Life
?1830- ; Author of History of Ireland for Schools (London 1884) and numerous works of school history; also The Blacksmith; The Queen’s Jewel; Is She a Woman?; Kate Kearney, or the Lakes of Killarney (1836); The Rival Sargeants; all farces, comedies, comic operas, or burlettas. GBI RAF
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References
Stephen Brown, Guide to Books on Ireland ([Dublin: Talbot] 1912), lists William Collier (Kate Kearney, Maid of Killarney).
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol 1 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smyth 1980), cites also The Blacksmith; The Queen’s Jewel; Is She a Woman?; Kate Kearney, or the Lakes of Killarney (1836); The Rival Sargeants; all farces, comedies, comic operas, or burlettas.
COPAC lists The great events of history from the beginning of the Christian era to the nineteenth century (London: T. Nelson and Sons 1860; reps. 1864, 1884), vii, 348pp.; A history of English literature in a series of biographical sketches (London; Nelson 1861 1869 1895), and Do., [new rev. edn. with supplement on English literature in America] (London: NY: T. Nelson & Sons 1898, rep. 1919), vii (9)-582pp; History of Ireland for schools (Belfast, London & NY: Marcus Ward & Co. 1885), [4], 268p, 1 folding pl.; ills.; col. map; History of Greece (London, Edinburgh & NY: T. Nelson & Sons 1897); History of Rome (London, Edinburgh & NY: T. Nelson & Sons 1876, 1885, 1887); History of the British Empire (London, Edinburgh & NY: T. Nelson & Sons 1863 reps. 1868 1881 1890), 348, [4]pp.; Tales of old English life, or, Pictures of the periods (Edinburgh 1874). Also, with James Bryce & Leonard Schmitz (Viscount, 1838-1922), The international atlas and geography: modern, historical, classical, and physical (London: William Collins [1880]), 156, 38 p., 122 pp. [pls.]: ills, maps (chiefly col.), 47cm. [cites birth date as c.1830.]
Cathach Books (Cat. 12), lists Author of History of Ireland for Schools (Lon. n.d.).
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Notes
History of Ireland for Schools (1884) was included in James Joyce’s library in 1920, and itself contains the sentence conveying briefly the argument of the Book of Invasions: ‘Clan Milly from Spain [were] descendants of Millya [...] or Milesius, King of Spain, who [...] had married Scota [...] daughter of the Pharoah, King of Egypt.’ (pp.10-11; quoted in Maria Tymoczko, The Irish Ulysses, Calif. UP 1994.)
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Life
1732-94 [The Elder]; English playwright; b. Florence, son of British envoy; ed. Westminster and Oxford; joint ed. The Connoisseur; friend of Garrick; adapted Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and trans. Terence; member Dr. Johnson’s Club; wrote a successful farce, 1760; also The Jealous Wife (1761); 30 dramatic pieces, incl. adaptations, 1762-1789; inherited £945 p.a. from Earl of Bath, his uncle; translated Terence, 1765; manager Covent Garden, 1767-74; ed. Beaumont and Fletcher, 1778; trans. Horace’s Art of Poetry, 1783; miscellaneous essays, 1787; died insane. ODNB
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Commentary
Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish and Fíor Ghael (1986), The Oxonians in town (1769) was hissed for its negative representation of Irish characters [Leerssen, p.140]. ALSO, In the Elder Colman’s plays, a good Irishman is an Anglicised one, such as the Irish Oxonian Knowall, in The Oxonians in town (London 1770), who says, ‘National reflections are always mean and scandalous, but it is owning to such men as these that so much undeserved scandal has been thrown on our country, a country, which has always produced men as remarkable for honour and genius as any in the world. &c.’ Colman defended himself against the imputation of national bigotry thus and by dedicating the piece to the leading Irish Patriot political, Hely Hutchinson. ‘.. so far from intending to cast an illiberal reflection on the Irish nation, it was evidently his main design to vindicate the gentlemen of that country from the reproach deservedly incurred by worthless adventurers and outcasts ... &c.’ (The Oxonians in town, p.[v], ftn.111 [p.465].
G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman (1937), An unpleasant specimen [of Irish social adventurer] is found in George Colman the Elder’s The Oxonian in Town (1769), a play was impeded by the rioting of London Irishmen. The Dublin edition was dedicated to John Hely Hutchinson, Sergeant-at-Law in Ireland, with the defence, ‘“so far from intending to cast an illiberal reflection on the Irish nation, it was evidently the authors main design to vindicate the gentlemen of that country from the reproach deservedly incurred by worthless adventurers and outcasts.” The principal characters are Irish; Careless and Knowell, Oxonians, and sons of Irish landlords; Rook, Sharp, and M’Shuffle are tricksters who intrigue to get control of his patrimony, and also to match him with a lady of the town so as to elicit a pension from his father. Colman the Younger, in Who Wants A Guinea, or the Irish Yorkeshireman, has a descendent of Sir Lucius O’Trigger in Sir Larry MacMurrough of Ballygrennanclonfergus, Bart., who is comically the host of a girl employed to attend an aged gentleman; Sir Larry proves a gentleman and not a rascal.
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Notes
Kith & Kin: George Colman was the shared name of the Elder and Younger theatrical personage - one of whom was a protagonist in the Barry affair at Covent Garden which resulting in his being sacked by the manager [i.e, George Colman]. (Details in Arnott and Fitzpatrick’s Life of Garrick).
Irish Chairmen:Irishmen appear as chairmen - viz., those who carry passengers in chairs - in the The Occasional Prelude (TR London 1772) by George Colman the Elder where, again, “a cara” is rendered as my “dear”]. (See G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman (1937, q.p.)
Irish ‘ganius’: In George Colman the Elder’s The New Brooms, a curtain-raiser written to open Drury lane Theatre under the new Sheridan management, the Irishman and stage-hand Phelim makes fun of the current fad for operas and contemplates putting his own ‘ganius’ on the stage. To the obvious objections, he replies, ‘the brogue’s nothing at all my dear. It’s very well known that nobody speaks Engish so well as your Irishman, except the Scotch, indeed, indeed.’
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