Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sillery, Charles Doyne
SILLERY, CHARLES DOYNE (1807–1837), poet, born at Athlone on 2 March 1807, was the son of an Irish artillery officer, Charles Doyne Sillery, a native of Drogheda, who died of wounds received at Talavera. The son entered the navy at an early age, serving as a midshipman on a voyage to China and India. Delicate health prevented him from following a naval career, and in 1828 he settled in Edinburgh, in order to study surgery at the university there. The university records make no mention of him after 1829. He died at Edinburgh on 16 May 1837. Besides three small volumes of a deeply religious tendency, entitled respectively ‘A Discourse on the Sufferings of Our Saviour’ (1833), ‘An Essay on the Creation of the Universe’ (1833), and ‘The Man of Sorrows,’ published posthumously, he published the following volumes of verse: 1. ‘Vallery, or the Citadel of the Lake,’ 2 vols. 12mo, Edinburgh, 1829. 2. ‘Eldred of Erin,’ a poem in Spenserian stanza, 12mo, Edinburgh, 1833. 3. ‘The Royal Marines and other Poems,’ 8vo, London, 1833. 4. ‘The Exiles of Chamouni,’ a dramatic poem, 1834. Several of his poems have obtained a permanent place in Scottish anthologies.
[Allibone's Dict. of English Lit.; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; Rev. C. Rogers's Scottish Poets; information kindly given by H. A. Webster, esq., librarian of Edinburgh University.]