MR. MATTHEW CONCANEN. This gentleman was a native of Ireland, and was bred to the Law. In this profession he seems not to have made any great figure. By some means or other he conceived an aversion to Dr. Swift, for his abuse of whom, the world taxed him with ingratitude. Concanen had once enjoyed some degree of Swift's favour, who was not always very happy in the choice of his companions. He had an opportunity of reading some of the Dr's poems in MS. which it is said he thought fit to appropriate and publish as his own. As affairs did not much prosper with him in Ireland, he came over to London, in company with another gentleman, and both commenced writers. These two friends entered into an extraordinary agreement. As the subjects which then attracted the attention of mankind were of a political cast, they were of opinion that no species of writing could so soon recommend them to public notice; and in order to make their trade more profitable, they resolved to espouse different interests; one should oppose, and the other defend the ministry. They determined the side of the question each was to espouse, by tossing up a half-penny, and it fell to the share of Mr. Concanen to defend the ministry, which task he performed with as much ability, as political writers generally discover. He was for some time, concerned in the British, and London Journals, and a paper called The Speculatist. These periodical pieces are long since buried in neglect, and perhaps would have even sunk into oblivion, had not Mr. Pope, by his satyrical writings, given them a kind of disgraceful immortality. In these Journals he published many scurrilities against Mr. Pope; and in a pamphlet called, The Supplement to the Profound, he used him with great virulence, and little candour. He not only imputed to him Mr. Brome's verses (for which he might indeed seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did) but those of the duke of Buckingham and others. To this rare piece some body humorously perswaded him to take for his motto, De profundis clamavi. He afterwards wrote a paper called The Daily Courant, wherein he shewed much spleen against lord Bolingbroke, and some of his friends. All these provocations excited Mr. Pope to give him a place in his Dunciad. In his second book, l. 287, when he represents the dunces diving in the mud of the Thames for the prize, he speaks thus of Concanen; True to the bottom see Concanen creep, A cold, long winded, native of the deep! If perseverance gain the diver's prize, Not everlasting Blackmore this denies.