Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/298

 1779, was said, according to a common anecdote, to have been written in revenge for Cumberland's behaviour on the first night of the ‘School for Scandal,’ 1777. It was alleged that Cumberland was seen in a box reproving his children for laughing at the play. ‘He ought to have laughed at my comedy, for I laughed heartily at his tragedy,’ is the retort commonly attributed to Sheridan. Cumberland's first tragedy, the ‘Battle of Hastings,’ was performed in 1778, and he denies the whole story circumstantially, and says that he convinced Sheridan of its falsehood (Memoirs, i. 271; see also, Cumberland, i. 179). Cumberland's ‘Memoirs’ supply sufficient proof that the portrait in the ‘Critic’ was not without likeness. Cumberland's ‘Choleric Man’ was produced in 1774 and published with a dedication to ‘Detraction.’ In 1778 he produced the ‘Battle of Hastings,’ the chief part in which was written for Henderson's first appearance in London. Garrick's retirement probably weakened his connection with the stage. At the end of 1775 Lord George Germaine (afterwards Lord Sackville) became colonial secretary. Through his favour Cumberland was appointed soon afterwards to succeed John Pownall as secretary to the board of trade. In 1780 he obtained some private information which led to his being sent on a secret mission to Spain in combination with an Abbé Hussey. A long account of his adventures on the voyage to Lisbon and his negotiations in Spain is given in his ‘Memoirs,’ and a volume of papers relating to it, left by him to his daughter, is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 28851). The purpose was to induce the Spanish authorities to agree to a separate treaty with England. The great difficulty, according to Cumberland, was that he was forbidden even to mention a cession of Gibraltar, while the Gordon riots in 1780 excited the distrust of the Spanish ministers at a critical moment. In any case the mission was a failure. Cumberland returned to England, after a year's absence, in the spring of 1781, having incurred an expenditure of 4,500l., for which he could never obtain repayment. Soon afterwards the board of trade was abolished and Cumberland sent adrift with a compensation of about half his salary. He had to reduce his expenditure, and settled for the rest of his life at Tunbridge Wells. Here he was a neighbour of Lord Sackville, of whom he gives an interesting account in his ‘Memoirs.’ He became a commander of volunteers during the war. He continued to display a restless literary activity, prompted partly by the need of money. Soon after his return (1782) he published ‘Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain,’ in 2 vols. He returned to play-writing. His first drama, the ‘Walloons’ (performed 20 April 1782), was apparently a failure. Johnson tells Mrs. Thrale that he made 5l. by it and ‘lost his plume’ (to Mrs. Thrale, 30 April 1782). He produced many other plays, of which the ‘Jew’ (acted twelve times) and the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ seem to have been the most successful. The first is praised for the intention to defend the Jewish character. Besides his play-writing, which only ceased with his death, he wrote two novels, ‘Arundel’ (1789) and ‘Henry’ (1795) (in imitation of Fielding), and a periodical paper called the ‘Observer,’ almost the last imitation of the ‘Spectator.’ The second volume of the reprint in Chalmers's ‘British Essayists’ contains a continuous history of the Greek comic dramatists, with translations of fragments, founded on his youthful studies. It was first printed at Tunbridge Wells in 1785, and in a later edition (1798) formed 6 vols., including a translation of the ‘Clouds’ of Aristophanes. Cumberland's translations were included in R. Walpole's ‘Comicorum Græcorum Fragmenta’ (1805) and in Bailey's edition of the same (1840). His translation of the ‘Clouds’ is included in Mitchell's Aristophanes. He published in 1801 ‘A few Plain Reasons for believing in the Christian Revelation,’ and in 1792 a poem called ‘Calvary.’ This poem was analysed by Dr. Drake in his ‘Literary Hours’ (Nos. 18 to 21), according to the precedent of Addison upon ‘Paradise Lost.’ Drake thinks that Cumberland has happily combined the excellences of Shakespeare and Milton, of which he has certainly made pretty free use. In consequence of Drake's praise seven editions were published from 1800 to 1811. In conjunction with Sir James Bland Burges [q. v.] he wrote an epic called the ‘Exodiad’ (1808). Of some odes to Romney (1776), Johnson observed (, 12 April 1776) that they would have been thought ‘as good as odes commonly are’ if he had not put his name to them. He also took part in various controversies, defending Bentley against Bishop Lowth (1767) in a pamphlet on occasion of a remark in Lowth's assault upon Warburton, assailing Bishop Watson's theories about church preferment in 1783, and attacking Dr. Parr in a pamphlet called ‘Curtius rescued from the Gulph’ (1785). He left the care of his literary remains to his three friends, S. Rogers, ‘Conversation’ Sharp, and Sir J. B. Burges. He had four sons: Richard, who married the eldest daughter of the Earl of Buckinghamshire and died at Tobago; George, who entered the navy and was killed at the siege of Charleston; Charles, in the