Author: Webb, Daniel
Biography:
WEBB, Daniel (c. 1719-1798: ODNB)
Daniel Webb, dilettante and writer on aesthetics, was the eldest son of the British army officer Daniel Webb (1695-1770) and his wife Dorothea Leake (1700-70) of Maidstown Castle (or Ballyvenoge Castle), Co. Limerick, Ireland. He matriculated at New College, Oxford, aged 16, on 13 June 1735, but did not proceed to a degree. He was interested in the arts and travelled on the Continent. His Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting (1760), Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry (1764), and Observations on the Correspondence between Poetry and Music (1769) were fairly successful, with further editions and translations, despite some suspicions of indebtedness if not of plagiarism. A later work on Some Reasons for Thinking that the Greek Language was Borrowed from the Chinese (1787) made less of a mark. The Literary Amusements (1787) listed here was later reprinted in a composite volume entitled Miscellanies (1802) along with several of the works in prose. The bibliography is confusing: Webb appears to have had his minor works, particularly the poems, printed in various groupings which appear sometimes in library catalogues with ad hoc collective titles or with the title only of the first item, for example the 8-page “Imitation of the Fourth Satyre of Boileau” (1785?). Webb married twice. His first wife was Jane Lloyd, but no record of the date of marriage or of her death has been found. His second wife was Elizabeth Creed, whom he married at St. Michael’s, Bath, Somerset, on 1 Dec. 1780. There do not appear to have been children from either marriage. He died at Bath on 2 Aug. 1798 and was buried at All Saints there on 10 Aug., leaving land in Ireland and effects valued at over £13,800, most of which he bequeathed to two friends, with an annuity and property to his widow. (ODNB 1 May 2024; ancestry.com 1 May 2024; findmypast.com 1 May 2024; Bath Chronicle 8 Jan. 1767; GM Aug. 1798, 725) HJ
Other Names:
- Webb