George Daniel (1789–1864) was an English writer of miscellaneous works and book collector.
Life
Daniel was born on 16 September 1789, descended from Paul Danieli, a Huguenot who settled in England in the seventeenth century. His father died when he was eight years old. After receiving an education at Thomas Hogg's boarding school in Paddington Green, he became clerk to a stockbroker in Tokenhouse Yard, and was engaged in commerce for the greater part of his life. He lived at Islington, and in 1817 he made the acquaintance of Charles Lamb and of Robert Bloomfield, both of whom were his neighbours. Until Lamb's death in 1834 Daniel frequently spent the night in his society. Daniel also cultivated actors socially, and the British Museum gained the white satin bill of the play which John Kemble on his last appearance on the stage presented to Daniel in the Covent Garden green-room, on the night of 23 June 1817.
Daniel died suddenly of apoplexy, at his son's house at Stoke Newington, on 30 March 1864.
Works
Verse
At sixteen he printed "Stanzas on Nelson's Victory and Death" (1805). Between 1808 and 1811 he contributed poems to Rudolph Ackermann's Poetical Magazine, including a satire in heroics entitled Woman. In 1811 he issued anonymously, in a separate volume, a similar poem, entitled "The Times, a Prophecy" (enlarged edit. 1813), and in 1812 he published under his own name Miscellaneous Poems, which included Woman and more solemn effusions already printed in Ackermann's magazine.
An ambitious follower of Charles Churchill and Peter Pindar, he found his satirical opportunity at the close of 1811. According to his own version of the affair, it was then rumoured that Lord Yarmouth had horsewhipped the Prince Regent at Oatlands, the Duke of York's house, for making improper overtures to the Marchioness of Hertford, Yarmouth's mother-in-law. On this incident Daniel wrote a squib in verse, which he called "R—y—l Stripes; or a Kick from Yar—th to Wa—s; with the particulars of an Expedition to Oat—ds and the Sprained Ancle: a poem, by P—— P——, Poet Laureat". Effingham Wilson of Cornhill printed the poem and advertised its publication; but it was suppressed and bought up, before it was published, in January 1812, by order of the Prince Regent, and through the instrumentality of Lord Yarmouth and Colonel McMahon, a large sum being given to the author for the copyright. It was advertised and placarded, which drew public attention to it, and a copy was by some means procured by the parties, who applied to the publisher before any copies were circulated. The author secured four copies only, one of which he sold to a public institution for five guineas. "A man at the West End of the town who had procured a copy made a considerable sum by advertising and selling manuscript copies at half-a-guinea each" (Daniel's manuscript note in British Museum copy of R—y—l Stripes). But Daniel was not quieted: under the pseudonym of "P—— P——, poet laureate", he published other squibs on royal scandals, of which the chief were: "Sophia's Letters to the B—r—n Ger—b [i.e., Geramb], or Whiskers in the Dumps, with old sighs set to new tunes" (1812); "Suppressed Evidence on R—l Intriguing, being the History of a Courtship, Marriage, and Separation, exemplified in the fate of the Princess of ——, by P—— P——, Poet Laureat, Author of 'R—l Stripes'" (1813) (suppressed), and "The R—l First Born, or the Baby out of his Leading Strings, containing the Particulars of a P—y Confirmation by B—p of O—g, by P—— P——, Poet Laureat, Author of the suppressed poem", 1814.
Daniel next turned his attention to the poetasters and petty journalists of the day, and these he satirised in The Modern Dunciad, a satire, with notes biographical and critical, 1814, 2nd edit. 1816. He also applauded Lord Byron, George Crabbe, William Cowper, and Robert Southey, to whom in later editions he added Robert Burns. In 1835 he collected and revised a few poems, The Modern Dunciad, Virgil in London, which had originally appeared in 1814, The Times, and some short pieces.
Drama and the theatre
On 21 July 1818 a 'serio-comick-bombastick-operatick interlude' by Daniel, entitled 'Doctor Bolus,' was acted at the English Opera House (afterwards the Lyceum) with great success. The principal parts were filled by Fanny Kelly, John Pritt Harley, and William Simmonds Chatterley, and Harley became one of Daniel's friends. The piece was printed soon after its performance, and went through two editions. On 1 December 1819 a musical farce, 'The Disagreeable Surprise,' by Daniel, was acted at Drury Lane, and in 1833 another of his farces, 'Sworn at Highgate,' was performed.