Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/164

 love me?’ in both of which Miss Amy Sedgwick played the heroines. At the Princess's he supplied Charles A. Fechter with the English version of ‘Ruy Blas;’ and the songs of Balfe's operas, ‘The Rose of Castile’ and ‘Satanella,’ and the entire libretto of Alfred Mellon's opera, ‘Victorine,’ were from his pen. He made 13,000l. at the Lyceum, and in 1862, with Frederick Balsir Chatterton, became joint lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, for which he wrote and produced ‘Bonnie Dundee,’ 23 Feb. 1863; ‘Nature's above Art,’ 12 Sept.; ‘Night and Morning,’ 9 Jan. 1864; and ‘Love's Ordeal, or the Old and New Régime,’ 3 May 1865. In addition he wrote ‘The O'Flahertys’ and ‘Galway-go-bragh,’ a dramatisation of Lever's ‘Charles O'Malley,’ in which he himself acted Mickey Free. He attempted to popularise the national drama by the production of ‘Macbeth,’ ‘Cymbeline,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘As you like it,’ ‘King John,’ ‘Henry the Fourth,’ ‘Comus,’ and ‘Manfred;’ but although he employed all the best talent of the day the public did not sufficiently patronise the house, and in 1866, having lost all his money, he retired on 26 Sept., leaving Chatterton sole lessee of Drury Lane. On 19 Nov. 1866 he, however, opened Her Majesty's Theatre with his own five-act drama, ‘Oonagh, or the Lovers of Lisnamona,’ but this piece was a complete failure, and the season suddenly terminated on 30 Nov. He then went to America, and made his appearance at the Olympic Theatre, New York, on 29 April 1867, in his own drama of ‘Night and Morning.’ He remained in America about three years, where he produced three new dramas and an adaptation of one of Ouida's novels, which he called ‘Firefly.’ During his absence his piece, ‘A Wife well won,’ was brought out at the Haymarket Theatre, London. After his return he successfully introduced at the Princess's ‘Eileen Oge,’ an alteration of his drama ‘Innisfallen,’ more popularly called ‘Killarney,’ and another drama called ‘Gra-ma-chree.’ He died at his residence, 28 Keppel Street, Russell Square, London, on 29 Sept. 1879, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. As a delineator of Irish character he will be long remembered, and some of his dramas will continue to be acted while the sentimental view of the Irish peasant remains a cherished idea with so many persons. His first marriage was dissolved; he married secondly a daughter of John Neville, the widow of Mr. Weston, the actor. She died 3 June 1864. He married, thirdly, an American lady, who survived him. Many of Falconer's dramas and librettos have been printed, and he was also the author of ‘Murmurings in the May and Summer of Manhood,’ ‘O'Ruark's Bride,’ and ‘Man's Mission,’ poems, 1865, and of another volume of poems entitled ‘Musings.’

 FALCONER, FORBES (1805–1853), Persian scholar, born at Aberdeen, 10 Sept. 1805, was the second and only surviving son of Gilbert Falconer of Braeside, Fifeshire. He was educated at the grammar school and at Marischal College, where he obtained prizes in classical studies. His first publications, which appeared anonymously in local journals, were also classical, consisting of metrical translations from the Greek anthology. He commenced his oriental studies before the age of twenty, by attending the Hebrew classes of Professor Bentley in Aberdeen, and likewise began the private study of Arabic and Persian. Afterwards proceeding to Paris he attended, during nearly five years, the courses of De Sacy, De Chézy, and, for Hindustani, of Garcin de Tassy. After short visits to several German universities, Falconer returned to this country, and settled in London as a teacher of oriental languages, and occupied for a short time the professorship of oriental languages in University College, London. He is perhaps best known in the present day for his works on the ‘Būstān,’ from which he published in 1839 a volume of selections, very neatly lithographed from his own transcript. In the ‘Asiatic Journal,’ a useful periodical now defunct, he published a translation of part of the same poem, as well as selections from several of the Sufi poets, and a critical study of the ‘Sindibād Nāmah.’ For the Society for the Publication of Oriental Texts Falconer edited two important poems of Jāmi, the ‘Tuhfat-ul-Ahrār’ and ‘Salāmān u Absāl.’ The critical ability of these texts is attested by Francis Johnson in the preface to his edition of Richardson's ‘Persian Dictionary.’ Falconer's ‘Persian Grammar,’ which reached a second edition in 1848, is now a somewhat rare book.

Falconer was a member of the Asiatic Societies of London and Paris, and an honorary member of the American Oriental Society. He died in London, 7 Nov. 1853.

 FALCONER, HUGH (1808–1865), palæontologist and botanist, youngest son of David Falconer, was born at Forres, Elginshire, on 29 Feb. 1808. He was educated