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Just before the departure of his son from Ireland, Mr. Cumberland, senior, was promoted to the see of Clonfert; from which he was afterwards translated to the see of Kilmore.

Cumberland returned to England when his patron vacated the dignity of Lord Lieutenant, and as Lord Halifax received the seals of Secretary of State, Cumberland could not but expect some preferment.

He had devoted ten years of his life to his lordship's service, receiving in return an income certainly not sufficient for the support of that appearance which the situation imposed upon him; and now that his patron had an opportunity of rewarding those years of assiduous attention, without any personal sacrifice, it could not be very presumptuous in Cumberland to suppose that his will would be second to his But he knew not a courpower. tier's code of ethics. He had studied our moral duties in another school, and when he applied his reasonings to the actions of a minister of state, he found them useless; he found the simple notions of right and wrong too unadorned to captivate the hearts and minds of men, versed in the collusions of political science, and practised in the evasions of truth. p. 146.

He was therefore compelled to acquiesce, for the present, in an inferior situation; and sought to improve his funds by a course of literary industry. In a short time, he produced The Summer's Tale, a musical piece, which "languished through nine nights and was then heard of no more."

His emulation was quickly directed to nobler attempts. The Brothers, a comedy, was produced in 1769. It appears to have had some success, and the author was so fortunate as to conciliate the friendship of Garrick, by a compliment in the Epilogue.

In the ensuing year, Mr. Cumberland visited Ireland; and, in considerable part, composed his comedy of The West Indian, under a combination of encouraging circumstances, which never afterwards befel him at any period of his literary labors.

Some plausible arguments are adduced, in the course of this work, p. 179, 193, &c. by which it appears to be doubtful whether or not the character of Sir Fretful Plagiary were really intended for Cumberland. We cannot enter upon the controversy, and the author seems, in the second volume, p. 326, to have embraced the general opinion on the subject.

On Cumberland's return to England, the West Indian was very favorably received by Garrick. It was represented with great success, and considerably enlarged the reputation of its author.

During the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, Cumberland wrote a pamphlet in opposition to the latter, who had spoken irreverently of his grandfather Bentley.

This pamphlet, I have never seen, and therefore can say no more of it than what its author has communicated. He selected from it the fol

lowing passage as an attack which he considers to be "fairly pressed" upon Lowth, and in which opinion the reader will probably concur.

66

-'s treat

Recollect, my lord, the warmth, the piety, with which you remonstrated against Bishop Wment of your father, in a passage of his Julian: It is not, you therein say, in behalf of myself that I expostulate, but of one for whom I am much more concerned, that is, my father.' These are your lordship's words-amiable, affecting expression! instructive lesson of filial devotion! alas, my lord, that you, who were thus sensible to the least speck which fell upon the reputation of your father, should be so inve

terate against the fame of one at least as eminent, and perhaps not less dear to his family.' p. 221.

His next production, The Fashionable Lover, was acted in 1772, and well received.

About this time, he lost both his parents; his father having first sunk into the grave by a gradual and gentle decay.

In 1775, The Choleric Man was acted at Drury Lane; and in 1777, an alteration of Shakspeare's Timon of Athens, which did not succeed. His last production, acted at Drury Lane, before Garrick quitted the management, was, The Note of Hand, or, A Trip to Newmarket. It has been conjectured that this farce, which was not eminently successful, gave occasion for Mr. Sheridan's portrait of Sir Fretful.

Next came The Battle of Hastings, a tragedy. Soon after its performance, the Earl of Halifax died, and was succeeded in his office as secretary for the colonial department, by Lord George Germain; who, being unknown to Cumberland, at first received him with such coldness, that he conceived no hope of ascending beyond the subordinate office of Clerk of the Reports. But having unexpectedly received an invitation from his lordship to visit him and his family for a few days at Stoneland, near Tunbridge Wells, the willing compliance of Cumberland led to an intimate friendship; in consequence of which, Mr. C. was appointed Secretary to the Board, on the resignation of his predecessor. After the dissolution of Lord North's ministry, the board was abolished, and Cumberland, lost his place.

of the Deities, followed in the 'ensuing season.

In 1780 he was employed on an important mission to Spain. In its consequences, however, it little benefited either his condition, or the expectations of government.

Some singular circumstances are narrated, from which it might be inferred, that the life of Mr. Cumberland was attempted while he was proceeding on his embassy.

On his return to England, he underwent considerable labor in drawing up memorials to Lord North; with whom, notwithstanding the failure of his application, he afterwards became acquainted.

When the Board of Trade was dissolved, Mr. Cumberland received what he considered as a very inadequate compensation; and as he had already been compelled to sacrifice his patrimony, in order to defray the losses that attended his Spanish mission, he was now under the necessity of sacrificing his town residence, and of regulating his establishment on a more economical scale. For this purpose he fixed on Tunbridge Wells, where he dwelt for the remainder of his life.

Shortly after his return to England, he published his Anecdotes of eminent Painters in Spain; and before he was yet settled at Tunbridge, he brought forward his comedy of The Walloons in 1782.

His next play was The Mysterious Husband, a tragedy written in prose; after which followed The Carmelite, a tragedy; and, while he resided at Tunbridge, he

gradually composed and progressively published his Observer, a body of Essays, which, though it will never rank his name upon an equality with Steele, Addison, and Johnson, confers upon him a fair title to take his station by the side of Colman, Lloyd, Cambridge, NO. II.

In 1779, he produced the opera of Calypso. Another opera, The Widow of Delphi, or the Descent VOL. I.

Y

Moore, Hawkesworth, and Chesterfield. These papers were not published as those of his predecessors, in daily or weekly numbers, but in volumes successively brought forth as a suffi cient number of Essays had accumu lated to form them. They have lately been incorporated into a complete edition of the British Essayists, and may therefore, as Cumberland justly observes, be regarded "as fairly enrolled amongst the standard classics of our native language." p. 419.

His other publications were, a pamphlet in opposition to the Bishop of Landaff, on the subject of the Income of the Clergy; the Natural Son, 1784; the Impostors, another comedy, 1789; Curtius rescued from the Gulph, a controversial tract, directed against Dr. Parr; the novels of Arundel and Henry ; Calvary, an epic poem; A few plain Reasons why we should believe in Christ, &c. The Exodiad, written in conjunction with Sir J. Bland Burges; John de Lancaster, his last novel; and Retrospection, written in familiar blank verse.

Between the years 1790 and 1808, he produced a considerable number of plays; of which The Wheel of Fortune, The Jew, and First Love, may be reckoned among the best. The titles of the rest are, Wat Tyler, or the Armourer; the Country Attorney; Box Lobby Challenge; Don Pedro; the Last of the Family; the Word for Nature; the Dependant; the Eccentric Lover; the Sailor's Daughter; the Jew of Mogadore, in 180S, after the publication of his Memoirs; the Days of Yore; False Impressions: a Hint to Husbands; and Joanna of Montfaucon, which was adapted from the German.

Besides these, a variety of fugitive efforts are mentioned, which do not require a particular notice.

The works in which Mr. Cum

berland assisted as Editor, are thus noticed :

Cumberland, in the latter years of his life, labored for the booksellers, sometimes anonymously, and sometimes not. Among many schemes to which this sort of employment gave rise, may be reckoned his edition of the Select British Drama, in which he undertook to publish a scries of those plays, which still take their turn upon the stage, and to preface them with lives of the authors, and a critical examination of each drama. To this task he was perfectly competent; but I have never heard what success attended the plan. In the first number, which contained Every Man in his Humor, he has given a succinct history of the rise and progress of the stage; and in his strictures upon Congreve's Love for Love, he is justly indignant at his grossness and obscenity.

I should have mentioned that he was associated, in 1803, with Mr. Peltier, Sir James Bland Burges, and some other gentlemen, in projecting and establishing a weekly newspaper, which was intended to maintain a higher literary character than commonly belongs to our daily journals. But it maintained no character at all, and soon fell. Its name I have forgot

ten.

In 1809 he published the first number of the London Review, with the chimerical idea that contemporary criticism could derive advantage from robbing it of its anonymous importance. When the proposals for this work were first issued, I was forcibly struck with the absurdity of its principle, and communicated my opinions to the public through the medium of a respectable periodical publication. These opinions were confirmed by the destiny of the London Review, and the result, which I presumed to augur, speedily ensued. pp. 568, 9.

Mr. Madford does not state the exact order in which these publications succeeded each other; nor have we space to transcribe his remarks.

Most of Cumberland's works

are registered in his Memoirs of his own life. They were published in 1807, having been written at the suggestion of his friend Mr. Sharpe,

whom he mentions with honor in his will. A valuable Supplement to the Memoirs was afterwards added by the author.

Mr. Cumberland's death took place on the 7th of May, 1811; and he was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 14th of May. The funeral service was performed by his friend, Dr. Vincent.

Mr. Cumberland's will, for certain reasons, bequeathed the whole of his property to his youngest daughter, Frances Marianne, though without any feeling of animosity to his other relations. The lady just mentioned is the widow of an offcer named Jansen, who perished in the expedition to Walcheren. We shall conclude with the following particulars of Mr. Cumberland and his family, which are too important to be omitted:

1

Before he died, he solicited, in an humble address on the cover of the European Magazine, the subscriptions of his friends and the public, to a quarto edition of his unpublished dramas, and I have been told that the present Lord Lonsdale and Sir James Graham, generously answered the appeal, by sending, each of them, a hundred-pound bank note, as the amount of their subscription, politely expressing, at the same time, their regret that Cumberland should have been compelled to so great a humiliation. This munificence deserves to be recorded, and I feel a pleasure in doing it. Some progress in the printing of these plays has been made, for they are announced, at the end of the poem of Retrospection, as being in the press; and I am informed it is Mrs. Jansen's intention shortly to give them to the world.

Cumberland's family consisted, at his death, of two sons and three

daughters. Both the sons are in the service of their king and country. The one, Charies, who married the daughter of General Matthew, is in the army, and the other, William, a postcaptain in the navy. His first and second sons, Richard and George, died abroad; Richard, (who married the eldest daughter of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire), at Tobago, and George, in America, where he was killed at the siege of Charlestown. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Lord Edward Bentinck, brother to the late Duke of Portland; his second, Sophia, married William Badcock, Esq. a gentleman of whom Cumberland speaks in no manner calculated to excite esteem. Of his third daughter, Frances Marianne, I need not repeat what has been already told. Besides this immediate posterity, he numbered nineteen grandchildren, "6 some of whom," he says, "have already lived to crown my warmest wishes, and I see a promise guine hopes." pp. 595, 6. in the rest, that flatters my most san

A part of the preface will explain Mr. M.'s views in publishing the present volumes.

When the Memoirs of Cumberland were published, I was forcibly impressed with their insufficiency in all that regarded the estimation of his literary character; and while I found in them all that could be wished about the man, I was conscious that whenever his death should happen, an ample and interesting opportunity would occur for the union of this personal history, with a minute inquiry into the pretensions of the author. In what way, however, I conceived this scheme might be best executed, may be easily known from the following pages, which I have endeavoured to make as interesting as I could. If I have failed, I will not seek to mitigate censure by an appeal to indulgence.

Whether any thing respecting Cumberland, yet unknown, might have been obtained by application to his family, is uncertain. I forbore to try the experiment, because I wished to

perform the undertaking with an unbiassed mind. Had I been indebted to them for any communications, or for courtesies of any kind, I should only have increased my own embarrassment, without, perhaps, increasing the advantage of the reader. No man can disregard the influence of those feelings which are generated by friendly intercourse, or by polite attentions; and he might justly be charged with ingratitude and insincerity, who should obtain from the relatives of a person what information he needed, and then requite the obligation by giving them pain in his opinjons. I resolved therefore to place myself in no such equivocal situation, for I wished to think with freedom, and with freedom to speak my thoughts. Nor do I imagine that much could have been given had I asked, and had they, whom I asked, been willing to give; for Cumberland probably told all that need be, if not all that could be, known.

In examining the writings of Cumberland, I have sometimes done it with a minuteness which may be thought unnecessary, and perhaps tedious. I did it, however, because I considered it as the fittest means of attaining my end, which was, to discover the full extent of his merits as an author. It enabled me also, by adducing the grounds of my belief, to avoid the imputation of indiscriminate censure or praise.

In the note, p. 62, I have spoken of Lord Chatham's Letters to Lord Camelford, and drawn a false inference, from believing that they were addressed to the late nobleman of that name, who fell in a duel. I am indebted to the vigilance of a friend for being able to notice the error in this place.

I experienced some difficulty in ascertaining the dates of Cumberland's various productions, in which he has been inexcusably negligent. As often as I could, I have supplied his deficiencies; but sometimes I found it impossible to do so without more loss of time than the acquisition would have compensated.

The extracts which I have occasionally made from his Memoirs, have been of such passages as either tended to illustrate particular events of his life, and in which I conceived the employment of his own language might confer a character of authenticity; of such as exhibited his talents as a writer; or finally, where I imagined the amusement of the reader would be promoted by their introduction. I hope it will not be thought, however, that I have done this too copiously; a splenetic reader, indeed might tell me that I have not done it enough, by hinting that these extracts form the only valuable part of my book. I selected them sometimes with the expectation that they would relieve the aridity of continued critical discussion, or the barren commemoration of familiar and unimportant facts.

For the freedom with which I have expressed my opinions upon the works of living authors, I have no apology to offer, because I deem none necessary. I would have suppressed them, had I felt any adequate motive for it; but I could not falsify them. I disclaim all influence of malignity or envy; but I am not very anxious about the reception of my renunciation, because I know that the reverse will be more willingly believed by the majority of mankind. Obtrectatio et livor pronis auribus accipiuntur. TACIT.-I have not sought occasions for censure; but, when they presented themselves, I did not shrink from the expression of it. Let those who differ from me disprove my positions by argument, and I shall be ready to listen, and happy to be convinced, but if they answer by the compendious reasoning of scornful disregard, I shall know where the truth lies, and be sufficiently pleased with that proud silence which is more frequently the refuge of weakness than the conscious dignity of power disdaining to exert itself. It is often more prudent to despise an adversary than to oppose him, for while no evidence of inability is manifested, there will always be a credulous part of mankind who will disbelieve its exist ence. pp. ix-xiii,

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