Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherlock, Martin
SHERLOCK, MARTIN (d. 1797), traveller, born about 1750, was a member, it is supposed, of the Kilkenny family of Sherlock. He was admitted of Trinity College, Dublin, on 1 Nov. 1763, but does not appear to have taken a degree. About 1777 he became chaplain to Frederick Augustus Hervey, fourth earl of Bristol [q. v.], and bishop of Derry, and it may have been partly in his suite that he travelled extensively in Central Europe and Italy. His egotistic and generally entertaining letters are dated from The Hague, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome, Naples, and Ferney, where he visited Voltaire. His correspondence was published at Geneva in 1779 as ‘Lettres d'un Voyageur Anglois.’ The Prussians were described by Sherlock as the Macedonians of Germany, but Frederick the Great, who read the book, took this in a sense complimentary to himself, and gave the author an interview at Potsdam on 20 July 1779. An English translation by John Duncombe [q. v.] appeared at London in 1780, and a German at Leipzig in the same year. A second series, entitled ‘Nouvelles Lettres,’ appeared in 1780 (Paris and London), and of this an English translation was published at London in 1781. The later series contain impressions of Italy, Geneva, Lausanne, Strassburg, several French towns, and Paris, which he asserts that no traveller ever left without regret of some kind or another. Both volumes were well reviewed, but had much less success in England than abroad. In a section of the last book of his ‘Life of Frederick,’ to which he gives the sub-title ‘A Reverend Mr. Sherlock sees Voltaire, and even dines with him,’ Carlyle quotes largely from Sherlock's ‘Letters,’ which he calls a ‘flashy yet opaque dance of Will-o'-Wisps.’ Simultaneously with the ‘Lettres’ Sherlock published at Naples (with some assistance from an Italian friend), his ‘Consiglio ad un Giovane Poeta’ (1779, 8vo; 2nd ed. Rome, n.d.), which was answered by Bassi in ‘Observations sur les Poètes Italiens,’ the English writer having compared the tragic poets of Italy with Shakespeare, with little advantage to the former. A portion of the ‘Consiglio’ was translated into French as ‘Fragment sur Shakspeare, tiré des conseils à un jeune poète’ (Paris, 1780; an English translation was made from the French, London, 1786; this was republished, together with the two series of ‘Letters,’ in translation, London, 1802, 8vo). Sherlock was a good scholar, and a happy admixture of erudition and taste was shown in the only work which he originally published in English, a volume of thirty short essays, entitled ‘Letters on Several Subjects’ (1781, 8vo), in which he reverts to many of the topics raised in his previous volumes, and has more to say on Shakespeare, Richardson, Frederick the Great, Voltaire, and ‘Mr. Sherlock.’ He ranked English literature as a whole below the French, but contended that in Shakespeare, Newton, and Richardson, England had produced three greater names than any other country. His former works had all been dedicated to the Earl of Bristol, and this was dedicated to the countess. Sherlock hoped through this influence to get some diplomatic post, and he was spoken of in 1781 as secretary to the embassy at Vienna. He was seen during this season in the salons of Mrs. Montagu and Lady Lucan; and Horace Walpole, whose curiosity was piqued by an Irishman's ‘writing bad French and Italian when he could write good English,’ classified him as a man of abundant parts but no judgment. Disappointed of other preferment, Sherlock was appointed surrogate of Killala and Achonry on 9 Oct. 1781, and he obtained through his friend Dr. Perry, bishop of Killala, the united vicarages of Castlecomer and Kilglass (13 Nov. 1782). These were worth 200l. a year, but, writing to a friend in London, he begged him to double the amount in making the announcement in the newspapers; ‘the world is very apt (God bless it) to value a man's writings according to his rank and fortune.’ Subsequently, in March 1788, he was appointed by Dr. John Law to the rectory and vicarage of Skreen, and on 28 Oct. in the same year he was collated to the archdeaconry of Killala. He died in Ireland, where he regarded himself as banished, in 1797.
[Sherlock's Letters, ed. 1802; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hib. iv. 87; Quérard's La France Littéraire, ix. 124; Babeau's Voyageurs en France; Ballantyne's Voltaire in England; Walpole's Corresp. ed. Cunningham, vii. 511, viii. 158, 202; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 67 sq.; Gent. Mag. 1800, ii. 812; Brit. Mus. Cat.]