159 
merry month of May, after a stolen meeting in a grotto, that 
Sheridan wrote the well-known lines :— 
Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone, 
And damp is the shade of the dew-dripping tree, 
Yet I this rude grotto with rapture will own 
And welcome, thy damps are refreshing to me. 
The poem consists of twelve verses, of which the above is the 
first It can be gathered from other verses that the young couple 
_ had atiff. Jealous, as usual, he seems to have protested, but the 
young lady was not to be lectured, so he sullen, and both vexed, 
they did not leave the grotto together :— 
And tell me, thou willow, with leaves dripping dew, 
Did Laura seem vexed when Horatio was gone. 
In 1777 Mrs. Sheridan, as she then had become, was at Bath on 
_a visit to her father, says Moore, but it would be to her grandfather, 
when Sheridan again addressed her in poetic form :— 
But where does Laura pass the lonely hours, 
Does she still haunt the grot and willow tree? 
And still addressing Laura he writes :— 
Once on a blossomed crowned day, 
Of mirth inspiring May, 
Silvio beneath the willow’s sober shade, 
In sullen contemplation laid. 
By this allusion the time or date of this grotto poem is made 
clear. 
Chafing under the social coldness Mathews was, or chose to 
eel, insulted by the insertion of his apology in the newspapers. 
jupported in this by Mr. Barnett, who considered his position 
newhat unmerited, he suddenly returned to Bath at the end of 
ie to demand the usual satisfaction, and at once sent Sheridan 
ropriety of his conduct in the late duel; or satisfaction. The 
4 
nallenge was accepted. The second meeting which ensued, 
