Son of
George Dance the Elder, who worked as an architect and city surveyor, Love was himself a cricketer, being a member of
Richmond Cricket Club. Richmond was a leading club in the 1740s, and Love may have represented
Surrey too. However, no details have survived of his playing career. He was also likely the founder of the
Theatre Royal in
Richmond upon Thames, which he managed from 1766 to 1773. In 1763, at
Drury Lane in London, he played the role of
Falstaff, for which he became best known as an actor, his authorial pseudonym serving also as his stage name. In 1766 he played his signature role in a new play,
William Kenrick's ''
Falstaff's Wedding, intended as a sequel to Henry IV, Part 2''. He performed, too, in both
Dublin and
Edinburgh, of which he was a sometime manager. Invited to
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1762, he retained a connection to it for the rest of his life. As a writer, Love met success with such Rome-inspired Pantomimes as
The Witches; or, Harlequin Cherokee (
1762),
The Rites of Hecate; or, Harlequin from the Moon (
1763) and
The Hermit; or, Harlequin at Rhodes (
1766), in addition to
Cricket. His earliest work was
Pamela (
1742), an eponymous adaptation of
Samuel Richardson's
1740 novel. He is famous within sporting circles for his
Cricket: An Heroic Poem (1744), whose line "The strokes re-echo o'er the spacious ground" has been quoted in the
Oxford English Dictionary. Its subtitle reads thus: "Illustrated with the Critical Observations of Scriblerus Maximus. To which is Added an Epilogue, call'd 'Bucks Have at Ye All'. Spoken by Mr. King, at the
Theatre Royal in Dublin, in the Character of Ranger, in
The Suspicious Husband". On 4 July 1745, the
Daily Advertiser advertised it at 1/-. A footnote to the publication adds that it was "[p]rinted for W Bickerton at the Gazette in the Temple Exchange near the Inner Temple Gate, Fleet Street". According to the cricket historian
H. S. Altham, the poem "should be in every cricket lover's library" and "his description of the game goes with a rare swing". ==Family==