Life
?1727-1812; comic actor, specialising in Irish roles; b. Cork, son of
hairdresser called Cochran, he went to Jamaica and made money as an actor;
first appeared in London in 1759 and acted chiefly at Drury Lane till
1796 [var. 1804: DIB]; on retirement, to Barnes Common, made a good living
as a market gardener. ODNB DIB
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Criticism
See Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the
Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior
To The Nineteenth Century (John Benjamins Pub. Co., Amsterdam & Philadelphia, 1986), 162f.
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Commentary
G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman (Dublin: Talbot 1937),
quotes: quotes from Churchill’s Rosciad lines commending Ireland
in general, and John Moody in particular, “Moody we praise with all the
warmth we can / When he depicts the Irish gentleman: / Long from a nation
ever hardly used, / At random censured, wantonly abused, / have Britons
drawn their sport with partial / view, Formed general notions from the
rascal few, / Condemned a people as for vices known, / Which from their
country banished seek our own. / At length, however, the slavish chain
is broke, / and sense awakened scorns her ancient yoke, / Taught by thee,
Moody, we now learn to raise, / Mirth from their foibles, from their virtues
praise.’ (Duggan, op. cit., p. 176.)
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