most important of them were versions of George Buchanan's tragedies of ‘Jephtha, or the Vow,’ and ‘The Baptist, or Calumny,’ and two volumes of miscellaneous renderings from the German, Italian, Spanish, and French, as well as from the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The titles of all these works may be read in the pages of the ‘Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.’ When the council of the Royal Institution of Cornwall purposed bringing out a volume under the title just given, the preparatory lists of the publications known to them were drawn up by Chorley and Mr. T. Q. Couch. This scheme did not propose the inclusion of more than the works relating to the topography or the history of the county, and even with that limited area the design was beyond the power of persons not acquainted with the treasures of the British Museum.
[Journ. Royal Instit. of Cornwall, October 1874, pp. iii–iv, vii; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 69, iii. 1009, 1119.]
CHORLEY, HENRY FOTHERGILL (1808–1872), author and critic, was born at Blackley Hurst, near Billinge in Lancashire, 15 Dec. 1808. His father, of a Lancashire, and his mother, of a Cumberland family, were nominally members of the Society of Friends, but neglected most of its observances. In April 1810 the sudden death of his father, a lock manufacturer, who had never been very prosperous in business, reduced the family to dependence upon a generous uncle. Dr. Rutter of Liverpool. They shortly removed to that town, where Chorley received sufficient instruction to develope his innate tastes for literature and music, and to render the mercantile office he was obliged to enter intolerable to him. The kindness of a distant connection, Mrs. Rathbone of Green Bank, and of her son, Mr. Benson Rathbone, extended his opportunities of self-culture, and he gained the firiendship of Mrs. Hemans, then resident in Liverpool, and of Miss Jewsbury. He began to contribute to annuals and magazines about 1827, and in 1830 obtained through Miss Jewsbury an introduction to the 'Athenæum.' His few contributions, chiefly musical criticisms, were appreciated, and when in 1833 he applied for an engagement on the staff, Bir. Dilke did not hesitate to accept the untried young man on probation, frankly informing him that although 'your occupation will not be always disagreeable,' nevertheless 'it will be generally drudgery.' Within a very short time, however, of his arrival in London, Chorley was not merely 'rewriting papers' but reviewing works of the pretension of Disraeli's 'Revolutionary Epic, and this with a decision and a precision worthy of a literary veteran, and a fearless honesty which hignly recommended him to his employer. Chorley's articles largely contributed to maintain the reputation the 'Athenæum' had already acquired for impartiality at a time when puffery was more rampant than ever before or since, and when the only other London literary journal of any pretensions was notoriously venal. The entire direction of the musical department soon fell into his hands, and his bterary reviews, especially in belles-lettres, were numerous and important, until his retirement in 1866. It may be said that he had most of the qualities of a good critic, and few of the requisites of a great one. He possessed sound judgment and discriminating taste, manly independence, and the utmost sincerity of intention. But he was deficient in insight, he could not readily recognise excellence in an unfamiliar or homely form, and the individuality of his style degenerated into mannerism. As years grew upon him his criticism became more and more tinctured with acerbity ; his censure was rather sour than scathing, and his praise not always genial. These drawbacks were in a great measure redeemed by the high-minded feeling which inspired all he wrote, his obvious effort to utter his convictions with frankness, and his general superiority to personal attachments or antipathies. As a musical critic his convictions were most decided. It was unfortunate, but no fault of his, that they should have led him to heap praise on the Mendelssohns and the Chopins who needed no support, and lesser men, for whom it was not difficult to obtain a hearing ; and to assume a hostile attitude towards struggling genius in the persons of a Schumann, a Berlioz, and a Wagner. In music as in literature he proclaimed the best he knew, and if his permanent reputation suffered, his immediate influence profited from his being so little more than abreast with the average cultivated opinion of his day. As an author, however, other than critic or biographer, his career was a succession of failures. With adroit talent, serious purpose, and indomitable perseverance, he essayed a succession of novels and dramas which one and all fell dead upon the public ear, while similar works of inferior intellectual quality were achieving noisy if ephemeral success. The list includes: 'Conti' (1836), 'The Lion' (1839), 'The Prodigy' (1866), literary or artistic tales dealing with the development of genius; 'Pomfret' (1845), and 'Roccabella,' published under the pseuaonym of Paul Bell in 1859, the former a novel of character, the latter a romance. All are works of great
