174 
another piece of imagination, “our own make.” At last, 
after continued search, the one little word came up and 
curiously twice in the same day, when the marriage is given | 
under date 13th April, 1773—‘“‘ Mr. Sheridan to the celebrated 
Miss Linley at Marybone church’’* The register of Marylebone 
church accordingly records the marriage now for the first 
time published-—“ 13th April, 1773, between Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan, esq., of the parish of St. Paul, Covent Garden, in 
the county of Middlesex, a bachelor, and Elizabeth Ann Linley, 
of this parish, spinster, a minor, by license, with the consent 
of the father of the said minor.” One of the witnesses was 
Thomas Linley. The writing of the two signatures of the con- 
tracting parties is so strangely alike both might have been done 
by one hand. 
What should we think of the ‘‘syren,” the “angel” to-day. 
There is an engraved portrait of her when young published in 
September, 1772,t just after the duel, until now unknown but 
approved and considered “elegant” at the time. The portrait 
in the Dulwich Gallery taken later in life after marriage has the 
advantage of being in oils and by an artist alive to his duties and 
well skilled in the picturesque But does either impress with a 
vision of rapturous beauty. May not the notoriety of public 
life, public advertisement, or public praise, have helped the 
impression as with many it so often does. Every notice of a 
woman seems to be in praise of something, even of her “frock,” 
as to publish the contrary may be very wrong. 
At first the young couple went to a cottage in the country and 
then moved to a house, furnished by Mr. Linley, in Orchard 
Street, Oxford Road? better known now as Oxford Street, as 
Orchard Street is also better known as near Portman Square. 
* Town and Country Magazine, p. 223. 
* The Lady's Magazine, Vol. 4, p. 223. 
+ London Magazine, Vol. 41, p. 406. 
{ “Historical and Biographical Magazine.” 
