Life
1751-1828 [John Joshua Proby; 1st Earl of and 2nd Baron of Carysfort]; b. 12 Aug.; ed. Westminsster and Cambridge; MA 1770; FRS 1779; joint-guardian of the Irish Rolls and Irish earl, 1789; supported Pitt; MP various English constituencies, 1790-1801; ambassador to Berlin, 1800; to St Petersburgh, 1801; created Earl in 1801; Irish House of Lords before 1800; postmaster-gen. in 1806, resigned 1807; DCL Oxon., 1810; published poems and plays (unperformed) d. April 1828. ODNB RAF PI.
Works
The Revenge of Gwendolen, a poem (priv. 1786); Polyxena, trag. (1798 ); Dramatic and narrative Poems (1810) [includes all the foregoing and others such as ‘Caius Gracchus’ and ‘The Fall of Carthage’]
Referiences
Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee: The Kerryman 1946), lists four trags. published in 1810, not acted, Caius Gracchus; Fall of Carthage, modeled on Greek with chorus; Monimia; and Polyxena, based on Euripides Hecuba.
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984) cites J. J. Proby, The Fall of Carthage (Greek style and chorus), Caius Gracchus, and Polyxena (all published 1810) [110]. Bibl, ODNB; Biographia Dramatica, vol. i.]
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