ABSTRACT
MacNamara Morgan (d. 1762), dramatist, born in Dublin, was a friend of the actor Spranger Barry, through whose influence his tragedy Philoclea (taken from Sidney’s Arcadia) was performed in January 1754, the main roles being taken by Barry and Miss Nossiter. Morgan also had performed that year Florizel and Perdita, or the Sheepshearing, a particularly mindless adaptation of The Winter’s Tale which enjoyed, nevertheless, much success in the theatre. For his authorship of this pamphlet, and for biographical information about him and the actress, Maria Nossiter, see the articles by G.W.Stone, Jr and C.B.Hogan in Shakespeare Quarterly 3 (1952), pp. 69-70 and 284-5. Much of the pamphlet is a mere puff for the actress (a not uncommon form taken by theatre criticism in this period), and it included the allegation that Arthur Murphy was in the pay of Garrick. This aroused the anger of Murphy, who fought a duel with Morgan in the Bedford Coffee House on 2 November 1753, and subsequently criticised the work in the Gray’s-Inn Journal (nos 6, 7, 16: Folio).
