Lloyd, Robert

(1733-1764)

   Born in London and educated at Westminster School-where his father, Pierson Lloyd, doctor of divinity, was master-and at Trinity College, Cambridge, from where he graduated M.A. in 1758. While at Cambridge he contributed five sets of verses to the Connoisseur, the university magazine. On leaving Cambridge he returned to Westminster School but soon resigned and entered "into a reckless career of dissipation" (DNB), endeavoring to support himself by writing. He published the popular poem "The Actor" (1760), which is said to have stimulated Charles Churchill to write the Rosciad (1761). In 1764, Lloyd published The Capricious Lovers (a comic opera) performed at Drury Lane in the same year. Lloyd was often in debt and apparently died in Fleet Prison shortly after the death of Charles Churchill (see entry), with whom he shared his dissolute life. Some of his other poems: "A Familiar Epistle to J.B., Esq.," "Cit's Country Box," "Ode to Obscurity," "Ode to Oblivion," "On Rhyme," "Sent to a Lady, with a Seal," "Shakespeare: An Epistle to David Garrick, Esq.," "The Actor," "The Poetry Professors."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. EighteenthCentury English Verse. Dennis Davison, ed. Penguin Books, 1988. English Poetry: A Poetic Record, from Chaucer to Yeats. David Hopkins, ed. Routledge, 1990. Biography of Robert Lloyd (http://www.fzc.dk/Boswell/People/people.php?id= 85). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Useful Verse. Simon Brett, ed. Faber and Faber, 1981. The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984.