Adolphus William Ward

“ Cumberland first essayed sentimental comedy in The Brothers (1769) . The theme of this comedy is inspired by Fielding’s Tom Jones; its comic characters are the jolly old tar Captain Ironsides, and the henpecked husband Sir Benjamin Dove, whose progress to self-assertion is genuinely comic, though not altogether original. Horace Walpole said that it acted well, but read ill, though he could distinguish in it “strokes of Mr Bentley.” The epilogue paid a compliment to Garrick, who helped the production of Cumberland’s second comedy The West-Indian (1771) . ”

“ CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (1732–1811) , English dramatist, was born in the master’s lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 19th of February 1732. He was the great-grandson of the bishop of Peterborough; and his father, Dr Denison Cumberland, became successively bishop of Clonfert and of Kilmore. His mother was Joanna, the youngest daughter of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and the heroine of John Byrom’s once popular little eclogue, Colin and Phoebe. Of the great master of Trinity his grandson has left a kindly account ”

“ He had just begun to read for his fellowship, when he was offered the post of private secretary by the earl of Halifax, first lord of trade and plantations in the duke of Newcastle’s ministry. His family persuaded him to accept the office, to which he returned after his election as fellow. It left him abundant leisure for literary pursuits, which included the design of a poem in blank verse on India. ”

“ The Choleric Man (1774) , founded on the Adelphi of Terence, is of a similar type, the comic element rather predominating, but philanthropy being duly represented by a virtuous lawyer called Manlove. Among his later comedies may be mentioned The Natural Son (1785) , in which Major O’Flaherty who had already figured in The West-Indian, makes his reappearance ”