George Darley was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, novelist, and critic.

He was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

. Having decided to follow a literary career, in 1820 he went to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he published his first poem, Errors of Ecstasie (1822). He also wrote for the London Magazine

London Magazine

The London Magazine is a historied publication of arts, literature and miscellaneous interests. Its history ranges nearly three centuries and several reincarnations, publishing the likes of William Wordsworth, William S...

, under the pseudonym of John Lacy. In it appeared his best story, Lilian of the Vale. Various other books followed, including Sylvia, or The May Queen, a poem (1827). Thereafter he joined the Athenaeum

Athenaeum (magazine)

The Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. It had a reputation for publishing the very best writers of the age....

, in which he showed himself a severe critic. He was also a dramatist and studied old English plays, editing those of Beaumont and Fletcher in 1840. So deeply was he imbued with the spirit of the 17th century that his poem, "It is not beauty I desire," was included by F. T. Palgrave in the first edition of his Golden Treasury as an anonymous lyric of that age.

He wrote a number of songs such as “I've been Roaming” once very popular, much belauded by Coleridge. Playwright Dion Boucicault

Dion Boucicault

Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...

 was a nephew. His grandnephew was the famous Irish musician Arthur Warren Darley

Arthur Warren Darley

Arthur Warren Darley was an Irish Fiddle player, composer, music teacher and examiner as well as a traditional music archivist.Arthur Warren Darley was born in Dun laoghaire and first lived in Silchester Road. He was a grandnephew of poet George Darley. His father Henry Warren Darley had converted...

.

He was also a mathematician of considerable talent, and published some treatises on the subject. Darley fell into nervous depression and died in 1846.

Works

• Nepenthe
• Errors of Ecstasie
• Sylvia, or The May Queen
• Thomas a Beckett; ADramatic Chronical
• Popular Algebra
• Familiar Astronomy, Darley, G., Taylor & W. London, 1830.
• I've been Roaming

Darley's works on line

Other references