Biography

David Erskine Baker (1730-1767)

David Erskine Baker was the son of the microscopist Henry Baker and the grandson of Daniel Defoe. He abandoned a promising academic career for a life on the stage. His friend, the actor Phillip Lewis summarised Baker’s protean character:

Friend David Lionel Erskine Baker;
Jew, Christian, Musselman, or Quaker;
You that by turns converse with all,
Both the great, vulgar, and the small,
And by a kind of transmigration,
Fashion yourself to every station; –
Now boozing with companions scurvy,
Now revelling with my Lord at Turvey.

A footnote states that ‘Turvey’ referred to Lord Kingsland’s seat, nine miles north of Dublin.

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