churchill and Lloyd" St. James's Chronicle (25 December 1764).
10.	1764  Charles Churchill, in Independence (1764); Poetical Works of Charles Churchill, ed. William Tooke (1804) 2:346.
11.	1764  Treyssac de Vergy, "Vers a Roberd Lloyd, M.A." Lloyd's Evening Post (18 July 1764) 59.
12.	1764  Anonymous, "On Seeing Mr. Lloyd's Opera inscribed to Mr. Colman" St. James's Chronicle (1 December 1764).
13.	1765 ca.  John Wilkes, 1765 ca.; Biographia Dramatica (1812) 1:458.
14.	1765  Evan Lloyd, "On the Death of Mr. R. Lloyd" St. James's Chronicle (23 April 1765).
15.	1765  Anonymous, "An Epigram" Universal Magazine 36 (February 1765) 99.
16.	1771  Anonymous, "Anecdote of Robert Lloyd" Oxford Magazine 7 (September 1771) 107-08.
17.	1773  Anonymous, in "Memoirs of R. Lloyd and C. Churchill written by a sincere Friend" Westminster Magazine 1 (March 1773) 183.
18.	1774  Anonymous, in Review of Lloyd, Poetical Works; The Monthly Review 51 (October 1774) 317.
19.	1774  J. Carr, "Character of the late Mr. Robert Lloyd, when a Prisoner in the Fleet" Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement 25 (22 September 1774) 402.
20.	1780  John Nichols, in Select Collection of Poems (1780-82) 7:223n.
21.	1780  Thomas Davies, in Life of Garrick (1780) 1:319.
22.	1793  William Cook, in "Characters, Anecdotes, &c." European Magazine 24 (August 1793) 93-94.
23.	1795  Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 10:617.
24.	1800  Thomas Dermody, in "The Pursuit of Patronage" Poems Moral and Descriptive (1800) 55-56.
25.	1804  William Tooke, Note to Independence; Poetical Works of Charles Churchill (1804) 2:346-48n.
26.	1807  Robert Southey, in Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 2:325.
27.	1835  Robert Southey, in Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37) 1:61-69, 93-105.
28.	1842  C. H. Timperley, in Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote (1842) 2:710n.
29.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 3:126-27.
30.	1891  George Birkbeck Hill, Note in Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791); ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 1:457-58n.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Robert Lloyd:

1.	1762  William Rider, in Living Authors of Great Britain (1762) 21.
2.	1764  David Erskine Baker, in Companion to the Play-House (1764) 2:Sig. U4.
3.	1764  Anonymous, Obituary in Lloyd's Evening Post (17 December 1764) 582.
4.	1764  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 34 (December 1764) 603.
5.	1773  A Sincere Friend, "New and Genuine Memoirs of Mr. R. Lloyd" Westminster Magazine 1 (March 1773) 181-85.
6.	1774  William Kenrick, Memoir in Lloyd, Poems (1774) 1:v-xxxix.
7.	1782  Isaac Reed, in Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1782) 1:285-86.
8.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 5:150-51.
9.	1810  Alexander Chalmers, in Works of the English Poets (1810) 15:71-74.
10.	1812  John Nichols, in Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15) 2:330-31n.
11.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 461.
12.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:91-92.
13.	1912  Austin Dobson, "Robert Lloyd" in At Prior Park and Other Papers (1912) 210-42.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1755  John Milton:   Robert Lloyd, "To — about to publish a Volume of Miscellanies" 1755; Works (1774) 1:105-06.
2.	1755  Alexander Pope:   Robert Lloyd, in "To — about to publish a Volume of Miscellanies" 1755; Works (1774) 1:107.
3.	1755  Matthew Prior:   Robert Lloyd, in "To — About to Publish a Volume of Miscellanies" 1755; Works (1774) 1:104-05.
4.	1755  Rev. Jonathan Swift:   Robert Lloyd, in "To — about to Publish a Volume of Miscellanies" 1755; Works (1774) 1:105.
5.	1756  George Colman:   Robert Lloyd, "Epistolary Verses, written in the Year 1756" St. James's Chronicle (7 May 1765).
6.	1756  Matthew Prior:   Robert Lloyd, in "Epistolary Verses [to George Colman], written in the Year 1756" St. James's Chronicle (7 May 1765).
7.	1760  Thomas Gray:   Robert Lloyd and George Colman, "To Obscurity" Two Odes (1760) 5-15.
8.	1761  James Beattie:   Robert Lloyd, Review of Beattie's Original Poems; The Monthly Review 24 (June 1761) 393.
9.	1762  Allan Ramsay:   Robert Lloyd, in "The Poetry Professors" St. James's Magazine 1 (November 1762) 219.
10.	1763  Joseph Addison:   Robert Lloyd, in "A Dialogue between the Author and his Friend" St. James's Magazine 1 (February 1763) 382-83.
11.	1763  Sir Richard Blackmore:   Robert Lloyd, in "On Rime. A familiar Epistle" St. James's Magazine 3 (September 1763) 63-64.
12.	1763  Rev. John Brown:   Anonymous, "Epigram on a famous Allusion in Dr. Brown's Estimate" St. James's Magazine 3 (December 1763) 232-33.
13.	1763  Edward Bysshe:   Robert Lloyd, in "On Rime. A familiar Epistle" St. James's Magazine 3 (September 1763) 64.
14.	1763  Rev. Charles Churchill:   Robert Lloyd, in "On Rime. A Familiar Epistle" St. James's Magazine 3 (September 1763) 57.
15.	1763  Samuel Johnson:   Robert Lloyd, in "To a Friend who sent the Author a Hamper of Wine" St. James's Magazine 3 (October 1763) 109.
16.	1763  David Mallet:   Robert Lloyd, in "A Dialogue between the Author and his Friend" St. James's Magazine 1 (February 1763) 383.
17.	1763  Rev. Richard Shepherd:   Robert Lloyd, in "To a Friend who sent the Author a Hamper of Wine" St. James's Magazine 3 (October 1763) 104.
18.	1764  Rev. John Langhorne:   Robert Lloyd, in "The Whim. An Epistle to Mr. W. Woty" St. James's Chronicle (27 October 1764).
19.	1764  William Woty:   Robert Lloyd, "The Whim. An Epistle to Mr. W. Woty" St. James's Chronicle (27 October 1764).