Robert Jephson
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Robert Jephson (1736 - May 31, 1803), was an Irish dramatist.
He was born in Ireland. After serving for some years in the British army, he retired with the rank of captain, and lived in England where he was the friend of David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Charles Burney and Charles Townshend. His appointment as master of the horse to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland took him back to Dublin.
He published, in the Mercury newspaper a series of articles in defence of the lord-lieutenant's administration which were afterwards collected and issued in book form under the title of The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe. A pension of £300, later doubled, was granted him, and he held his appointment under twelve succeeding viceroys.
From 1775 he took up writing plays. Among others, his tragedy BraganIa was successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775, Conspiracy in 1796, The Law of Lombardy in 1779, and The Count of Narbonne at Covent Garden in 1781. In 1794 he published an heroic poem Roman Portraits, and The Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau, a satire on the excesses of the French Revolution. He died at Blackrock, near Dublin.
Reference
- This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.