James Arbuckle

Who was James Arbuckle?

James Arbuckle was an Irish poet and critic, associated politically with Presbyterianism and Whiggism.

His birthplace was possibly Belfast, but he was the son of a Presbyterian minister in Dublin, and educated at Glasgow University, where his studies were disrupted by his struggles against Calvinist authorities. His first published work was Snuff, a mock-epic, which won praise from Allan Ramsay. It was followed by Glotta, or, the Clyde, a tribute to Scottish life and scenery in which the most ordinary topics are depicted in high-flown language.

In 1723 he returned to Dublin, where, under the patronage of Robert Molesworth, he edited the Weekly Journal, The Tribune and Hibernicus's Letters.

In 1735 he published a scathing satirical attack on Jonathan Swift entitled Momus Mistaken with which he inadvertently dented his own reputation. He intended to publish translations of classical works but nothing came of these plans; he became a schoolmaster in northern Ireland and his later life is obscure.