Author: Thompson, J.
Biography:
THOMPSON, J. (fl 1826)
A literary and political satire, The Greek Bubble (1826) has no author’s name on the title-page but the dedication—a respectful address to the Editor of The Times—is signed by J. Thompson from Kensington, London. Written with Byronic hauteur and suavity, it makes fun of those who took up and thereby cheapened the cause of Greek independence: politicians, publishers, and popular writers such as Hemans, Roscoe, and Procter (qq.v.). Of Procter, whom he refers to as “Proctor” or “Bryan Cornwall,” he says, “I read his book last night as down the flood/ Of Lethe it was rolled to its congenial mud.” Thompson does not seem to have published elsewhere but his name is so common that he might have done. No reliable personal information has been found. If he is “J. Thompson of Fulham, Esq.” whose son’s marriage was announced in 1826 he would be older than the typical follower of Byron. (findmypast.com 22 Aug. 2024; ancestry.com 22 Aug. 2024; New Monthly Magazine [1827], 47-8; Essex and Herts Mercury 21 Feb. 1826)