Life

He studied law in Ireland but travelled to London as a young man, and began writing political pamphlets in support of the Whig government. He also wrote for newspapers including the London Journal and The Speculatist. He published a volume of poems, some of which were original works and some translations. He wrote a dramatic comedy, Wexford Wells. A collection of his essays from The Speculatist was published in 1732.

His skills attracted the attention of the Whig statesman Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle. In June 1732 the Duke appointed him attorney-general of Jamaica. He held the post for over sixteen years.

While in Jamaica, Concanen married the daughter of a local planter. After his tenure in Jamaica was completed, he returned to London, intending to retire to Ireland, but died of a fever in London shortly after his return.

He criticised Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

 and was rewarded with a passage in Pope's Dunciad ridiculing him as "A cold, long-winded native of the deep" (Dunciad, ii. 299-304). There is also well-known letter about him written by William Warburton

William Warburton

William Warburton was an English critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759.-Life:He was born at Newark, where his father, who belonged to an old Cheshire family, was town clerk. William was educated at Oakham and Newark grammar schools, and in 1714 he was articled to Mr Kirke, an...

, who comments on how Concanen helped him.

Writings

In 1731

1731 in literature

The year 1731 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:* Anonymous - The Life of Mr. Cleveland, Natural Son of Oliver Cromwell* Corporate authorship - The Gentleman's Magazine...

 Concanen, Edward Roome, & Sir William Yonge

William Yonge

Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet KCB FRS , English politician, was the son of Sir Walter Yonge, and great-great-grandson of Walter Yonge of Colyton , whose diaries , more especially four volumes now in the British Museum Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet KCB FRS (ca. 1693 – 10 August 1755), English...

 produced The Jovial Crew, an opera, adapted from Richard Brome

Richard Brome

Richard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...

's A Jovial Crew

A Jovial Crew

A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome. First staged in 1641 or 1642 and first published in 1652, it is generally ranked as one of Brome's best plays, and one of the best comedies of the Caroline period; in one critic's view, Brome's The...

.

His publications included

• Wexford Wells (1719)
• Meliora's Tears for Thyrsis (1720)
• A Match at Football (1720)
• Poems on Several Occasions (1722)
• Miscellaneous Poems (1724)
• Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1726)
• A Supplement to the Profound (1728)
• The Speculatist (1730)
• A Miscellany on Taste (1732)
• Review of the Excise Scheme (1733).

He was co-author of The history and antiquities of the parish of St. Saviour's, Southwark.

An Essay Against Too Much Reading

The 1728 humorous anonymous pamphlet, An Essay Against Too Much Reading, has been attributed to Concanen, though it has also been identified (probably wrongly) as the work of a certain "Captain Goulding" of Bath. It included the first, though none too serious, direct statements of doubt about Shakespeare's authorship.

The author proposed "a short account of Mr Shakespeare's proceeding, and that I had from one of his intimate acquaintance..." Shakespeare is described as merely a collaborator who "in all probability cou'd not write English." With regard the Bard's grasp of history, the Essay related that Shakespeare "not being a scholar" employed a "chuckle-pated historian" who gave him a set of notes to save the trouble of research. The historian also corrected his grammar.