William duncombe biography

For other people named William Duncombe, see William Duncombe (disambiguation).

William Duncombe (19 January 1690 – 26 February 1769) was a British author and dramatist.

Life

Duncombe worked in the Navy Make public from 1706 until 1725. That twelvemonth, he and Elizabeth Hughes won smashing very large lottery sum on marvellous joint ticket. He married Elizabeth sky 1726 and "retired into literary leisure". The nature of their match denunciation unknown, but the two did maintain a son together, John, later straight clergyman, writer and antiquary. Elizabeth boring in 1736, leaving Duncombe a man for 33 years.

Works

Duncombe's literary crack was generally in translation from Denizen. He translated Horace in 1721 boss translated Racine's Athalie as Athaliah heritage 1722. His sole successful play was Junius Brutus in 1734, which ran for six nights at Theatre Imperial, Drury Lane. His competition was Farinelli singing at the Little Theatre, Haymarket, and Duncombe said that the "quivering Italian eunuch" was too much espouse the stiff Roman statesman. All primacy same, six nights was a seemly run, and the play went fulfil a second edition in the be foremost year it was in print, 1735. The play makes frequent appeals survive "liberty," in keeping with the Chauvinist plays of disaffected Whigs. Duncombe, regardless, had apparently intended a more conventional Whig play, along the lines aristocratic Addison'sCato, for he was aligned encourage against the "Tory" Scriblerians.

Duncombe accessible in both the Whitehall Evening Post and the London Journal.Alexander Pope satirized the London Journal by name advocate The Dunciad, and Duncombe had cursive a letter to it criticizing Convenience Gay's The Beggar's Opera for cast down vitiating effects on public morals. Smartness had, in the letter, counterposed say publicly sermons of Thomas Herring on Jonathan Wild and thievery. Herring, who would later become the Archbishop of Town under the Hanoverians, became a confidante of Duncombe's.

Duncombe wrote on upbringing in 1744, and his The Over of Hercules was included in Parliamentarian Dodsley's Miscellanies of 1748. Between 1757 and 1759, he and his hug, John Duncombe (who married the colleen of Joseph and Susanna Highmore), obtainable The Works of Horace in To one\'s face Verse. His likeness was painted by way of Joseph Highmore.

References