Life
1782-1862; doctor and author; b. Westminster, of Irish and Dutch origins,
being the son of Dutch merchant; ed. Paris, medical degree; asst. surg.
in British Army, 1802; served in Peninsular War, 1809-14, and won medal
at Waterloo; also at the surrender of Paris; retired, 1823; appt. physician
to military asylum at Chatham and Hanwell, 1837; issued Adventures
of an Irish Gentleman (3 vols., 1830) and plays incl. Ladies at
Home (1819); The Illustrious Stranger (1827); Who’ll
Lend Me a Wife? (1834); The Miser’s Daughter (1835); Borrowed
Feathers (1836); also issued prose, Sketches of Ancient and Modern
Boulogne (1826); The History of Duelling (1841), and Recollections
of Republican France from 1790 to 1801 (1848), as well as Adventures
of an Irish Gentleman (3 vols., 1830). ODNB IF1 RAF
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Works
Plays, The Bee-hive, mus. farce (1818); Ladies at Home,
or Gentlemen, We Can Do Without You (1819); The Illustrious Stranger,
or Married and Buried (Drury Lane, 1827); Who’ll Lend Me a
Wife? (1834); The Miser’s Daughter (1835); Borrowed
Feathers (1836). Prose, Sketches of Anc. and Mod. Bouloghe
(1826).
Prose, Adventures of an Irish Gentleman, 3 Vol. (1830); Stories of Torres Vedras (1839); The History of Duelling (1841); Jack Hornet, or the March of Intellect (1845); Recollections of Republican France from 1790 to 1801 (1848).
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References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Adventures of an Irish Gentleman, 3 vols. (Colburn & Bentley
1830), dealing with scandalous love affairs; contains unpleasant scenes
in Bantry, Skibereen, and Tralee as well as Spain (where Inquisition is
held up for obloquy) and Paris (where convents are damned and Freemasonry
praised); author inveighs against Pope, confessional, &c. There is
a biog. notice in Boase.
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