479 



SHERIDAN, THOMAS, M.A. 



SHERIDAN, RICHARD. 



490 



his situation for 400Z., alleging as an excuse the " moist and unwhole- 

 some sir of Cavan ;" but we find him afterwards making no attempt 

 to establish himself elsewhere. This 4001. was soon spent, and the 

 " ill-starred, good-natured, improvident man," as Lord Cork calls him, 

 fell into sickness and distress, which was terminated by a speedy death 

 in 1738. Lord Cork, speaking of him, Bays, " Not a day parsed without 

 a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal. His pen and fiddlestick were in 

 continual motion." 



SHERIDAN, THOMAS, M.A., the author of the 'Dictionary of the 

 English Language,' was the son of the above, and born at Quilca, the 

 residence of Swift, in 1721. Swift was his godfather, and treated him 

 with uniform kindness. His education was commenced by his father, 

 who subsequently sent him to Westminster School, where he waa a 

 king's scholar. He afterwards entered Trinity College, Dublin, where 

 he took his degree of Master of Arts. When his father died he was 

 without a profession, and destitute of all expectations ; but having 

 conceived that exalted and extravagant idea of oratory which haunted 

 him through life, he determined on its restoration. To this end he 

 devoted himself to the stage as the first qualification for understanding 

 the art of oratory. He appeared as Richard III. in January 1743, and 

 " met with the greatest encouragement." 



In 1744 he accepted an engagement at Covent Garden Theatre, and 

 in 1745 he played with Garrick at Drury Lane, where some of hia 

 friends, more kind than judicious, endeavoured to set him up as a 

 rival of Garrick. The consequence was a quarrel between the two, 

 which lasted for life. Sheridan then returned to Dublin, and became 

 manager of the theatre there; and he effected, after a long struggle, 

 a very praiseworthy reform in the " goings on " behind the scenes. 

 For eight years he continued his management with success, till in 1754 

 he was driven from it by one of the popular tumults so common in 

 those days. In this year, when "the rancour of political party arose 

 to the greatest height that it had almost ever been known to do in 

 Dublin, Mr. Sheridan unfortunately revived Miller's ' Mahomet.' In 

 this play were many passages respecting liberty, bribery, and corruption, 

 which pleased the anti-courtiers as expressive of their opinions in regard 

 to certain persons at that time in power, and therefore they insisted 

 on those passages being repeated, which the actor complied with. The 

 absurdity however of such repetitions, merely as destroying the effect 

 of the tragedy, having occurred to the manager, the same speeches, 

 when again called for by the audience on the succeeding night, were 

 refused by the actor ; and he being obliged to hint the cause of his 

 refusal, the manager became the object of their resentment. On his 

 not appearing to mollify their rage by some kind of apology, they cut 

 the scenery to pieces with their swords, tore up the benches and boxes, 

 and, in a word, totally despoiled the theatre ; concluding with a reso- 

 lution never more to permit Mr. Sheridan to appear on that stage." 

 (Chalmers's ' Biog. Diet.') He afterwards (1756) returned to Dublin 

 and his management, the agitation having subsided ; but though he 

 was received with great favour by the audience, yet Barry and Wood- 

 ward having erected another theatre, and decoyed some of his principal 

 performers, aa well as a London company, this with other causes 

 quite mined him, and he was obliged to give up all concern in the 

 theatre. 



It was then that he again relied on his indestructible faith in 

 oratory, and the immense advantages to accrue from it. He published 

 a plan, in which he proposed to his countrymen the establishment of 

 an academy for the accomplishment of "youth in every qualification 

 necessary for a gentleman." In the formation of his design, he con- 

 sidered the art of oratory to be one of the essentials ; and to give a 

 stronger idea of the utility of that art, he opened his plan to the public 

 in three orations, which were also to be the proofs of his fitness for 

 the office of superintendent of the academy, for which post he offered 

 himself. The proposal was in some degree carried into execution ; but 

 for some reason Sheridan was excluded from any share in conducting it. 



Sheridan however was not a man to be daunted, especially on the 

 question of oratory, and we find him in 1759 lecturing in England on 

 that subject. He had published an 8vo volume entitled ' British Edu- 

 cation : the source of the disorders in Great Britain. . Being an essay 

 towards proving that the immorality, ignorance, and false taste which 

 so generally prevail, are the natural and necessary consequences of the 

 present defective system of education ; with an attempt to show that 

 a revival of the art of speaking and the study of our own language, 

 might contribute in a great measure to the cure of those evils.' The 

 title is amusing ; but it seems to have imposed on the public, for the 

 lectures which he composed in confirmation of it, and delivered in 

 London, Oxford, and Cambridge, met with immense success : at the 

 last place indeed he was honoured with the degree of Master of Arts. 

 In 1760 he again appeared at Drury Lane, but disagreements with 

 ^Jarrick soon put a stop to his engagement. 



On the accession of George 111. a pension was granted him, which 

 BO enraged Doctor Johnson, that he exclaimed, " What, give him a 

 pension ! then I must give up mine." This was of course repeated 

 to Sheridan, and he never forgave it. Through the various volumes f 

 ' Boswell ' there occur many notices of Sheridan, but the Doctor's 

 contempt is nowhere disguised. Sheridan continued to lecture, and 

 was " himself the great sublime he drew." In Scotland he was 

 honoured with eo much attention that a society was formed, called 

 ' The Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English 



Language in Scotland.' Among the directors were the names of Drs. 

 Blair, Ferguson, and Robertson. 



But by all his discussion and lecturing, his universal panacea for the 

 ills of moral England came to be examined, and when in 1769 he pro- 

 posed his ' plan of education for the young nobility and gentry of 

 Great Britain,' he found the public enthusiasm already cooled. This 

 plan was addressed to the king, in which with an amusing but lofty 

 condescension he made a tender of his services, and offered to "dedi- 

 cate the remainder of his days to its execution," observing, that " if 

 the design be not executed by myself, it never will be by any other 

 hand." But in spite of all this heroic dedication of services, he 

 excited no notice. This did not however damp his ardour in the least; 

 he endeavoured to support his plan by writing, by lecturing, and by 

 sarcasms against the taste of the times which could so neglect him ; 

 and the whole farce was wound up by his resolution, on the declara- 

 tion of 'the American Independence, of "benefiting the new world 

 with the advantages ungratefully neglected by his own country." 



In 1769, 1770, and 1776 he performed at the Haymarket and Covent 

 Garden, his last appearance as an actor. On the retirement of Garrick 

 the purchasers of the share in Drury Lane, of which his son was one, 

 agreed to make him the manager ; but he held 'the post only three 

 years, when he relinquished it as not tenable except on ignominious 

 terms. He then produced his ' Pronouncing Dictionary of the English 

 Language,' which was ridiculed by Johnson, who thought an Irishman 

 very unfit to teach the English their own language. His ' Life of 

 Swift ' followed a heavy and indiscriminating performance. He died 

 in the sixty-seventh year of his age, August 14, 1788. His other works 

 are the 'Course of Oratorical Lectures' and the farce of 'Captain 

 O'Blunder,' 



SHERIDAN, FRANCES, wife of the above, was born in Ireland 

 1724, but of English parentage, being the grand-daughter of Sir Oliver 

 Cbamberlayne. Her first acquaintance with Sheridan was curious 

 enough. At one of his most einbarassing periods, when there had 

 arisen a violent party dispute relative to the theatre in which he had 

 newly embarked all his money and expectations, she published a well- 

 written and forcible pamphlet, in his favour, which disinterested kind- 

 ness so excited his attention that he lost no time in being introduced 

 to her they were mutually pleased with each other, and the orator 

 soon proposed marriage, and was accepted. She is uniformly described 

 as a most accomplished and amiable woman, of whom Doctor Johnson 

 was very fond (Boswell's ' Johnson,' iL), and whose novel of ' Sidney 

 Biddulph ' he greatly admired, addressing her the very flattering 

 remark, that he doubted whether " upon moral principles she was at 

 liberty to put any one to so much pain as her story had put him." 

 Her ' Nourjahad ' has delighted all readers of romance, and will con- 

 tinue to do so ; though probably on other accounts than " the excellent 

 moral and inculcation of a future state of retribution " which so 

 delighted James Boswell. She also wrote two comedies, 'The Dis- 

 covery' and ' The Dupe,' but they are feeble and prosy, and are now 

 become rarities. She died at Blois, after a lingering illness, September, 

 1766. This date is on the authority of a letter of her husband's 

 deploring that event, which is dated October, 1766; the 'Biographia 

 Dramatica ' and Chalmers's ' Biographical Dictionary ' (which copies 

 the former almost verbatim) place her death as late as 1767. 



SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY BUTLER (for thus was he 

 christened after Brinsley Butler, earl of Lanesborough, though he 

 usually dropped the Butler), was the son of Thomas and Frances 

 Sheridan. He was born in Dorset Street, Dublin (not at Quilca as the 

 'Biographical Dictionaries' declare), in September, 1751. He was 

 educated at Dublin, and subsequently at Harrow, but at both places 

 was pronounced to be 'an impenetrable dunce,' with whom neither 

 severity nor indulgence could avail. On leaving Harrow indeed his 

 ignorance was so great that he could not spell, and he wrote ' think" 

 for 'thing.' At the age of eighteen however he joined his friend 

 Halhed in a translation of the ' Epistles of Aristaenetus.' 



Sheridan's life was throughout a dramatic one ; not in the high or 

 poetical sense, but in that of intriguing comedy and practical joking, 

 and he certainly displayed throughout as perfect a contempt for prin- 

 ciple or sincerity as any comedy hero we could desire. His first 

 important step in this life, marriage, was of this nature, and partakes 

 of that intriguing spirit. His own brother and hia friend Halhed 

 were both in love with Miss Linley, an accomplished singer, then only 

 sixteen ; they confided their passion to him, but he outwitted them 

 both, and eloped with the lady to France, where they were secretly 

 married. He then fought a duel with a " married blackguard who had 

 worried and defamed her;" and then brought her back to England, 

 where having extorted her father's permission, he repeated the nuptial 

 ceremony by licence in 1773. They tell an anecdote of his driving 

 her from the oratorios, disguised as a hackney coachman, during tho 

 interval of the two weddings, when she was residing with her angry 

 friends and still pursuing her profession. Sheridan would not consent to 

 his wife's employing her talents for their subsistence : it offended his 

 pride, and this pride Dr. Johnson applauded, but very erroneously in 

 our opinion. Yet Sheridan did not refuse to subsist, during the early 

 part of their marriage, upon the three thousand pounds " which a 

 good-natured old gentleman had settled upon Miss Liuley in default 

 of being able to marry her." 



Necessity however soon drove him to literature, and in January 



