Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eccles, Ambrose
ECCLES, AMBROSE (d. 1809), Shakespearean scholar, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards travelled in France and Italy, but returned home through illness. He was an eminent dramatic critic, and published editions of several of Shakespeare's plays, in which he transposed such scenes as appeared to him wrongly placed. These plays are, ‘Cymbeline,’ 1793; ‘King Lear,’ 1793; and ‘Merchant of Venice,’ 1805. They contained notes and illustrations, besides critical and historical essays. Eccles died in 1809, at an advanced age, at his seat at Cronroe, co. Wicklow, Ireland.
[Regan's Biog. Hibernica, 1821, ii. 116; Biog. Dramat. 1812.]