THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES, LETTRES. 

 VOL. XIII.] MAY, 1832." [No. 77. 



MEMOIR OF JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES. 



WE have the pleasure, this month, of being able to present our readers, 

 not only with a portrait of this interesting person, whose fine genius is 

 nightly warming the hearts of the public, but with some particulars, 

 hitherto unknown, respecting his life and writings. Mr. Knowles is one 

 of those men, the cordial and domestic turn of whose faculties gives 

 people a more than ordinary desire to know him like an acquaintance ; 

 and perhaps a better idea of him will be derived from our portrait and 

 account, than is afforded even by his appearance on the stage, where he 

 has to act the part of another, to strain his voice, and to disguise his 

 person and manners. 



James Sheridan Knowles, who must now be about forty-six, or forty- 

 seven years old (for we have forgotten to inquire the precise number) was 

 born in the city of Cork, and is the son of Mr. Knowles, a teacher of elo- 

 cution, formerly one of the masters of the celebrated school at Belfast, 

 and related to a race whose schoolmasters and elocutionists terminated in 

 producing another dramatic genius in a different line, the late eminent 

 Brinsley Sheridan. Mr. Knowles's father, and the author of the 

 " School for Scandal," were cousins, we believe, in the first degree. 

 Sheridan's father was an actor and a teacher of elocution ; his grand- 

 father was the celebrated friend of Swift, Thomas Sheridan, of punning, 

 classical, and careless memory ; a genius for a rainy day ; always in dif- 

 ficulties, and always merry. Hence came the wits and beauties, who 

 have moved in the polite circles of modern times, and have restored the 

 line to its family honours. Mr. Knowles has added a collateral grace, of 

 a very rare and un- Sheridan-like description, that of a genius for the 

 serious drama, full of faith in the good and beautiful, and good upon that 

 account. 



M.M. New Series. Vol. XIII. No. 77. 2 L 2 



