Concanen, Matthew (1701-1749) (DNB00)
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| Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 Concanen, Matthew (1701-1749) |
Condé, John→ |
| See also "none" on Wikipedia Author:Leslie Stephen |
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1766, having been discovered in 1760 by Gawin Knight, the first librarian to the British Museum (it was afterwards republished by Malone in his supplement to 'Shakespeare,' i. 222, and will be found in Nichols's 'Illustrations,' ii. 195). The first edition of the 'Dunciad,' of which Theobald was the hero, was published 28 May 1728. Concanen took up the cudgels against Pope in the preface to a 'Collection of all Verses, Essays . . . occasioned by Mr. Pope and Swift's Miscellanies,' and a pamphlet called 'A Supplement to the Profund,' in which Pope's method of quoting faulty passages from his enemies is turned with some point against himself. In the authorised edition of the 'Dunciad' of 1729 a passage previously applied to Roome and Whatley was altered to an attack upon Concanen, who takes part in the diving match as 'A cold, long-winded native of the deep ' (Dunciad, ii. 299-304).
In a note of 1736 Pope adds that Concanen afterwards became 'a hired scribbler in the "Daily Courant,"' where he 'poured forth much Billingsgate against Lord Bolingbroke and others.' Concanen succeeded in commending himself to the government, especially to Sir W. Yonge, through whose interest and that of the Duke of Newcastle he was appointed attorney-general in Jamaica 30 Jan. 1732. He is said to have filled the office creditably. He married a planter's daughter and returned to England with a fortune, but a few weeks afterwards died of consumption, 22 Jan. 1729. Besides the above works Concanen published in 1731 a miscellany called 'The Flowerpiece.' He was concerned with Roome and Sir William Yonge (manuscript note by Isaac Reed in copy of Gibber's 'Lives' at British Museum) in altering Broome's 'Jovial Crew' into a ballad opera, and has some songs in the 'Musical Miscellany,' 1729.
[Letters of an Eminent Prelate (1809), 218, 219; Watson's Life of Warburton, 14, 15, 27-30; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 535, 641, viii. 265, 496, 512; Nichols's Illustrations, ii. 189-204; Cibber's Lives, v. 27-31; Memoirs of Grub Street (1737), i. 162, 186.]
