Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/80

 end of the second act, he was led on the stage to deliver a poetical address of his own composition. The benefit produced 360l., and the Prince of Wales sent him 50l. besides. In December 1803 he obtained an annuity of twenty guineas from Covent Garden Theatre, and sent to Harris, the manager, six new plays, of which no use appears to have been made. In January 1820 a royal pension from the privy purse of one hundred guineas a year was conferred on him. In 1826 O'Keeffe issued his rambling ‘Recollections,’ replete with social and dramatic gossip, but not remarkable for accuracy. Lady Morgan described the book as ‘feeble, but amiable.’ It was dedicated to George IV. In it O'Keeffe enumerates sixty-eight pieces of his own composition. The ‘Recollections’ were condensed by Richard Henry Stoddard for his volume, ‘Personal Reminiscences by O'Keeffe, Kelly, and Taylor,’ in the Bric-à-Brac series (New York, 1875).

In his later years he was affectionately tended by his only daughter, Adelaide (see an interesting manuscript letter by Adelaide O'Keeffe, bound in one of the copies of the ‘Recollections’ in the British Museum. In the same copy are a few lines scrawled in O'Keeffe's own hand). About 1815 he retired from London to Chichester (Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ii. 9). From Chichester he removed in 1830 to Southampton. As late as that year he could dictate verse epistles with all his youthful alacrity (ib. 3rd ser. x. 307). Before his death his daughter read to him most of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and he was gratified by the ‘two mentions’ of Cowslip, the leading character of his ‘Agreable Surprise,’ in Scott's ‘Tales of my Landlord;’ but when he found that Scott used the phrase ‘From Shakespeare to O'Keeffe’ in ‘St. Ronan's Well,’ he remarked sardonically, ‘Ah! the top and the bottom of the ladder; he might have shoved me a few sticks higher.’ He died at Bedford Cottage, Southampton, on 4 Feb. 1833, aged 85, after receiving the last rites of the Roman catholic church. A half-length portrait of O'Keeffe was painted in 1786 by Thomas Lawrenson [q. v.], and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. It was engraved in line by Bragg as a frontispiece to the ‘Recollections.’

O'Keeffe's ‘Wild Oats’ is played to this day, and one of the most successful of Buckstone's revivals was ‘The Castle of Andalusia,’ in which that actor took a leading part. But O'Keeffe's popularity has not proved permanent, and his unpublished and unacted pieces, which his daughter offered for sale at his death, did not find a purchaser. Miss O'Keeffe published his poetical works as ‘A Father's Legacy to his Daughter’ in 1834. He had already issued in 1795 a volume of verse, entitled ‘Oatlands, or the Transfer of the Laurel.’

His son, John Tottenham O'Keeffe (1775–1803), who was brought up as a protestant, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, 22 Nov. 1798 (B.A. 1801), became chaplain to H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence, went out in 1803 to Jamaica to take possession of a lucrative living, but died three weeks after his arrival, aged 28.

His only daughter and third child, (1776–1855?), born 5 Nov. 1776 in Eustace Street, Dublin, contributed thirty-four poems to Taylor's ‘Original Poems for Infant Minds by Several Young Persons,’ London, 1804, 2 vols. (cf. Notes and Queries, 7th ser. iii. 361–2), and was author of ‘National Characters,’ 1808; ‘Patriarchal Times,’ London, 1811, 2 vols. (6th edit. 1842); ‘A Trip to the Coast’ (poems), 1819, 12mo; ‘Dudley,’ a novel, 3 vols. 1819, 12mo; ‘Poems for Young Children,’ 1849, 12mo; and ‘The Broken Sword, a Tale,’ 1854, 8vo. She also wrote ‘Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. A Narrative founded on History,’ 2 vols. 12mo, 1814; but this must be distinguished from the better known ‘Zenobia, or the Fall of Palmyra. An Historical Romance’ (New York, 1837; London, 1838), by William Ware, author of ‘Julian.’ Miss O'Keeffe died about 1855.



O'KELLY, CHARLES (1621–1695), Irish historian, the elder son of John O’Kelly, eighth lord of the manor of Screen, co. Galway, by Isma, daughter of Sir William Hill of Ballybeg, co. Carlow, was born at the castle of Screen in 1621, and educated in the Irish College at St. Omer. Soon after the outbreak of the civil war in Ireland he was summoned home to join the royal arm. He accordingly returned in 1642, and obtained the command of a troop of horse under the Marquis of Ormonde. After the ultimate triumph of the parliamentarians he retired, with two thousand of his countrymen, into Spain to serve Charles II. On hearing, however, that