John Nichol

“ DOBELL, SYDNEY THOMPSON (1824–1874) , poet and critic, born 5 April 1824 at Cranbrook in Kent, was the eldest son of John Dobell, author of a remarkable pamphlet, ‘Man unfit to govern Man,’ and a daughter of Samuel Thompson, known in his day as a leader of reforming movements in the city of London. His father, a wine merchant, removed in 1836 from Kent to Cheltenham, where the poet maintained, with various degrees of activity, till his death, his connection with the business and the district. ”

“ At home he was overworked, especially overstrained by the fervour of inherited religious zeal, and his genius, in the absence of social checks, soon showed a tendency to eccentricity of expression, from which in later life he partially, but never entirely, shook himself free. ”

“ The poet's devotion to the cause of ‘the nationalities’—Italian, Hungarian, Spanish—never abated; it remained, as evinced by one of his latest fragments, ‘Mentana,’ a link between his adolescent radical and his mature liberal-conservative politics. Shortly afterwards Dobell's elaborate and appreciative criticism of Currer Bell in ‘The Palladium’ led to an interesting correspondence between the two authors. The August of 1850 he spent in North Wales, the following summer in Switzerland, and their mountain scenery left an impress on all his later work. ”