Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bond, William
BOND, WILLIAM (d. 1735), dramatist, was, according to the ‘London Magazine’ (1735), ‘a near relation to the Lord Viscount age, and an author of several poetical pieces.' The following are known as works of his: 1. A very poor tragedy called ‘The Tuscan Treaty, or Tarquin’s Overthrow’ (Miscellaneous Plays, vol. xlvi.), announced 'as having been ‘Written by a gentleman lately deceased and altered by W. Bond.' It was unsuccessfully acted at Covent Garden in 1733. 2. A translation of G. Buchanan's ‘Impartial Account of the Affairs of Scotland from the Death of James V to the Tragical End of Earl Murray.' Of this work two editions were published in 1722, one with and one without the Latin text. 3. Contributions to the 'Plain Dealer,' conducted in 1724 by Aaron Hill, who also supplied him with a prologue to the ‘Tuscan Treaty.’ Dr. Johnson says that Bond and Hill wrote the ‘Plain Dealer,’ each six essays by turns, and the character of the work was observed regularly to rise in Hill’s week and fall in Bond's; whence Savage called them the two contending powers of light and darkness. He died in June 1735 in a fainting fit, into which he fell while acting Lusignan in Aaron Hill’s adaptation of Voltaire’s ‘Zaire,’ at the great room in York Buildings, before this play was brought out at Drury Lane. He is said to have been a man of little ability, who yet depended chiefly for subsistence on his literary exertions. He was a native of Suffolk.
[Biographia Dramtica, articles ‘Bond’ and ‘Zara;’ the Prompter, No. 60; L’Observateur François à Londres; London Magazine, June 1735; Johnson’s Life of Savage.]