to persons who little deserved them at his hands, and that, as was said of Dr. Johnson, there was nothing of the bear about him but the skin.’ In person Croker was rather under the middle size, slender, and well knit. His head, of the same type as that of Canning and Sir Thomas Lawrence, was handsome, and spoke of a quick, acute, and active intellect. There is a fine portrait of him by his friend Sir Thomas Lawrence, which has been reproduced in an admirable mezzotint by Cousins. The following are the principal published works of Croker, exclusive of his articles in the ‘Quarterly Review:’
- ‘Familiar Epistles to Frederick Jones, Esq., on the State of the Irish Stage,’ 1804.
- ‘An Intercepted Letter from Canton’ (a satire on the state of society in Dublin), 1804.
- ‘Songs of Trafalgar,’ 1804.
- ‘A Sketch of the State of Ireland, Past and Present,’ 1808.
- ‘The Battles of Talavera,’ a poem, 1809.
- ‘Key to the Orders in Council,’ 1812.
- ‘Stories for Children from the History of England,’ 1817.
- ‘Memoirs of the Embassy of the Marshal de Bassompierre to the Court of England in 1626’ (edited), 1819.
- ‘Letters of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey’ (edited), 1821–2.
- ‘The Suffolk Papers,’ from the collection of the Marchioness of Londonderry (edited), 1823.
- ‘Horace Walpole's Letters to Lord Hertford,’ 1824.
- ‘Reply to Sir Walter Scott's “Letters of Malagrowther”’ (in the ‘Courier’ newspaper), 1826.
- ‘Progressive Geography for Children,’ 1828.
- ‘Boswell's Life of Johnson,’ 1831.
- ‘Military Events of the French Revolution of 1830,’ 1831.
- ‘John, Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of George II,’ 1848.
- ‘Essays on the Early Period of the French Revolution,’ reprinted from the ‘Quarterly Review,’ 1857.
[Croker's Works cited above; Memoirs, Diaries, and Correspondence of the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, edited by Louis J. Jennings, 3 vols. 1884; Quarterly Review, October 1884; Macaulay's Essays and Life and Letters, by Sir G. Trevelyan; information from Mr. John Murray and other personal friends.]
CROKER, TEMPLE HENRY (1730?–1790?), miscellaneous writer, was a native of Cork. He was admitted a foundation scholar of Westminster School in 1743, at the age of thirteen, and in 1746 was elected to a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge; but he removed to Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated (B.A. 1750, M.A. 1760). He was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Hillsborough, and in August 1769 he obtained the rectory of Igtham, Kent, which he vacated in 1773, probably from pecuniary embarrassments, for he figures among the bankrupts of that year. Afterwards he became rector of St. John's, Capisterre, St. Christopher's, in the West Indies, where he published, under the title, ‘Where am I? How came I here? What are my wants? What are my duties?’ four sermons, Basseterre [1790], 4to.
His other works are:
- ‘Orlando Furioso,’ in Italian and English, with a portrait engraved by R. Strange, 2 vols. London, 1755, 4to.
- ‘Bower detected as an Historian, or his omissions and perversions of facts in favour of Popery demonstrated by comparing the three volumes of his History with the first volume of the French History of the Popes [by F. Brays] now translating,’ London, 1758, 8vo.
- ‘The Satires of Lodovico Ariosto,’ translated into English verse by the Rev. Mr. H-rt-n and T. H. Croker, London, 1759, 8vo.
- ‘Experimental Magnetism; or the truth of Mr. Masson's discoveries in that branch of natural philosophy approved and ascertained,’ London, 1761, 8vo.
- ‘The complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences,’ 3 vols. London, 1764–6, fol. In preparing this work he had the assistance of several other persons, but he himself wrote all the theological, philological, and critical articles.
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. ed. Phillimore, pp. 327, 337, 339; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Oxford Graduates (1851), p. 162; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn); Hasted's Kent (1782), ii. 249; Gent. Mag. xxxix. 415, xliii. 416.]
CROKER, THOMAS CROFTON (1798–1854), Irish antiquary, was born at Cork 15 Jan. 1798. His father, Thomas Croker, was a major in the army; his mother was widow of a Mr. Fitton and daughter of Croker Dillon of Baltidaniel, co. Cork. At sixteen Croker, who had little school education, was apprenticed to Lecky & Marchant, a Cork firm of quaker merchants. He early developed a taste for literature and antiquities, and between 1812 and 1815 rambled about the south of Ireland, collecting the songs and legends of the peasantry. A prose translation by him of an Irish ‘coronach,’ which he heard at Gouganebarra in 1813, appeared in the ‘Morning Post’ during 1815. A friend in Cork (Richard Sainthill) called Crabbe's attention to it two years later. About 1818 Croker forwarded to Moore, then engaged on his Irish melodies, ‘nearly forty
