The Clandestine Marriage, Desdemona, Aspasia in Tamerlane, Juliet and Imogen; but notwithstanding her great beauty and her natural aptitude for acting, her inability to acquire rapid and easy utterance prevented her from attaining to more than very moderate success. After the death of her husband she continued for some time on the stage; making her first London appearance at Covent Garden as Bellario in Philaster on the 3rd of October 1780. Her success, however, as an author led her to retire in 1789. She died at Kensington House on the 1st of August 1821.
Mrs. Inchbald wrote or adapted nineteen plays, and some of them, especially Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are (1797), were for a time very successful. Among the others may be mentioned I’ll tell you What (translated into German, Leipzig, 1798); Such Things Are (1788); The Married Man; The Wedding Day; The Midnight Hour; Everyone has his Fault; and Lover’s Vows. She also edited a collection of the British Theatre, with biographical and critical remarks (25 vols., 1806–1809); a Collection of Farces (7 vols., 1809); and The Modern Theatre (10 vols., 1809). Her fame, however, rests chiefly on her two novels: A Simple Story (1791), and Nature and Art (1796). These works possess many minor faults and inaccuracies, but on the whole their style is easy, natural and graceful; and if they are tainted in some degree by a morbid and exaggerated sentiment, and display none of that faculty of creation possessed by the best writers of fiction, the pathetic situations, and the deep and pure feeling pervading them, secured for them a wide popularity.
Mrs Inchbald destroyed an autobiography for which she had been offered £1000 by Phillips the publisher; but her Memoirs, compiled by J. Boaden, chiefly from her private journal, appeared in 1833 in two volumes. An interesting account of Mrs Inchbald is contained in Records of a Girlhood, by Frances Ann Kemble (1878). Her portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
INCHIQUIN, MURROUGH O’BRIEN, 1st Earl of (c. 1614–1674),
Irish soldier and statesman, was the son of Dermod
O’Brien, 5th Baron Inchiquin (d. 1624). He belonged to a great
family which traced its descent to Brian Boroimhe, king of Ireland,
and members of which were always to the forefront in Irish
public life. The first baron of Inchiquin was another Murrough
O’Brien (d. 1551) who, after having made his submission to
Henry VIII., was created baron of Inchiquin and earl of Thomond
in 1543. When Murrough died in November 1551 by a curious
arrangement his earldom passed to his nephew Donogh, son of
Conor O’Brien (d. 1539), the last independent prince of Thomond
(see Thomond, Earls of), leaving only his barony to be inherited
by his son Dermod (d. 1557), the ancestor of the later barons of
Inchiquin.
Murrough O’Brien, who became 6th baron of Inchiquin in 1624, gained some military experience in Italy, and then in 1640 was appointed vice-president of Munster. He took an active and leading part in suppressing the great Irish rebellion which broke out in the following year, and during the Civil War the English parliament made him president of Munster. Early in 1648, however, he declared for his former master Charles I., and for about two years he sought to uphold the royalist cause in Ireland. In 1654 Charles II. made him an earl. His later years were partly spent in France and in Spain, but he had returned to Ireland when he died on the 9th of September 1674.
His son William, the 2nd earl (c. 1638–1692), served under his father in France and Spain, and for six years was governor of Tangier. He was a partisan of William III. in Ireland, and in 1690 he became governor of Jamaica where he died in January 1692. In 1800 his descendant Murrough, the 5th earl (d. 1808), was created marquess of Thomond, but on the death of James, the 3rd marquess, in July 1855 both the marquessate and the earldom became extinct. The barony of Inchiquin, however, passed to a kinsman, Sir Lucius O’Brien, Bart. (1800–1872), a descendant of the first baron and a brother of William Smith O’Brien (q.v.).
INCLEDON, CHARLES BENJAMIN (1763–1826), English
singer, son of a doctor in Cornwall, began as a choir-boy at
Exeter, but then went into the navy. His fine tenor voice,
however, attracted general attention, and in 1783 he determined
to seek his fortune on the stage. After various provincial
appearances he made a great success in 1790 at Covent Garden,
and thenceforth was the principal English tenor of his day. He
sang both in opera and in oratorio, but his chief popularity lay
in his delivery of ballads, such as “Sally in our Alley,” “Black-eyed
Susan,” “The Arethusa,” and anything of a bold and manly
type. He toured in America in 1817; and on retiring in 1822
from the operatic stage, he travelled through the provinces
with an entertainment called “The Wandering Melodist.”
He died of paralysis at Worcester on the 11th of February
1826.
INCLINOMETER (Dip Circle). Two distinct classes of
instruments are used for measuring the dip (see Magnetism, Terrestrial)
or inclination of the earth’s magnetic field to the
horizontal, namely (1) dip circles, and (2) induction inclinometers
or earth inductors.
Dip Circles.—In the case of the dip circle the direction of the earth’s magnetic field is obtained by observing the position of the axis of a magnetized needle so supported as to be free to turn about a horizontal axis passing through its centre of gravity. The needles now used consist of flat lozenge-shaped pieces of steel about 9 cm. long and 0.1 cm. thick, and weigh about 4.1 grams. The axle, which is made of hard steel, projects on either side of the needle and has a diameter of about 0.05 cm. Needles considerably larger than the above have been used, but experience showed that the values for the dip observed with needles 23 cm. long, was about 1′ less than with the 9 cm. needles, and A. Schuster (Phil. Mag., 1891 [5], 31, p. 275) has shown that the difference is due to the appreciable bending of the longer needles owing to their weight.
When in use the dip needle is supported on two agate knife-edges, so that its axle is on the axis of a vertical divided circle, on which the positions of the ends of the needle are either directly observed by means of two reading lenses, in which case the circle is generally divided into thirds of a degree so that it can by estimation be read to about two minutes, or a cross arm carries two small microscopes and two verniers, the cross wires of each microscope being adjusted so as to bisect the image of the corresponding end of the needle. Two V-shaped lifters actuated by a handle serve to raise the needle from the agates, and when lowered assure the axle being at the centre of the vertical circle.
