ARTHUR, a dramatist, was the son of a Dublin merchant, and was born near Elphin, in the county of Roscommon, in 1727. From 1740 to 1747 he was a student of St. Omer's College. He then entered the counting-house of his uncle, a merchant at Cork. But four years afterwards he was in London prosecuting literature as a profession, and publishing The Gray's Inn Journal, a periodical in the style of The Spectator. The drama was also occupying his attention. He produced the farce of The Apprentice, and appeared as an actor in the character of "Othello." His dramas were more successful than his acting. After treading the stages of Covent Garden and Drury Lane for one season each, he abandoned the profession. His next undertaking was the editing of a political periodical called The Test. In this, too, he was unsuccessful. He next turned his attention to the study of law, and was called to the bar by the Society of Lincoln's Inn in 1757. But the smallness of his practice forced him to have recourse to his former vocation of writing for the stage. Among his many popular dramas, The Upholsterer, in 1758; The Way to Keep Him, in 1760; All in the Wrong, in 1761; The Grecian Daughter, in 1772; and Know your own Mind, in 1777, were very successful, and secured for their author both fame and wealth. He also published in 1792 an Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson, and in the following year a translation of Tacitus. Towards the close of his life the office of a commissioner of bankrupts, and a pension of L200, were conferred upon him by government. He died in June 1805.

James Cavanagh, an architect and antiquary, was born in Ireland, probably about the middle of the eighteenth century, and resided for some time in Dublin. In 1789 he repaired to Portugal for the express purpose of examining the curious and uncommon Gothic architecture of the church of Batalha. His attention was also directed to the manners, trades, arts, and antiquities of the Portuguese provinces through which he passed. After his return he published, in 1792–96, Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Views of the Church of Batalha; in 1795, Travels in Portugal; and in 1798, A General View of the State of Portugal. These works were favourably received by the public, and their author was thus encouraged to proceed in the same line of research. Landing in Spain in 1802, he devoted the next seven years to the study of the architecture, arts, customs, and history of that country. The results of this investigation were published under the titles of The Arabian Antiquities of Spain, 1815; and The History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain, 1816. During the publication of this latter work Murphy died.

Robert, a mathematician, was the son of a poor shoemaker, and was born at Mallow in Ireland in 1806. At the age of thirteen, while working as an apprentice in his father's shop, he became known to certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood as a self-taught mathematician of wonderful precocity. Through their exertions, after attending a classical school in his native town, he was admitted to Caius College, Cambridge, in 1825. His talents gained for him the degree of B.A., and the position of third wrangler in 1829. He was elected in the same year a fellow, and in 1831 the dean of his college. But the temptations of prosperity were too strong for him. A course of extravagant dissipation soon led him into debt; his fellowship was sequestered for the benefit of his creditors; and he was obliged to leave Cambridge in December 1832. After living for some time with his relations in Ireland, he repaired to London in 1836, a penniless literary adventurer. He had already contributed several mathematical papers to the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions, and had published a work on Electricity, 8vo, Cambridge, 1833. His pen was now employed in writing for the "Library of Useful Knowledge" a Treatise on the Theory of Algebraical Equations. This work was published at London in 1839. He was labouring diligently to throw off the load of debt that still pressed heavily upon him, when a disease of the lungs cut short his career in March 1843.