Author: Mangin, Edward
Biography:
MANGIN, Edward (1772-1852: ODNB) pseudonym X Y Z
Mangin was born in Dublin on 15 July 1772, the eldest son of Samuel Henry Mangin (1737-1798), a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Irish Dragoons, and his wife, Susanna Corneille (1714-1824). He matriculated at Balliol College in June 1792 (BA 1793, MA 1795), was ordained in the Irish Church in 1798, and was, successively, prebend of Dysart in Killaloe Cathedral (1798-1800), of Rathmichael in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1801-03), and of Rath in Killaloe (1803-death). The brevity of his service as chaplain aboard the 74-gun Gloucester (Apr.-Aug. 1812) might be explained by his negative view of sailors: “to convert a man-of-war’s crew into Christians,” he wrote, “would be a task to which the courage of Loyola, the philanthropy of Howard, and the eloquence of St Paul united would prove inadequate” (Blake, 79). In 1800, he married Emily Holmes (1776-1801), then, in 1816, Mary Nangreave (1791-1845). By Mary he had two sons, Edward (1817-1879) and Samuel (1821-1906), and a daughter, Mary Henrietta (1828-1909). Some of his publications were poorly received. A writer in the Satirist (vol. 4, 1809, 179) commented on his Essay on Light Reading (1808): “we hardly ever read a more contemptible performance.” A writer in the British Critic (vol. 33, 1843, 547) advised him to burn all copies of A Voice from the Holy Land (1843), “which seems to deaden the soul like some dull opiate or hemlock juice.” A friend traced the lightness of his writing to his easy life and rightly judged that his works would “float away with the current of authorship” (Forester, 427). He lived primarily at Bath, first at 11 Queen Parade, and then at 10 Johnstone Street, Laura Place, where he died on 17 Oct. 1852. Mangin is remembered for preserving anecdotes of Oliver Goldsmith, for his edition of the works of Samuel Richardson (19 vols., 1811), for his bibliophilia, reflected in A View of the Pleasures Arising from a Love of Books (1814), for his children’s book, Stories for Short Students, or Little Lore for Little People (1830), and, most notably, for Piozziana (1833), his memoir of his friend Hester Lynch Piozzi (q.v.). He was a friend as well of the Shakespeare scholar and forger John Payne Collier (q.v.). (ODNB 19 Apr. 2023; ancestry.com 19 Apr. 2023; J. Forester, Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith [1877]; R. Blake, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815[2008]) JC
Other Names:
- E. M.