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Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His connection with Bath. 
By EMANUEL GREEN, F.S.A. 
(Read January 7th, 7903.) 
Just when Thomas Linley had become prosperous and 
prominent, there came upon the scene another family, destined 
greatly to influence his after life. Mr. Thomas Sheridan, an 
Irishman, himself an actor, but “respectable” only as such, 
having come to grief and loss over a theatrical speculation in 
Dublin, adopted the teaching of oratory and elocution as another 
means of livelihood, claiming that a knowledge of such accom- 
plishments should form part of a gentleman’s education. 
Following out this plan, in 1758 he, with his family, moved from 
Dublin to the wider field of London,* determined to give lectures 
so to attract notice and pupils. Previous to this he had designed 
the production of an English dictionary, and in connection with 
this work he published a pamphlet entiled :— 
A dissertation on the causes of the difficulties which occur 
in learning the English tongue ; with a scheme for publish- 
ing an English grammar and dictionary upon a plan entirely 
new, the object of which shall be to facilitate the attainment 
of the English tongue and establish a perpetual! standard of 
pronunciation. Addressed to a noble lord, 
This now scarce pamphlet has some local interest as it was 
reprinted at Bath in 1856, at the Pitman Phonetic Presst As 
Mr. Sheridan’s means were nil, by the influence of Mr. Wedder- 
burn, afterwards Lord Loughborough,f who had been a pupil, 
and through Lord Bute§$ the noble lord to whom the above 
} pamphlet was dedicated, he was granted a pension, in 1762, of 
_ 4200 a year under the pretence of monetary assistance for the 
*<<Ta Belle Assembleé.” Vol. 29. + Phonetic Journal, Vol. 15. 
t ‘©The Cabinet,” Vol. 4. § “Dic. Nat. Biog,” 
