Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/75

 commenced writing for the press. In 1807 he started a periodical called ‘Literary Recreations,’ which was not financially successful. But in it Byron, Allan Cunningham, and other poets of note made their first appearance in print. In 1808 Roche began the publication of ‘The Dramatic Appellant,’ a quarterly journal, whose object was to print in each number three of the rejected plays of the period. In it will be found two of Roche's own contributions to the drama, ‘William Tell’ and ‘The Invasion.’ The former was being rehearsed when Drury Lane Theatre was destroyed by fire on 24 Feb. 1809. The ‘Dramatic Appellant’ was not a conspicuous success, and in 1809 Roche became parliamentary reporter of the ‘Day,’ an advanced liberal newspaper, of which he was appointed editor about 1810. Its name was afterwards changed to the ‘New Times’ and then to the ‘Morning Journal.’ While editing it he was imprisoned for a year for an attack on the government in reference to the case of Sir Francis Burdett [q. v.] On his release he became editor of the ‘National Register,’ a weekly paper. In August 1813 he accepted an engagement on the ‘Morning Post,’ becoming one of its editors shortly afterwards. He was also associated with the ‘Courier,’ for a time an influential organ of liberal opinion. He was recognised as one of the ablest journalists of his day. He died on 9 Nov. 1829 in Hart Street, Bloomsbury. A large sum was subscribed for his second wife and family, and his poems were collected and published, with a memoir and portrait, for their benefit, with a very distinguished list of subscribers, under the title of ‘London in a Thousand Years,’ in 1830.

[Gent. Mag. 1829, ii. 640; Memoir prefixed to London in a Thousand Years; Byron's Life and Correspondence, ed. Moore; Fox-Bourne's History of English Journalism; Grant's Newspaper Press.] 

ROCHE, JAMES (1770–1853), styled by Father Prout ‘the Roscoe of Cork,’ was the son of Stephen Roche, and a descendant of John Roche of Castle Roche, a delegate at the federation of Kilkenny in 1641. His mother, Sarah, was daughter of John O'Brien of Moyvanine and Clounties, Limerick. Born at Cork, 30 Dec. 1770, he was sent at fifteen years of age to the college of Saintes, near Angoulême, where he spent two years. After a short visit home he returned to France and became partner with his brother George, a wine merchant at Bordeaux. There he made the acquaintance of Vergniaud and Guillotin. He shared in the enthusiasm for the revolution, and paid frequent visits to Paris, associating with the leading Girondins. While in Paris in 1793 he was arrested under the decree for the detention of British subjects, and spent six months in prison. He believed himself to have been in imminent danger of inclusion in the monster Luxembourg batch of victims, and attributed his escape to Brune, afterwards one of Napoleon's marshals. On his release he returned to the south of France, endeavouring to recover his confiscated property. In 1797 he quitted France, living alternately at London and Cork. In 1800, with his brother Stephen, he established a bank at Cork, which flourished until the monetary crisis of 1819, when it suspended payment. Roche's valuable library was sold in London, the creditors having invited him to select and retain the books that he most prized. He spent the next seven years in London as commercial and parliamentary agent for the counties of Cork, Youghal, and Limerick. Retiring from business with a competency, he resided from 1829 to 1832 in Paris. The remainder of his life was passed at Cork as local director of the National Bank of Ireland, a post which allowed him leisure for the indulgence of his literary tastes. He was well read in the ancient and the principal modern languages, and his historical knowledge enabled him to assist inquirers on obscure and debatable points, and to detect and expose errors. He contributed largely, mostly under his initials, to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ ‘Notes and Queries,’ the ‘Dublin Review,’ and the ‘Cork Magazine.’ In 1851, under the title of ‘Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, by an Octogenarian,’ he reprinted for private circulation about forty of these articles. He also took an active part in literary, philanthropic, and mercantile movements in Cork. He died there, 1 April 1853, leaving two daughters by his wife Anne, daughter of John Moylan of Cork.

[Gent. Mag. June and July 1853; Athenæum, 5 April 1853; Notes and Queries, 16 April 1853; Dublin Review, September 1851 and April 1890.] 

ROCHE, MICHAEL (fl. 1710–1731), French protestant refugee and author, was threatened while young with persecution in France—probably on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was in ‘continual fear,’ for a whole year, of being imprisoned, and forced ‘to abjure the Protestant religion.’ He escaped to England with great difficulty. Unlike the great majority of his fellow refugees, he became almost immediately a member of the church of England. 