Life
?1691-1788; b. London and taken to Dublin in infancy; ed. TCD;
knew Swift, Berkeley, and Toland; grad, MD, but did not practise; held
Unitarian beliefs; lived on private income in country house nr. Hounslow,
and at later in Westminster as a social recluse, c.1757; Memoirs Containing
the Lives of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1755), of which only
one volume appeared, concerns the "Green Isle" in the Hebrides,
inhabited by a society of learned and accomplished ladies surrounding
a Mrs. Marinda Benlow; followed by Life of John Buncle, Esq. (1756-66),
a highly fanciful and discursive writing advancing theories of Christian
deism, virtually a continuation of Memoirs, composed as a travel
narrative filled with passionate discussion in the company of learned
ladies; contains accounts of Toland and Berkeley, Swift; the central character,
an Anglo-Irishman in England, is eight-times married and exhibits numerous
antiquarian interests; said to have known Irish, as appears incidentally;
a manuscript on The Antient and Present State of Great Britain was
accidently burned; sometimes called eccentric writer of Irish descent;
d. 25 Nov.; William Hazlitt rediscovered John Buncle in 1817. DIB
DIW ANJ CAH DNB OCEL FDA OCIL
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Works
[J. H. Burn, ed.], The Life of John Buncle, Esq., Containing
Various Observations and Reflections, Made in Several Parts of the World
... &c., 2 vols. (London: J. Noon 1756, 1766), 8o.; Do.,
4 vols. (London: T. Becket & P. A. Dehondt; T. Cadell 1770), 12o.;
Do., 3 vols. (London: Septimus Prowett 1825), 8o., xv, 458pp.;
Do., (London: Routledge & Son 1904), 8o.; The Spirit of
Buncle; or, the Surprising Adventures of that Original and Extraordinary
Character John Buncle, Esq. [abridgment] (London: Charles Stocking
1823), 342pp., 12o;. Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain. Interspersed
with Literary Reflections, and Accounts of Antiquities and Curious Things.
In Several Letters with a postscript, and a postilla (London: J. Noon
1755), xxxi, 527pp. 8o.; Memoirs: Containing the Lives of Several Ladies
of Great Britain. A History of Antiquities ... Observations on the Christian
Religion... Remarks on the Writings of the Greatest English Divines
... &c., 2 vols. (London: Johnson and Payne 1766); Memoirs: Containing
the Lives of Several Ladies of Great Britain. A History of Antiquities,
Productions of Nature, and Monuments of Art. Observations on the Christian
Religion, as Professed by the Established Church, and Dissenters of Every
Denomination. Remarks on the Writings of the Greatest English Divines
... &c. 2 vols. (London: Johnson and Payne 1769); An Antiquarian
Doctor’s Sermon on an Antiquated Subject; lately Found among the Sweepings
of His Study [... &c.] (London: J. Johnson 1768).
Also The Life of John Buncle as Leben, Bemerkungen und Meinungen Johan Bunkels, nebst den Leben verschiedener merkwürdiger Frauenzimmer; mit hinzugefügten Bemerkungen und Meinungen. Und XVI. Kupferstichen von D. Chodowiecki 4 vols. (Berlin: Friedrich Nicolai 1778), 8o.; Andreas Stein, trans., Geschichte einiger Esel, oder Fortsetzung des Lebens und der Meynungen des Weltberühmten John Bunkels, 3 Bd. 4 pt. (Hamburg & Leipzig 1782), 83pp., 8o.
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- Ian Campbell Ross, ‘Thomas Amory, John Buncle and the Origins of Irish Fiction’, Éire-Ireland, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Fall 1983), pp.71-85;
- James M. Cahalan, Irish Novel (Boston: Twayne 1988), p.12;
- Ian Campbell Ross, 'Fiction to 1800,' Field Day Anthology, gen ed. Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, pp.683-84.
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Notes
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing
(1991), Vol. 1, pp.694-704: selects extracts from The Life of John
Buncle (1755-66), ‘A Preface by Way of Dedication’, signed Barbican,
Aug. 1. 1756 [sic], and sections including allusions to Dean Whaley [of
Derry], Miss Melmoth, Gavan and Henley, Terelah O Crohanes, an old Irish
gentleman, Cormac Mac Cuillenan [the quasi-mythical Irish king]; Downe
Falvey, famous harpist; gentlemen encountered at Ringsend, inc. Mssrs
Gollogher, Gallaspy, a libertine; Monaghan, O’Keefe called ‘as distinguished
a character a I have ever known’ and cousin to the playwright; Mr Charles
Hunt and his daughter ‘that Venus of her sex’; Miss Spence, and one ‘Bob
R.’ or ‘R. R.’
British Library holds The Case of John Cary, Esq; on his petition of complaint and appeal against the proceedings of ... Allen Viscount Broderick, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in a cause ... between Thomas Amory and others Plaintiffs, and the administrators of Roger Moore and the said J. Cary and others Defendants, and also against the proceedings of G. Warberton Esq. One of the Masters of the said Court; humbly offered to the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament (London: S. Collins 1719), 16pp., 8o.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)