contemporary of Colman, Churchill, Lloyd, and Warren Hastings. He says that he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in his ‘fourteenth year,’ though from the date of his graduation, 1750–1, it would appear that he must have come into residence in 1747, i.e. at the age of fifteen. Some of his grandfather's books and papers were presented to him by his uncle, Dr. Richard Bentley (the papers were ultimately given by Cumberland to Trinity College; Monk, Bentley, ii. 415). This led him to study Greek comedies, afterwards discussed in the ‘Observer.’ He also read mathematics, and distinguished himself in the schools, his name being tenth in the mathematical tripos for 1750–1. He was elected to a fellowship in the second year after his degree—the regulations which had hitherto excluded candidates until their third year having been altered on this occasion. He was afterwards chosen to one of the two lay fellowships.
After his degree he had gone to Stanwick, where he made preparations for a universal history, and wrote a play upon Caractacus in the Greek manner. Denison Cumberland had gained credit from the government by enlisting in his own neighbourhood two full companies for a regiment raised by Lord Halifax in 1745. By actively supporting the whigs in a contested election for Northamptonshire (April 1748), he established a fresh claim, which Lord Halifax recognised by taking the son as his private secretary in the board of trade. John, brother of Thomas Pownall [q. v.], was secretary, and Cumberland, whose duties were nominal, amused himself by studying history and composing an epic poem. His father, at the beginning of 1757, changed his living of Stanwick for Fulham. He was a prebendary of Lincoln from 1735 to 1763, and of St. Paul's from 1761 to 1763 (Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 215, 412). At Fulham Cumberland became acquainted with Bubb Dodington, who had a villa in the neighbourhood. He was employed as go-between by Halifax and Dodington when Halifax was intriguing with the opposition in the spring of 1757, and for a time left his office, though he did not actually resign.
Cumberland now wrote his first legitimate drama, called ‘The Banishment of Cicero,’ which was civilly declined by Garrick, but published in 1761. On 19 Feb. 1759 he married Elizabeth, daughter of George Ridge of Kelmiston, Hampshire, having obtained, through the patronage of Halifax, an appointment as crown agent to Nova Scotia. Halifax, after the death of George II, was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland (6 Oct. 1761). Cumberland became Ulster secretary, and his father one of Halifax's chaplains. Just before Halifax resigned the lord-lieutenancy he appointed Denison Cumberland to the see of Clonfert. He was consecrated 19 June 1763, and in 1772 translated to Kilmore. He died at Dublin, November 1774, his wife sinking under her loss soon afterwards. His son, who paid him annual visits, speaks strongly of his zeal in promoting the welfare of his tenants, and his general public spirit and popularity. Halifax became secretary of state in October 1762, and, to Cumberland's disappointment, gave the under-secretaryship to a rival, Cumberland—accordingto his own account—having been supplanted owing to his want of worldly wisdom in refusing a baronetcy. He was now glad to put up with the office of clerk of reports (worth 200l. a year) in the board of trade. Having little to do, and being in want of money, he began his career as a dramatist, and boasts (not quite truly) (Memoirs, i. 269) that he ultimately surpassed every English author in point of number of plays produced. His first production was a ‘musical comedy,’ the ‘Summer's Tale’ (1765), in rivalry of Bickerstaff's ‘Maid of the Mill’ (revived as ‘Amelia’ in 1768). His first regular comedy, ‘The Brothers,’ had a considerable success at Covent Garden in 1769. In the next year he composed the ‘West Indian,’ during a visit to his father at Clonfert. Garrick, whom he had flattered in the epilogue to the ‘Brothers,’ brought it out in 1771. It ran for twenty-eight nights, and passes for his best play. He received 150l. for the copyright, and says that twelve thousand copies were sold. Cumberland, who was now living in Queen Anne Street West, became well known in the literary circles. He used to meet Foote, Reynolds, Garrick, Goldsmith, and others at the British coffee-house. He produced the ‘Fashionable Lover’ in January 1772, and rashly declared in the prologue that it was superior to its predecessor. His sensitiveness to criticism made Garrick call him a ‘man without a skin,’ but he explains that there was then ‘a filthy nest of vipers’ in league against every well-known man (Memoirs, i. 347, 349). Cumberland's best performances belong to the sentimental comedy, which was put out of fashion by the successes of Goldsmith and Sheridan. Cumberland gives a very untrustworthy account of the first night (15 March 1773) of Goldsmith's ‘She stoops to conquer.’ Goldsmith died 4 April 1774, shortly after writing the ‘Retaliation,’ containing the kindly though subsatirical description of Cumberland as ‘The Terence of England, the mender of hearts.’ The famous caricature of Cumberland as Sir Fretful Plagiary in the ‘Critic,’ first performed in
