Doran, JOHN, Ph.D., a copious contributor to miscellaneous literature, descended from an old Irish family of Drogheda, was born in London on 11th March 1807. His thorough mastery of the French language led to his appointment as tutor in 1823 to George Murray, afterwards Duke of Athole, with whom he travelled on the Continent for five years; and he acted in this capacity to the sons of other noblemen (1828-37). In 1824 his melodrama Justice, or the Venetian Jew, was produced at the Surrey Theatre. A volume of his contributions to the periodical press—
Sketches and Reminiscences—appeared in 1828. In 1835 he wrote a history of Reading. In 1854 he published Habits and Men, followed by Table Traits, Queens of England of the House of Hanover (1855), Knights and their Days (1856), Monarchs retired from Business (1857), History of Court Fools (1858), New Pictures and Old Panels (1859), The Princes of Wales (1860), and a Memoir of Queen Adelaide (1861). In 1864 he produced Their Majesties' Servants, a history of the stage from Betterton to Keane (new ed. by Lowe, 1887); in 1868 Saints and Sinners; and in 1873 his most interesting work, an account of Mrs Montagu and the 'blue-stockings' of her day, under the title of A Lady of the Last Century. In 1876 he published size, and richly ornamented with large sculptured figures and bas-reliefs. One of the most notable of these is the majestic deeply-recessed triple portal of Rheims Cathedral. Those of the English edifices, although highly ornamented, are not on so great a scale. A favourite decoration of all periods is a series of niches filled with figures carried round the jambs and archway. In early Gothic the doorways are pointed and surmounted with a gable, in the later periods the pointed arch is often inclosed with square mouldings or labels, and in the Flamboyant and Tudor styles the four-centred arch and the ogee or reversed arch are commonly employed. Of course in all periods the mouldings and enrichments of the doorway are
Mann and Manners, the letters of Sir Horace Mann to Horace Walpole; in 1877 London in Jacobite Times, and in 1878 Memories of Our Great Towns. His In and About Drury Lane (1885) was posthumous. Besides being a large contributor to miscellaneous literature, Dr Doran was repeatedly acting-editor of the Athenæum; edited the Church and State Gazette (1841-52); and at his death, 25th January 1878, was editor of Notes and Queries.