George Colman the Younger
born
Oct. 21, 1762, London
died Oct. 17, 1836, London
George
Colman, known as "the Younger", English
dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was the son
of George Colman "the Elder".
He
passed from Westminster School to Christ Church,
Oxford, and King's College, University of
Aberdeen, and was finally entered as a student
of law at Lincoln's Inn, London. While in
Aberdeen he published a poem satirizing Charles
James Fox, called The Man of the People; and in
1782 he produced, at his father's playhouse in
the Haymarket, his first play, The Female
Dramatist, for which Smollett's Roderick Random
supplied the materials. It was unanimously
condemned, but Two to One (1784) was entirely
successful. It was followed by Turk and no Turk
(1785), a musical comedy; Inkle and Yarico
(1787), an opera; Ways and Means (1788); The
Iron Chest (1796), taken from William Godwin's
Adventures of Caleb Williams; The Poor Gentleman
(1802); John Bull, or an Englishman's Fireside
(1803), his most successful piece; The Heir at
Law (1808), which enriched the stage with one
immortal character, "Dr Pangloss" (borrowed of
course from Voltaire's Candide), and numerous
other pieces, many of them adapted from the
French.
The
failing health of the elder Colman obliged him
to relinquish the management of the Haymarket
theatre in 1789, when the younger George
succeeded him, at a yearly salary of £600. On
the death of the father the patent was continued
to the son; but difficulties arose in his way,
he was involved in litigation with Thomas
Harris, and was unable to pay the expenses of
the performances at the Haymarket. He was forced
to take sanctuary within the Rules of the King's
Bench. Here he resided for many years continuing
to direct the affairs of his theatre. Released
at last through the kindness of George IV, who
had appointed him exon. of the Yeomen of the
Guard, a dignity disposed of by Colman to the
highest bidder, he was made examiner of plays by
the duke of Montrose, then lord chamberlain.
This office, to the disgust of all contemporary
dramatists, to whose manuscripts he was as
illiberal as he was severe, he held till his
death. Although his own productions were open to
charges of indecency and profanity, he was so
severe a censor of others that he would not pass
even such words as "heaven," "providence" or
"angel." His comedies are a curious mixture of
genuine comic force and sentimentality. A
collection of them was published (1827) in
Paris, with a life of the author, by JW Lake.
Colman,
whose witty conversation made him a favourite,
was also the author of a great deal of so-called
humorous poetry (mostly coarse, though much of
it was popular)--My Night Gown and Slippers
(1797), reprinted under the name of Broad Grins,
in 1802; and Poetical Vagaries (1812). Some of
his writings were published under the assumed
name of Arthur Griffinhood of Turnham Green. He
died in Brompton, London. He had, as early as
1784, contracted a runaway marriage with an
actress, Clara Morris, to whose brother David
Morris, he eventually disposed of his share in
the Haymarket theatre. Many of the leading parts
in his plays were written especially for Mrs
Gibbs (née Logan), whom he was said to have
secretly married after the death of his first
wife.
