Abraham Portal

Portal's writings include:^[2]

• Olindo and Sophronia: a Tragedy, the story taken from Torquato Tasso, two editions, 1758, London.
• The Indiscreet Lover: a Comedy, performed at the Haymarket for the benefit of the British Lying-In Hospital in Brownlow Street; dedicated to the Duke of Portland; two editions, London, 1768. To the printed copies is appended a list of "errata", in which the reader is requested to substitute polite periphrases for coarse expressions in the text.
• Songs, Duets, and Finale, from Portal's comic opera The Cady of Bagdad, London, 1778. The opera, which was given at Drury Lane on 19 February 1778, was not printed; the music was by Thomas Linley the elder.^[5]
• Poems, 1781. The volume includes dedicatory verses to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and two bombastic poems, War: an Ode, and Innocence: a Poetical Essay, which had previously been issued separately.
• Vortimer, or the True Patriot: a Tragedy, London, 1796. Among the dramatis personæ are Vortimer's father Vortigern, his mother Rowena, Hengist, and Horsa. Samuel Ireland's Vortigern and Rowena had appeared in March 1795.

Neither Vortimer nor Olindo and Sophronia was acted.^[2]

Portal married Elizabeth Nethersole in 1748; they had a son, who died young, and she died in 1758. He then married Elizabeth Bedwell, and they had nine children. Of these Ann Cracroft Portal married Moreton Walhouse, and was step-mother of Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton.^[1][6]

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Portal, Abraham". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.