Cumberland

Cumberland, RICHARD, a dramatic writer and essayist, was born on the 19th February 1732, in the lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the great-grandson of Bishop Cumberland, and grandson, by the mother's side, of Dr Richard Bentley. From Bury St Edmunds and Westminster, where he was contemporary with Cowper, Churchill, and Warren Hastings, he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge, and here was elected to a fellowship at twenty. Becoming private secretary to Lord Halifax, he gave up his intention of entering the church, and, after passing through several subordinate offices, was appointed secretary to the Board of Trade. He held that office after his return from an unfortunate secret mission to Spain (1780), which cost him as much as £5000, a sum that ministers refused to reimburse, when the Board was suppressed. Having obtained a compensation allowance of about half his salary, Cumberland retired to Tunbridge Wells, where he devoted himself to literature, and wrote incessantly farces, tragedies, comedies, pamphlets, essays, and novels, two at least of merit, Arundel and Henry. Many of his comedies were successful at the time of their appearance, although they have not kept possession of the stage. Among them may here be named The West Indian, The Brothers, The Fashionable Lover, The Jew, and The Wheel of Fortune. Cumberland is alluded to in Goldsmith's Retaliation with not unkindly satire as 'the Terence of England, the mender of hearts;' in Sheridan's Critic he is gibbetted as 'Sir Fretful Plagiary.' Cumberland's essays and translations from the Greek poets are long forgotten. He died at Tunbridge Wells, 7th May 1811. His inaccurate Memoirs of himself were published in 1807.