Holcroft

Holcroft, Thomas (1715-1809), dramatist and novelist, born in Loudon, was the son of a shoemaker, who sometimes gained a livelihood as a pedlar and by letting out horses. After abandoning in turn the occupaf ions of a stable-boy, a cobbler, a sohoohnaster, and a strolling player, the younger Holcroft produced a piny oalled The Crisis, which wasacted at Drury Lane in 1778. Besides numerous comedies, of which The Bond to Ruin (1792) was the most popular, and several translations, he wrote four novels, in the first of which, AI ivy n (17801, ho described some of his own adventures. In consequence of his sympathy with the French Revolution ho was in 1794 imprisoned on a charge of treason, together with Thomas Hardy and others, but he was dismissed without being brought to trial. His Memoirs, begun by himself and completed by Hazlitt, are described by Moore as "amongst the most interesting specimens of autobiography wo have."