Robert Jephson was regarded by his contemporaries, including such knowledgeable critics as Horace Walpole and David Garrick, as one of the greatest dramatists of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. His early tragedies were especially successful: Braganza exploiting a political interest, and The Count of Narbonne achieving significant popularity as one of the first among the many dramatic adaptations in the Gothic mode. If Jephson was not the rival of Shakespeare, as Arthur Murphy, at least, was prepared to claim, still his blank verse was a very creditable eighteenth-century version of a style inspired and augmented by Shakespearean allusion. Jephson's other writings, in a satiric or humorous mood, indicate a wit and inventiveness at least as fertile as his dramatic writings make manifest.

Robert Jephson was born in Dublin in 1736. He was the younger son of the venerable John Jephson, archdeacon of Cloyne. Robert was educated first...