(1707 - 77), tutor to James, Vct. Charlemont [and erroneously styled Rev. in HMC Charlemont, 1:]; Dublin Scholar 1732, BA 1734, MA 1744; pub. Select Dialogues of Lucian [1744].
1747 - 54 see James, Viscount Charlemont (with additional visit to Naples, Nov. 1751)
With both Lord Charlemont's parents dead and only his stepfather, Thomas Adderley, to whom Murphy might apply, responsibility fell heavily on the tutor. He had prepared for the grand tour with a special study of the antiquities of Rome, but eight months after leaving Dublin they were still no further than The Hague. On 4 April 1747 he expressed his frustration in a letter to Charlemont exhorting him to change his pleasure loving ways, pursue his studies, and take Lord Sandwich's advice, which was to go to Turin.
Murphy's classical scholarship contributed to the success of the Levantine voyage that followed in 1749. On their return to Rome he was soon happily employed in keeping an eye on the purse strings, organizing excursions to antiquarian sites and showing off his superior knowledge in front of the ciceroni. He was popular with Charlemont's friends, who enjoyed his wild enthusiasms and mild eccentricities. He claimed descent from the Kings of Leinster, liked to be called O'Murragh, and would sign himself Edwardus Rex. Always riding some hobby horse or other, he was a passionate vulcanist. He appeared in Reynolds's Parody of the School of Athens (NGI), painted in Rome in 1751. Sir Thomas Kennedy's accounts show a payment to 'Murfey' for post horses on 18 May 1751.1 In November, while Charlemont stayed in Rome, Murphy took off to Naples to see 'a fiery eruption of Veusivio'. On 18 December 1751 (OS) he wrote Adderley from Rome a lengthy description of the mountain's contours and craters, merely a preface to an account of the eruption, which was promised for a later letter.2
In 1752 his name appeared among the subscribers to Charlemont's Academy for British artists studying in Rome.3 His singular commission to Simon Vierpyl for copies of twenty-two statues and the series of seventy-eight busts of the Roman emperors etc. in the Capitoline Museum took Vierpyl four years to complete. Some money was apparently advanced to the sculptor in September 1753 (when Murphy received by account given in and settled by Charlemont on salary due, £856.7.6 1/2 at £315 per year and £7 allowance for washing).4
Besides being major-domo to the house Charlemont took in Rome, Murphy had to contend with Charlemont's ill-health and bouts of deep depression, his 'anxious moments', and this put him in the way of dictating to the painter John Parker, Charlemont's agent, who was left with much unfinished business on their departure from Rome.
Murphy's nine long years of loyal service were rewarded by a pension of £100 a year from 1755,5 but it was not until 1757 that the sum total of arrears of his salary was paid, amounting to £1,395. Charlemont's friends in later years continued to enquire for Murphy who, appropriately enough, retired to Blackrock, Co. Dublin; John Ward wrote 'Pray remember me to the Prince of the Black Rock, the Great Emporor of Lava'.6
1. Ailsa MSS, box 14. 2. Charlemont MSS, 12.r.12, 8. 3. GM, 22[1752]:288. 4. Charlemont MSS, 12.r.12, 21. 5. Ibid., 23. 6. Ibid., 12.r.21, 43.
C. O'C.