Richard Owen Cambridge

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Owen Cambridge

Richard Owen Cambridge (born February 14, 1717 in London - † September 17, 1802 in Twickenham ) was an English poet, landowner and historian who was best known for his derisive poem The Scribleriad ( 1751 ) and his satirical poems with allusions to Virgil .

Life

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

Richard Cambridge was born in London in 1717, the son of a merchant who had amassed a fortune trading with Turkey . This father died shortly after his son was born, so that the boy was raised by his maternal uncle, Thomas Owen. Richard attended Eton College and studied at St John's College , Oxford . After leaving Oxford University without any degree, he settled at Lincoln's Inn in 1737. Four years later he married Miss Mary Trenchard and moved to his country estate in Whitminster , Gloucestershire , where he led the life of a wealthy gentleman and cultivated a penchant for literature. His father-in-law was George Tranton, Esquire of Woolveton, Dorsetshire , who held a seat in Parliament for Poole, and in turn the son of Sir John Trenchard, Secretary of State for the Interior during the reign of King William III. was. In 1748 the uncle died and left him a not inconsiderable legacy. Richard also added the Owen to his name as a reference. In 1757 he moved back to Twickenham , where he became the host of Twickenham Meadows , now known as Cambridge Park , the friendship of many famous people such as Thomas Gray , the late Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland Richard West , Philip Yorke, 1 Earl of Hardwicke , Edward Boscawen , Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield , George Anson, 1st Baron Anson , William Whitehead and Thomas Edwards . Horace Walpole placed in his letters many indicative suggestions that Cambridge had the character of a gossip ("news monger") due to its distinctive network . His sponsors tried to convince him to apply for a seat in parliament, but he declined because of his public-avoidance character.

The Thames at Twickenham , painting by Peter Tillemans , before 1734

Cambridge's main work is The Scribleriad (1751), an epic mocking poem whose hero Martinus Scriblerus bears traits of Alexander Pope , John Arbuthnot and Jonathan Swift . The poem is preceded by a feigned defense of the mocked hero, in which the latter describes Cervantes as his master. The satire proved to be a remarkable learning process, was read attentively by the literary culture, but was never very popular. The often obscure allusions have little meaning for today's readers. Behind the figure was actually the Scriblerus Club , an informal club of friends around the aforementioned and John Gay , Henry St. John and Thomas Parnell , from whose ranks the The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus arose. With An Elegy Written in an Empty Assembly Room , Cambridge also published a parody of Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard in 1756 .

Cambridge's ridicule was notorious among its contemporaries; he said of the not undisputed landscape architect Capability Brown that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could see the sky before he was remodeled.

Richard Owen Cambridge himself invested a lot of time in his historical work Account of the War in India on the Coast of Coromandel between 1750 and 1761. Cambridge planned for a long time to publish a story of the rise and progress of British power in India , but stopped its efforts to when he learned that Robert Orme , who had promised him his notes on the matter, was himself busy with a similar book project. In addition to articles on The World , he also wrote several articles in the Monthly Review between 1783 and 1786 .

Cambridge died in Twickenham in 1802 at the age of 85. He left a widow, a daughter and two sons. He found his grave in Twickenham, where, to the astonishment of contemporaries, no grave monument was erected.

The Works of Richard Owen Cambridge included various works that had never been published before. It included Account of his Life and Character by his son, Archdeacon George Owen Cambridge (1803), The Scribleriad , some narrative and satirical poems, and around twenty articles originally published in Edward Moore's literary magazine The World . His poems were also published in Alexander Chalmers ' English Poets (1816).

plant

The Scribleriad: an heroic poem. In six books. Frontispiece and title page, 1751
  • On the Happy Nuptials of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta Princess of Sax-Gotha. 1736.
  • The Scribleriad: an heroic poem. In six books. R. Dodsley, London 1751 ( archive.org ).
  • A dialogue between a member of Parliament and his servant. In imitation of the seventh satire of the second book of Horace. By Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq. R. Dodsley, London 1752 ( archive.org ).
  • The intruder, in imitation of Horace, Book I. Satire IX. By Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq. R. Dodsley, London 1754 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).
  • The fable of Jotham: to the borough-hunters. J. & R. Dodsley, London 1754 ( books.google.de ).
  • An elegy written in an empty assembly-room. J. & R. Dodsley, London 1756 ( archive.org ).
  • The fakeer: a tale. J. & R. Dodsley, London 1756 ( archive.org ).
  • The Genius of Britain. : To Iambic Ode. Addressed to the Right Hon. William Pitt [by RO Cambridge]. M. Cooper, London 1756 ( books.google.de ).
  • An account of the war in India between the English and French, on the coast of Coromandel, from the year 1750 to the year 1760. Together with a relation of the late remarkable events on the Malabar coast, and the expeditions to Golconda and Surat. Thomas Jefferys, London 1761 ( archive.org ).
  • George Owen Cambridge (Ed.): The Works of Richard Owen Cambridge, esq. : including several pieces never before published. Luke Hansard, London 1803 ( archive.org ).

reception

As early as 1803, in retrospect, Francis Jeffrey felt that the literary echo of The Scribleriad had faded, which was also due to its strict form and the difficulty of the time-bound allusions: "The Scribleriad was read, at one time, by all the polite scholars in the country, but never found its way to popularity, and is now almost entirely forgotten. (...) The subject, however, is interesting by no means; and the composition has a certain uniform mediocrity of merit, that is usually found to sink faster in the stream of time, than substances of a more unequal contexture. "

During the First World War , an excerpt from The Scribleriad received a borderline reception, as one could assume an allusion to a submarine : An aerial race between a Briton and German: together with brief references to a submarine, from a mock-heroic poem printed in 1751. Chiswick Press, London 1918.

literature

  • Lives of the Poets. Richard Owen Cambridge. In: John Scott, John Taylor (Eds.): The London Magazine. Volume 5, 1822, pp. 433-436 ( books.google.de ).
  • Richard Owen Cambridge In: Henry Francis Cary: Lives of English poets, from Johnson to Kirke White, designed as a continuation of Johnson's lives. HG Bohn, London 1846, p. 109 ff. (Identical text books.google.de )
  • Richard D. Altick: Richard Owen Cambridge: belated Augustan. Phi. Diss. University of Pennsylvania 1941.
  • Edgar Finley Shannon: Richard Owen Cambridge. Duke University 1941.
  • Twickenham 1600-1900, People & Places. In: Borough of Twickenham Local History Society Paper. No. 47, London 1988.

Web links

Commons : Richard Owen Cambridge  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Samuel Austin Allibone: Richard Owen Cambridge. In: Critical Dictionary of English Literature 1858-1871. 1882, p. 329 ( spenserians.cath.vt.edu ).
  2. ↑ Richard Owen Cambridge. On: twickenham-museum.org.uk. Accessed August 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ Twickenham Meadows historical summary . On: www.twickenham-museum.org.uk. Accessed August 14, 2012.
  4. ↑ The Cambridge manor house, which had its foundations from the 15th century, was significantly expanded in the 16th century and existed until 1937 when it was finally demolished.
  5. ^ Wolfgang G. Müller: Gray, Thomas In: Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 245.
  6. ^ Cambridge, Richard Owen . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 5 : Calhoun - Chatelaine . London 1910, p. 9 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  7. ↑ a b Lives of the Poets. Richard Owen Cambridge. In: John Scott, John Taylor (Eds.): The London Magazine. Volume 5, 1822, p. 435 ( books.google.de )
  8. ↑ Scriblerus Club ( Memento of the original dated November 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: www.oxforddnb.com. Accessed August 13, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oxforddnb.com
  9. ↑ Michael Cox (Ed.): The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6 .
  10. ^ Francis Jeffrey: Review of Richard Owen Cambridge, Works. In: Edinburgh Review. Volume 3, October 1803, p. 57 ( spenserians.cath.vt.edu ).
personal data
SURNAME Cambridge, Richard Owen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English poet, landowner and historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1717
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 1802
Place of death Twickenham