Neither of them put much heart into his plays; and
perhaps the School for Scandal' is even more artificial than the
'Marriage of Figaro,' but it is wholly free from the declamatory
shrillness which to-day mars the masterpiece of Beaumarchais.
perhaps the School for Scandal' is even more artificial than the
'Marriage of Figaro,' but it is wholly free from the declamatory
shrillness which to-day mars the masterpiece of Beaumarchais.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v23 - Sha to Sta
In his
day, landscape gardening was a novelty; and in adorning his little
estate he gratified his taste, his innocent vanity, and his indolence.
The feet of his stanzas are as ingeniously varied as the walks.
through his domain. The flights of his Muse were bounded by the
limits of his estate; but they were not less inventive and fantastic
than the little surprises and turns of wood and waterfall, nor less
musical than the songs of his birds. The deaths of his friends were
commemorated by Grecian urns under weeping willows, and then by
elegies inspired by the urns.
The revolution which has taken place in English poetry has flat-
tened Shenstone's verses; and to realize the reaction from the ex-
treme of artificial pathos to straightforward, manly expression, one
has but to read his once popular 'Jemmy Dawson,' and 'The Dying
Kid,' and then Hood's Eugene Aram,' and Wordsworth's 'White
Doe of Rylstone' which, but for the feeble ballads of the Leasowes
poet, might never have been written.
Johnson's criticism of the Pastoral Ballad' is not less interesting
as betraying his notion of the province of poetry than as a criticism
of Shenstone. "I cannot but regret that it is pastoral: an intelligent
reader, acquainted with the scenes of real life, sickens at the mention
of the crook, the pipe, the sheep, and the kids, which it is not neces-
sary to bring forward to notice; for the poet's art is selection, and he
ought to show the beauties without the grossness of country life. "
But the volume Johnson scorned, beguiled many of Shenstone's
cultivated contemporaries by its mellifluous seesaw, and its jingling
resonance comes back to the reader of to-day.
―――――――
"I have found out a gift for my fair:
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed. "
The elegiac form and triple rhythm please the fancy in the still
remembered
"Yet time may diminish the pain. "
Shenstone made no mean rank for himself, in the time when
people were reading Pope's Homer, Addison's Cato,' and Dodsley's
'Economy of Human Life,' - the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of his day.
'The Schoolmistress' is a sketch drawn from life, and in versification
and style closely imitated Spenser. Goldsmith and Gray both knew
## p. 13309 (#111) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13309
it; and profited by its beauties and its faults when they wrote 'The
Deserted Village' and 'The Elegy in a Country Church-yard. '
Shenstone's 'Essays' are quiet moralizings about Leasowes; though
he could be playfully humorous now and then, as when he said:-
"I have an alcove [his villa], six elegies, a seat, two eulogies (one on
myself), four songs, and a serpentine river, to show you when you
come. "
He had a queer vanity to be thought a scholar; which made him
keep his name on the Oxford books (Pembroke was his college) for
ten years, though he never studied enough to take a degree. Gray
ridiculed his love of the great, and his affected pose as a recluse; but
one can fancy the proud, shy creature peeping through some high
latticed window when the guests from Hagley, Lord Lyttelton's estate,
arrived, maddened, as one of Shenstone's commentators remarks, if
they took the wrong direction, and frantic lest the exclamations he
heard were in derision, not pleasure.
-
He was born at Leasowes in November 1714, and died there of a
"putrid fever," — as Dr. Johnson describes it, not without some satis-
faction as a fit ending for so ill-regulated a life,- February 11th, 1763.
The great man's opinion of our poet is however fairly just, and not
unkindly.
"His good qualities are earnestness and simplicity. Had his mind
been better stored with knowledge, whether he would have been a
great man or not, I know not: he certainly would have been agree-
able. "
He published 'Miscellanies' (1737), 'The Judgment of Hercules'
(1740), The Schoolmistress' (1742); and Elegies; Songs, and Pas-
toral Ballads' (1743), edited by his friend Dodsley. His 'Letters and
Essays' appeared in 1750.
PASTORAL BALLAD
SINC
INCE Phyllis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine:
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine!
I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh;
And I grieve that I prize them no more.
But why do I languish in vain;
Why wander thus pensively here?
## p. 13310 (#112) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13310
Oh! why did I come from the plain
Where I fed on the smiles of my dear?
They tell me my favorite maid,
The pride of that valley, is flown:
Alas! where with her I have strayed,
I could wander with pleasure alone.
When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed as I slowly withdrew,-
My path I could hardly discern:
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.
The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away
Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe,—
Soft Hope is the relic I bear,
And my solace wherever I go.
SONG
TOLD my nymph, I told her true,
I
My fields were small, my flocks were few;
While faltering accents spoke my fear
That Flavia might not prove sincere.
Of crops destroyed by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold,-
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?
-
How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind,
She heard, and shed a generous tear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?
How, if she deigned my love to bless,
My Flavia must not hope for dress,-
-
1
## p. 13311 (#113) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13311
This too she heard, and smiled to hear:
And Flavia, sure, must be sincere.
Go shear your flocks, ye jovial swains!
Go reap the plenty of your plains;
Despoiled of all which you revere,
I know my Flavia's love sincere.
DISAPPOINTMENT
From A Pastoral'
YⓇ
E SHEPHERDS! give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep:
They have nothing to do but to stray,
I have nothing to do but to weep.
Yet do not my folly reprove:
She was fair-and my passion begun;
She smiled- and I could not but love;
She is faithless - and I am undone.
Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to foresee
That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire:
It banishes wisdom the while,
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems forever adorned with a smile.
She is faithless, and I am undone:
Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun
What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain
Amid nymphs of a higher degree:
It is not for me to explain
How fair and how fickle they be.
Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes,
When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repose?
Yet time may diminish the pain;
The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
## p. 13312 (#114) ##########################################
13312
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
f
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.
The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,
The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,
Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme.
High transports are shown to the sight,
But we're not to find them our own:
Fate never bestowed such delight
As I with my Phyllis had known.
O ye woods, spread your branches apace!
To your deepest recesses I fly;
I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.
Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun :
How she smiled, and I could not but love!
Was faithless, and I am undone!
MY
HOPE
From A Pastoral'
Y BANKS they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow,-
My fountains, all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets grow.
Not a pine in my grove is there seen
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green
But a sweetbrier entwines it around;
Not my fields, in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.
One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have labored to rear;
## p. 13313 (#115) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13313
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
Oh, how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love
To prune the wild branches away.
XXII-833
From the plain, from the woodlands and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join
In a concert so soft and so clear
As she may not be fond to resign.
I have found out a gift for my fair:
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed -—
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to—a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,
And she called it the sister of Love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,-
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.
Can a bosom so gentle remain
Unmoved when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise?
Dear regions of silence and shade!
Soft scenes of contentment and ease!
Where I could have pleasingly strayed -
If aught in her absence could please.
But where does my Phyllida stray?
And where are her grots and her bowers?
## p. 13314 (#116) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13314
Are the groves and the valleys as gay,
And the shepherds as gentle as ours?
The groves may perhaps be as fair,
And the face of the valleys as fine;
The swains may in manners compare,
But their love is not equal to mine.
MUCH TASTE AND SMALL ESTATE
From The Progress of Taste'
SE
EE yonder hill, so green, so round,
Its brow with ambient beeches crowned!
'Twould well become thy gentle care
To raise a dome to Venus there:
Pleased would the nymphs thy zeal survey;
And Venus, in their arms, repay.
'Twas such a shade, and such a nook
In such a vale, near such a brook
From such a rocky fragment springing,
That famed Apollo chose, to sing in.
There let an altar wrought with art
Engage thy tuneful patron's heart:
How charming there to muse and warble
Beneath his bust of breathing marble!
With laurel wreath and mimic lyre
That crown a poet's vast desire.
Then, near it, scoop the vaulted cell
Where Music's charming maids may dwell;
Prone to indulge thy tender passion,
And make thee many an assignation.
Deep in the grove's obscure retreat
Be placed Minerva's sacred seat;
There let her awful turrets rise
(For Wisdom flies from vulgar eyes):
There her calm dictates shalt thou hear
Distinctly strike thy listening ear;
And who would shun the pleasing labor
To have Minerva for his neighbor? . .
But did the Muses haunt his cell?
Or in his dome did Venus dwell?
Did Pallas in his counsels share?
The Delian god reward his prayer?
Or did his zeal engage the fair?
## p. 13315 (#117) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
A
When all the structures shone complete,—
Not much convenient, wondrous neat;
Adorned with gilding, painting, planting,
And the fair guests alone were wanting,—
Ah me! ('twas Damon's own confession),
Came Poverty and took possession.
FROM THE SCHOOLMISTRESS>
RUSSET stole was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
'Twas simple russet, but it was her own:
'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair;
'Twas her own labor did the fleece prepare:
And sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around,
Through pious awe did term it passing rare;
For they in gaping wonderment abound,
And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground!
Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,
Ne pompous title did debauch her ear;
Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth,
Or dame, the sole additions she did hear:
13315
Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear;
Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,
Who should not honored eld with these revere:
For never title yet so mean could prove,
But there was eke a mind which did that title love.
One ancient hen she took delight to feed,
The plodding pattern of the busy dame;
Which ever and anon, impelled by need,
Into her school, begirt with chickens, came!
Such favor did her past deportment claim:
And if Neglect had lavished on the ground
Fragment of bread, she would collect the same;
For well she knew, and quaintly could expound,
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.
Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak,
That in her garden sipped the silvery dew,
Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak;
But herbs for use and physic not a few,
Of gray renown, within these borders grew,—
## p. 13316 (#118) ##########################################
13316
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
Fresh balm, and marygold of cheerful hue,
The lowly gill that never dares to climb:
And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.
Yet euphrasy may not be left unsung,
That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around;
And pungent radish, biting infant's tongue;
And plantain ribbed, that heals the reaper's wound;
And marjoram sweet, in shepherd's posie found;
And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amid the labors of her loom,
And crown her kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume.
And here trim rosemarine, that whilom crowned
The daintiest garden of the proudest peer,
Ere, driven from its envied site, it found
A sacred shelter for its branches here,
Where edged with gold its glittering skirts appear.
O wassel days! O customs meet and well!
Ere this was banished from its lofty sphere!
Simplicity then sought this humble cell,
Nor ever would she more with thane and lordling dwell.
## p. 13316 (#119) ##########################################
## p. 13316 (#120) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY
SHERIDAN.
## p. 13316 (#121) ##########################################
་''
I
## p. 13316 (#122) ##########################################
## p. 13317 (#123) ##########################################
13317
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
(1751-1816)
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
RS
ICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN was the most distinguished mem-
ber of a distinguished family. His grandfather was Dr.
Sheridan, the friend and correspondent of Swift. His father
was Thomas Sheridan, elocutionist, actor, manager, and lexicographer.
His mother was Frances Sheridan, author of the comedy of 'The
Discovery' (acted by David Garrick), and of the novel 'Miss Sidney
Biddulph' (praised by Samuel Johnson). His three granddaughters,
known as the beautiful Sheridans, became, one the Duchess of Som-
erset, another the Countess of Dufferin, and the third the Hon. Mrs.
Norton (afterward Lady Stirling-Maxwell). His great-grandson is
Lord Dufferin, author and diplomatist. Thus, in six generations
of the family, remarkable power of one kind or another has been
revealed.
Richard Brinsley was born in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1751.
Before he was ten the family moved to England; and he was pres-
ently sent to Harrow. Later he received from his father lessons in
elocution, which he was destined to turn to account in Parliament.
Before he was nineteen the family settled in Bath, then the resort of
fashion. Here the young man observed life, wrote brilliant bits of
verse, and fell in love with Miss Linley. The Linleys were all musi-
cians: Miss Elizabeth Linley was a public singer of great promise;
she was not seventeen when Sheridan first met her. She was beset
by suitors, with one of whom, a disreputable Captain Mathews (who
was the author of a good book on whist), the future dramatist fought
two duels. Sheridan eloped with Miss Linley to France; and after
many obstacles, the course of true love ran smooth at last and the
young pair were married. Although he was wholly without fortune,
the husband withdrew his wife from the stage.
Sheridan's education had been fragmentary, and he lacked serious
training. But he had wit and self-confidence; and he determined to
turn dramatist. His father was an actor, his mother had written
plays, and his father-in-law was a composer; and so the stage door
swung wide open before him. His first piece, the five-act comedy
the 'Rivals,' was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre, January
## p. 13318 (#124) ##########################################
13318
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
17th, 1775; and it then failed blankly, as it did again on a second
performance. Withdrawn and revised, it was soon reproduced with
approval. A similar experience is recorded of the 'Barber of Seville,'
the first comedy of Beaumarchais, whose career is not without points
of resemblance to Sheridan's. The 'Rivals' and the 'Barber of Se-
ville' are among the few comedies of the eighteenth century which
will survive into the twentieth.
In gratitude to the actor who had played Sir Lucius O'Trigger,
Sheridan improvised the farce of St. Patrick's Day; or, The Scheming
Lieutenant'; brought out May 2d, 1775, and long since dropped out of
the list of acting plays. During the summer he wrote the book of a
comic opera, the 'Duenna,' for which his father-in-law Linley pre-
pared the score, and which was produced at Covent Garden Novem-
ber 21st, 1775,- making three new plays which the young dramatist
had brought out within the year.
The great actor, David Garrick, who had managed Drury Lane
Theatre with the utmost skill for many years, was now about to
retire. He owned half of the theatre, and this half he sold to Sheri-
dan and to some of Sheridan's friends; and a little later Sheridan
was able to buy the other half also, paying for it not in cash, but
by assuming mortgages and granting annuities. It was in the middle
of 1776 that David Garrick was succeeded in the management of
Drury Lane Theatre by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was then not
yet twenty-five years old.
The first new play of the new manager was only an old comedy
altered. A Trip to Scarborough,' acted February 24th, 1777, was a
deodorized version of Vanbrugh's 'Relapse'; rather better than most
of the revisions of old plays, and yet a disappointment to the play-
goers who were awaiting a new comedy. The new comedy came at
last in the spring, and those who had high expectations were not dis-
appointed. It was on May 8th, 1777, that the School for Scandal'
was acted for the first time, with immense success,- a success which
bids fair to endure yet another century and a quarter. With a stronger
dramatic framework than the 'Rivals,' and a slighter proportion of
broad farce, the 'School for Scandal' is as effective in the acting as
its predecessor, while it repays perusal far better.
When Garrick died, early in 1779, Sheridan wrote a 'Monody,' to
be recited at the theatre the incomparable actor had so long directed.
And in the fall of that year, on October 30th, 1779, he brought out
the brightest of farces and the best of burlesques, 'The Critic; or,
A Tragedy Rehearsed'; a delightful piece of theatrical humor,—
suggested by Buckingham's 'Rehearsal,' no doubt, but distinctly
superior. The 'Critic,' like the 'Rivals' and the School for Scandal,'
continues to be acted both in Great Britain and the United States.
## p. 13319 (#125) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13319
"
Sheridan's best plays have revealed a sturdy vitality, and a faculty of
readaptation to changing theatrical conditions. After the production
of the Critic,' Sheridan did not again appear before the public as
an original dramatist. Perhaps he was jealous of his reputation; and,
aware of the limit of his powers, he knew that he could not sur-
pass the School for Scandal. ' Just as Molière used to talk about his
'Homme de Cour,' which he had not begun when he died, so Sheridan
used to talk about a comedy to be called 'Affectation,' for which he
had done no more than jot down a few stray notes and suggestions.
Thereafter he confined himself to the outlining of plots for pan-
tomimes, and to improving the plays of other authors. Thus the
'Stranger' indubitably owed some of its former effectiveness in Eng-
lish to his adroit touch. Perhaps it was the success of the 'Stranger'
which led him to rework another of Kotzebue's plays into a rather
turgid melodrama with a high-patriotic flavor. This, Pizarro,' was
produced on May 24th, 1799; and it hit the temper of the time so
skillfully that it filled all the theatres in England for many months.
But long before this, Sheridan had entered into political life. He
took his seat in Parliament in 1780,- being then not yet thirty. His
first speech was a failure, as his first play had been.
But he per-
severed; and in time he became as completely master of the platform
as he was of the stage. He was a Whig; and when Fox and North
drove out Shelburne, Sheridan was Secretary of the Treasury: but
the Whigs went out in 1783. When Burke impeached Warren Hast-
ings, Sheridan was one of the managers of the prosecution; and in
the course of the proceedings he delivered two speeches, the recorded
effect of which was simply marvelous.
In 1792 Sheridan's wife died, and from that hour the fortune that
had waxed so swiftly waned as surely. He neglected the theatre for
politics, and his debts began to harass him. He married again in
1795; but it may be doubted whether this second marriage was not
a mistake. In 1809 Drury Lane was burnt to the ground; and Sher-
idan had rebuilt it at enormous cost only fifteen years before. This
fire ruined him. In 1812 he made his last speech in Parliament. In
1815 he suffered the indignity of arrest for debt. He died on July
7th, 1816.
Sheridan's indebtedness was found to be less than £5,000: that
it had not been paid long before was due to his procrastination, his
carelessness, and his total lack of business training. He seems to
have allowed himself to be swindled right and left. In other ways
also is his character not easy to apprehend aright. In his political
career he unhesitatingly sacrificed place to patriotism; and during the
mutiny at the Nore he put party advantage behind him, and came
forward to urge the course of conduct best for the country as a whole.
## p. 13320 (#126) ##########################################
13320
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
In his private life he was not altogether circumspect; but he lived in
days when it was thought no disgrace for a statesman to be over-
taken with wine. In all things he was his own worst enemy.
It is as a writer of comedies that Sheridan claims admission into
this work; and here his position is impregnable. Of the four comic
dramatists of the Restoration, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Wycherley, and
Farquhar, only one, Congreve, was Sheridan's superior as a wit; and
Sheridan is the superior of every one of the four as a playwright, as
an artist in stage effect, as a master of the medium in which they
all of them worked. His only later rival is his fellow-Irishman,
Oliver Goldsmith: but of Goldsmith's two comedies, one, the 'Good-
Natured Man,' has always been a failure, when first acted and when-
ever a revival has been attempted; and the other, 'She Stoops to
Conquer,' delightful as it is, is what its hostile critics called it when
it was first seen, a farce,- - it has the arbitrary plot of a farce, though
its manner is the manner of comedy. Neither in the library nor in
the theatre does 'She Stoops to Conquer' withstand the comparison
with the School for Scandal'; and Sheridan has still to his credit
the 'Rivals' and the 'Critic. ' (It is true that Goldsmith has to his
credit the Vicar of Wakefield' and his poems and his essays; but it
is of his plays that a comparison is here made. )
Sheridan is not of course to be likened to Molière: the Frenchman
had a depth and a power to which the Irishman could not pretend.
But a comparison with Beaumarchais is fair enough, and it can be
drawn only in favor of Sheridan; for brilliant as the 'Marriage of
Figaro' is, it lacks the solid structure and the broad outlook of the
'School for Scandal. ' Both the French wit and the Irish are masters
of fence, and the dialogue of these comedies still scintillates as steel
crosses steel.
Neither of them put much heart into his plays; and
perhaps the School for Scandal' is even more artificial than the
'Marriage of Figaro,' but it is wholly free from the declamatory
shrillness which to-day mars the masterpiece of Beaumarchais.
It is curious that the British novelists have often taken up their
task in the maturity of middle age, and that the British dramatists
have often been young fellows just coming into man's estate. One
might say that Farquhar and Vanbrugh, Congreve and Sheridan, all
composed their comedies when they were only recently out of their
'teens. Lessing has told us that the young man just entering on the
world cannot possibly know it. He may be ingenious, he may be
clever, he may be brilliant,- but he is likely to lack depth and
breadth. Here is the weak spot in Sheridan's work. Dash he had,
and ardor, and dexterity, and wit; but when his work is compared
with the solid and more human plays of Molière, for example, its
relative superficiality is apparent. And yet superficiality is a harsh
P
-
-
## p. 13321 (#127) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13321
word, and perhaps misleading. What is not to be found in Sheridan's
comedies is essential richness of inspiration. Liveliness there is, and
dramaturgic skill, and comic invention, and animal spirits, and hearty
enjoyment: these are gifts to be prized. To seek for more in the
'Rivals' and the School for Scandal' is to be disappointed.
Brander Mattheers
MRS. MALAPROP'S VIEWS
From the Rivals'
The scene is Mrs. Malaprop's lodgings at Bath. Present, Lydia Languish.
Enter Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute.
MRS
RS. MALAPROP-There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliber-
ate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish
herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.
Lydia - Madam, I thought you once.
Mrs. Malaprop — You thought, miss! I don't know any busi-
ness you have to think at all: thought does not become a young
woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will
promise to forget this fellow; to illiterate him, I say, quite from
your memory.
Lydia - Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our
wills. It is not so easy to forget.
Mrs. Malaprop-But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on
earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm
sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had
never existed-and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me
tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young
➖➖
woman.
Sir Anthony-Why, sure she won't pretend to remember what
she's ordered not! Ay, this comes of her reading!
Lydia - What crime, madam, have I committed to be treated
thus ?
Mrs. Malaprop— Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from
the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But tell
me, will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a hus-
band of your friends' choosing?
## p. 13322 (#128) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13322
Lydia - Madam, I must tell you plainly that had I no pref-
erence for any one else, the choice you have made would be my
aversion.
Mrs. Malaprop-What business have you, miss, with prefer-
ence and aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you
ought to know that as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matri-
mony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your
poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor;
and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made? and when
it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what
tears I shed! But suppose we were going to give you another
choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?
Lydia - Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that
promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.
You are fit
Mrs. Malaprop-Take yourself to your room.
company for nothing but your own ill-humors.
Lydia - Willingly, ma'am—I cannot change for the worse.
[Exit.
Mrs. Malaprop―There's a little intricate hussy for you!
Sir Anthony-It is not to be wondered at, ma'am: all this
is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a
thousand daughters, by heaven I'd as soon have them taught
the black art as their alphabet!
Mrs. Malaprop-Nay, nay, Sir Anthony: you are an absolute
misanthropy.
Sir Anthony-In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed
your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! She
had a book in each hand; they were half-bound volumes with
marble covers! From that moment I guessed how full of duty
I should see her mistress!
Mrs. Malaprop-Those are vile places indeed!
Sir Anthony-Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an
evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge,―it blossoms through the
year! And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so
fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last.
Mrs. Malaprop-Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak la-
conically.
Sir Anthony-Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation now, what
would you have a woman know?
Mrs. Malaprop-Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no
means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I
## p. 13323 (#129) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13323
don't think so much learning becomes a young woman: for in-
stance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or
algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory
branches of learning; neither would it be necessary for her to
handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instru-
ments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send her at nine years old to
a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice.
Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts;
and as she grew up I would have her instructed in geometry,
that she might know something of the contagious countries: but
above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that
she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as
girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true
meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I
would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a super-
stitious article in it.
Sir Anthony-Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute the
point no further with you; though I must confess that you are
a truly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every third word
you say is on my side of the question. But, Mrs. Malaprop, to
the more important point in debate: you say you have no objec-
tion to my proposal?
Mrs. Malaprop — None, I assure you. I am under no positive
engagement with Mr. Acres; and as Lydia is so obstinate against
him, perhaps your son may have better success.
Sir Anthony-Well, madam, I will write for the boy directly.
He knows not a syllable of this yet, though I have for some
time had the proposal in my head. He is at present with his
regiment.
Mrs. Malaprop - We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony;
but I hope no objection on his side.
Sir Anthony-Objection! let him object if he dare! No, no,
Mrs. Malaprop, Jack knows that the least demur puts me in a
frenzy directly. My process was always very simple: in their
younger days, 'twas "Jack, do this"; if he demurred I knocked
him down, and if he grumbled at that I always sent him out of
the room.
Mrs. Malaprop-Ay, and the properest way, o' my con-
science! Nothing is so conciliating to young people as sever-
ity. Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and
## p. 13324 (#130) ##########################################
13324
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
prepare Lydia to receive your son's invocations; and I hope you
will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether
illegible.
Sir Anthony-Madam, I will handle the subject prudently.
Well, I must leave you; and let me beg you, Mrs. Malaprop, to
enforce this matter roundly to the girl. Take my advice — keep
a tight hand: if she rejects this proposal, clap her under lock and
key; and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her
dinner for three or four days, you can't conceive how she'd come
about.
[Exit.
Mrs. Malaprop - Well, at any rate I shall be glad to get her
from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered my par-
tiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger: sure, Lucy can't have betrayed
me! No, the girl is such a simpleton, I should have made her
confess it. [Calls. ] Lucy! Lucy! Had she been one of your
artificial ones, I should never have trusted her.
SIR LUCIUS DICTATES A CARTEL
From the Rivals'
The scene is Bob Acres's lodgings at Bath. Acres is discovered as his
servant shows in Sir Lucius.
SIR
IR LUCIUS-Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you.
Acres - My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands.
Sir Lucius-Pray, my friend, what has brought you so
suddenly to Bath?
Acres - Faith! I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and
find myself in a quagmire at last. In short, I have been very
ill used, Sir Lucius. I don't choose to mention names, but look
on me as on a very ill-used gentleman.
Sir Lucius - Pray, what is the case? I ask no names.
Acres - Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need be in
love with a young lady: her friends take my part-I follow her
to Bath-send word of my arrival; and receive answer that the
lady is to be otherwise disposed of. This, Sir Lucius, I call
being ill used.
Sir Lucius- Very ill, upon my conscience.
divine the cause of it?
Pray, can you
## p. 13325 (#131) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13325
Acres - Why, there's the matter: she has another lover, one
Beverley, who, I am told, is now in Bath. Odds slanders and
lies! he must be at the bottom of it.
Sir Lucius - A rival in the case, is there? and you think he
has supplanted you unfairly?
Acres - Unfairly! to be sure he has. He never could have
done it fairly.
Sir Lucius-Then sure you know what is to be done!
Acres Not I, upon my soul.
Sir Lucius-We wear no swords here, but you understand me.
Acres-What! fight him?
Sir Lucius-Ay, to be sure: what can I mean else?
Acres But he has given me no provocation.
Sir Lucius-Now, I think he has given you the greatest prov-
ocation in the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offense
against another than to fall in love with the same woman? Oh,
by my soul! it is the most unpardonable breach of friendship.
Acres - Breach of friendship! ay, ay; but I have no acquaint-
ance with this man. I never saw him in my life.
Sir Lucius-That's no argument at all: he has the less right
then to take such a liberty.
Acres Gad, that's true. I grow full of anger, Sir Lucius!
I fire apace!
Odds hilts and blades! I find a man may have a
deal of valor in him and not know it! But couldn't I contrive
to have a little right on my side?
Sir Lucius - What the devil signifies right, when your honor
is concerned? Do you think Achilles, or my little Alexander the
Great, ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul: they
drew their broadswords, and left the lazy sons of peace to settle
the justice of it.
――――
-
Acres - Your words are a grenadier's march to my heart: I
believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of
valor rising, as it were,-
a kind of courage, as I may say. Odds
flints, pans, and triggers! I'll challenge him directly.
Sir Lucius - Ah, my little friend, if I had Blunderbuss Hall
here, I could show you a range of ancestry in the O'Trigger
line that would furnish the new room, every one of whom had
killed his man! For though the mansion-house and dirty acres
have slipped through my fingers, I thank heaven our honor and
the family pictures are as fresh as ever.
――――
## p. 13326 (#132) ##########################################
13326
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
Acres O Sir Lucius! I have had ancestors too! every man
of 'em colonel or captain in the militia! Odds balls and barrels!
say no more I'm braced for it. The thunder of your words
has soured the milk of human kindness in my breast.
as the man in the play says, I could do such deeds.
Zounds!
Sir Lucius-Come, come, there must be no passion at all in
the case: these things should always be done civilly.
Acres-I must be in a passion, Sir Lucius,-I must be in a
rage. Dear Sir Lucius, let me be in a rage, if you love me.
Come, here's pen and paper. [Sits down to write. ] I would the
ink were red! Indite, I say indite! How shall I begin? Odds
bullets and blades! I'll write a good bold hand, however.
Sir Lucius-Pray compose yourself.
Acres -Come, now, shall I begin with an oath? Do, Sir
Lucius, let me begin with a "damme. "
Sir Lucius-Pho! pho! do the thing decently, and like a
Christian. Begin now. "Sir-»
Acres-That's too civil by half.
>>>
Sir Lucius-"To prevent the confusion that might arise -
Acres - Well-
---
Sir Lucius- "From our both addressing the same lady-
Acres-Ay, there's the reason same lady": well-
Sir Lucius "I shall expect the honor of your company —
Acres - Zounds! I'm not asking him to dinner.
Sir Lucius - Pray be easy.
day, landscape gardening was a novelty; and in adorning his little
estate he gratified his taste, his innocent vanity, and his indolence.
The feet of his stanzas are as ingeniously varied as the walks.
through his domain. The flights of his Muse were bounded by the
limits of his estate; but they were not less inventive and fantastic
than the little surprises and turns of wood and waterfall, nor less
musical than the songs of his birds. The deaths of his friends were
commemorated by Grecian urns under weeping willows, and then by
elegies inspired by the urns.
The revolution which has taken place in English poetry has flat-
tened Shenstone's verses; and to realize the reaction from the ex-
treme of artificial pathos to straightforward, manly expression, one
has but to read his once popular 'Jemmy Dawson,' and 'The Dying
Kid,' and then Hood's Eugene Aram,' and Wordsworth's 'White
Doe of Rylstone' which, but for the feeble ballads of the Leasowes
poet, might never have been written.
Johnson's criticism of the Pastoral Ballad' is not less interesting
as betraying his notion of the province of poetry than as a criticism
of Shenstone. "I cannot but regret that it is pastoral: an intelligent
reader, acquainted with the scenes of real life, sickens at the mention
of the crook, the pipe, the sheep, and the kids, which it is not neces-
sary to bring forward to notice; for the poet's art is selection, and he
ought to show the beauties without the grossness of country life. "
But the volume Johnson scorned, beguiled many of Shenstone's
cultivated contemporaries by its mellifluous seesaw, and its jingling
resonance comes back to the reader of to-day.
―――――――
"I have found out a gift for my fair:
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed. "
The elegiac form and triple rhythm please the fancy in the still
remembered
"Yet time may diminish the pain. "
Shenstone made no mean rank for himself, in the time when
people were reading Pope's Homer, Addison's Cato,' and Dodsley's
'Economy of Human Life,' - the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of his day.
'The Schoolmistress' is a sketch drawn from life, and in versification
and style closely imitated Spenser. Goldsmith and Gray both knew
## p. 13309 (#111) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13309
it; and profited by its beauties and its faults when they wrote 'The
Deserted Village' and 'The Elegy in a Country Church-yard. '
Shenstone's 'Essays' are quiet moralizings about Leasowes; though
he could be playfully humorous now and then, as when he said:-
"I have an alcove [his villa], six elegies, a seat, two eulogies (one on
myself), four songs, and a serpentine river, to show you when you
come. "
He had a queer vanity to be thought a scholar; which made him
keep his name on the Oxford books (Pembroke was his college) for
ten years, though he never studied enough to take a degree. Gray
ridiculed his love of the great, and his affected pose as a recluse; but
one can fancy the proud, shy creature peeping through some high
latticed window when the guests from Hagley, Lord Lyttelton's estate,
arrived, maddened, as one of Shenstone's commentators remarks, if
they took the wrong direction, and frantic lest the exclamations he
heard were in derision, not pleasure.
-
He was born at Leasowes in November 1714, and died there of a
"putrid fever," — as Dr. Johnson describes it, not without some satis-
faction as a fit ending for so ill-regulated a life,- February 11th, 1763.
The great man's opinion of our poet is however fairly just, and not
unkindly.
"His good qualities are earnestness and simplicity. Had his mind
been better stored with knowledge, whether he would have been a
great man or not, I know not: he certainly would have been agree-
able. "
He published 'Miscellanies' (1737), 'The Judgment of Hercules'
(1740), The Schoolmistress' (1742); and Elegies; Songs, and Pas-
toral Ballads' (1743), edited by his friend Dodsley. His 'Letters and
Essays' appeared in 1750.
PASTORAL BALLAD
SINC
INCE Phyllis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine:
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine!
I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh;
And I grieve that I prize them no more.
But why do I languish in vain;
Why wander thus pensively here?
## p. 13310 (#112) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13310
Oh! why did I come from the plain
Where I fed on the smiles of my dear?
They tell me my favorite maid,
The pride of that valley, is flown:
Alas! where with her I have strayed,
I could wander with pleasure alone.
When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed as I slowly withdrew,-
My path I could hardly discern:
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.
The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away
Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe,—
Soft Hope is the relic I bear,
And my solace wherever I go.
SONG
TOLD my nymph, I told her true,
I
My fields were small, my flocks were few;
While faltering accents spoke my fear
That Flavia might not prove sincere.
Of crops destroyed by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold,-
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?
-
How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind,
She heard, and shed a generous tear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?
How, if she deigned my love to bless,
My Flavia must not hope for dress,-
-
1
## p. 13311 (#113) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13311
This too she heard, and smiled to hear:
And Flavia, sure, must be sincere.
Go shear your flocks, ye jovial swains!
Go reap the plenty of your plains;
Despoiled of all which you revere,
I know my Flavia's love sincere.
DISAPPOINTMENT
From A Pastoral'
YⓇ
E SHEPHERDS! give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep:
They have nothing to do but to stray,
I have nothing to do but to weep.
Yet do not my folly reprove:
She was fair-and my passion begun;
She smiled- and I could not but love;
She is faithless - and I am undone.
Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to foresee
That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire:
It banishes wisdom the while,
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems forever adorned with a smile.
She is faithless, and I am undone:
Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun
What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain
Amid nymphs of a higher degree:
It is not for me to explain
How fair and how fickle they be.
Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes,
When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repose?
Yet time may diminish the pain;
The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
## p. 13312 (#114) ##########################################
13312
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
f
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.
The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,
The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,
Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme.
High transports are shown to the sight,
But we're not to find them our own:
Fate never bestowed such delight
As I with my Phyllis had known.
O ye woods, spread your branches apace!
To your deepest recesses I fly;
I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.
Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun :
How she smiled, and I could not but love!
Was faithless, and I am undone!
MY
HOPE
From A Pastoral'
Y BANKS they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow,-
My fountains, all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets grow.
Not a pine in my grove is there seen
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green
But a sweetbrier entwines it around;
Not my fields, in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.
One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have labored to rear;
## p. 13313 (#115) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13313
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
Oh, how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love
To prune the wild branches away.
XXII-833
From the plain, from the woodlands and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join
In a concert so soft and so clear
As she may not be fond to resign.
I have found out a gift for my fair:
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed -—
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to—a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,
And she called it the sister of Love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,-
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.
Can a bosom so gentle remain
Unmoved when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise?
Dear regions of silence and shade!
Soft scenes of contentment and ease!
Where I could have pleasingly strayed -
If aught in her absence could please.
But where does my Phyllida stray?
And where are her grots and her bowers?
## p. 13314 (#116) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
13314
Are the groves and the valleys as gay,
And the shepherds as gentle as ours?
The groves may perhaps be as fair,
And the face of the valleys as fine;
The swains may in manners compare,
But their love is not equal to mine.
MUCH TASTE AND SMALL ESTATE
From The Progress of Taste'
SE
EE yonder hill, so green, so round,
Its brow with ambient beeches crowned!
'Twould well become thy gentle care
To raise a dome to Venus there:
Pleased would the nymphs thy zeal survey;
And Venus, in their arms, repay.
'Twas such a shade, and such a nook
In such a vale, near such a brook
From such a rocky fragment springing,
That famed Apollo chose, to sing in.
There let an altar wrought with art
Engage thy tuneful patron's heart:
How charming there to muse and warble
Beneath his bust of breathing marble!
With laurel wreath and mimic lyre
That crown a poet's vast desire.
Then, near it, scoop the vaulted cell
Where Music's charming maids may dwell;
Prone to indulge thy tender passion,
And make thee many an assignation.
Deep in the grove's obscure retreat
Be placed Minerva's sacred seat;
There let her awful turrets rise
(For Wisdom flies from vulgar eyes):
There her calm dictates shalt thou hear
Distinctly strike thy listening ear;
And who would shun the pleasing labor
To have Minerva for his neighbor? . .
But did the Muses haunt his cell?
Or in his dome did Venus dwell?
Did Pallas in his counsels share?
The Delian god reward his prayer?
Or did his zeal engage the fair?
## p. 13315 (#117) ##########################################
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
A
When all the structures shone complete,—
Not much convenient, wondrous neat;
Adorned with gilding, painting, planting,
And the fair guests alone were wanting,—
Ah me! ('twas Damon's own confession),
Came Poverty and took possession.
FROM THE SCHOOLMISTRESS>
RUSSET stole was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
'Twas simple russet, but it was her own:
'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair;
'Twas her own labor did the fleece prepare:
And sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around,
Through pious awe did term it passing rare;
For they in gaping wonderment abound,
And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground!
Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,
Ne pompous title did debauch her ear;
Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth,
Or dame, the sole additions she did hear:
13315
Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear;
Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,
Who should not honored eld with these revere:
For never title yet so mean could prove,
But there was eke a mind which did that title love.
One ancient hen she took delight to feed,
The plodding pattern of the busy dame;
Which ever and anon, impelled by need,
Into her school, begirt with chickens, came!
Such favor did her past deportment claim:
And if Neglect had lavished on the ground
Fragment of bread, she would collect the same;
For well she knew, and quaintly could expound,
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.
Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak,
That in her garden sipped the silvery dew,
Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak;
But herbs for use and physic not a few,
Of gray renown, within these borders grew,—
## p. 13316 (#118) ##########################################
13316
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
Fresh balm, and marygold of cheerful hue,
The lowly gill that never dares to climb:
And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.
Yet euphrasy may not be left unsung,
That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around;
And pungent radish, biting infant's tongue;
And plantain ribbed, that heals the reaper's wound;
And marjoram sweet, in shepherd's posie found;
And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amid the labors of her loom,
And crown her kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume.
And here trim rosemarine, that whilom crowned
The daintiest garden of the proudest peer,
Ere, driven from its envied site, it found
A sacred shelter for its branches here,
Where edged with gold its glittering skirts appear.
O wassel days! O customs meet and well!
Ere this was banished from its lofty sphere!
Simplicity then sought this humble cell,
Nor ever would she more with thane and lordling dwell.
## p. 13316 (#119) ##########################################
## p. 13316 (#120) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY
SHERIDAN.
## p. 13316 (#121) ##########################################
་''
I
## p. 13316 (#122) ##########################################
## p. 13317 (#123) ##########################################
13317
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
(1751-1816)
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
RS
ICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN was the most distinguished mem-
ber of a distinguished family. His grandfather was Dr.
Sheridan, the friend and correspondent of Swift. His father
was Thomas Sheridan, elocutionist, actor, manager, and lexicographer.
His mother was Frances Sheridan, author of the comedy of 'The
Discovery' (acted by David Garrick), and of the novel 'Miss Sidney
Biddulph' (praised by Samuel Johnson). His three granddaughters,
known as the beautiful Sheridans, became, one the Duchess of Som-
erset, another the Countess of Dufferin, and the third the Hon. Mrs.
Norton (afterward Lady Stirling-Maxwell). His great-grandson is
Lord Dufferin, author and diplomatist. Thus, in six generations
of the family, remarkable power of one kind or another has been
revealed.
Richard Brinsley was born in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1751.
Before he was ten the family moved to England; and he was pres-
ently sent to Harrow. Later he received from his father lessons in
elocution, which he was destined to turn to account in Parliament.
Before he was nineteen the family settled in Bath, then the resort of
fashion. Here the young man observed life, wrote brilliant bits of
verse, and fell in love with Miss Linley. The Linleys were all musi-
cians: Miss Elizabeth Linley was a public singer of great promise;
she was not seventeen when Sheridan first met her. She was beset
by suitors, with one of whom, a disreputable Captain Mathews (who
was the author of a good book on whist), the future dramatist fought
two duels. Sheridan eloped with Miss Linley to France; and after
many obstacles, the course of true love ran smooth at last and the
young pair were married. Although he was wholly without fortune,
the husband withdrew his wife from the stage.
Sheridan's education had been fragmentary, and he lacked serious
training. But he had wit and self-confidence; and he determined to
turn dramatist. His father was an actor, his mother had written
plays, and his father-in-law was a composer; and so the stage door
swung wide open before him. His first piece, the five-act comedy
the 'Rivals,' was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre, January
## p. 13318 (#124) ##########################################
13318
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
17th, 1775; and it then failed blankly, as it did again on a second
performance. Withdrawn and revised, it was soon reproduced with
approval. A similar experience is recorded of the 'Barber of Seville,'
the first comedy of Beaumarchais, whose career is not without points
of resemblance to Sheridan's. The 'Rivals' and the 'Barber of Se-
ville' are among the few comedies of the eighteenth century which
will survive into the twentieth.
In gratitude to the actor who had played Sir Lucius O'Trigger,
Sheridan improvised the farce of St. Patrick's Day; or, The Scheming
Lieutenant'; brought out May 2d, 1775, and long since dropped out of
the list of acting plays. During the summer he wrote the book of a
comic opera, the 'Duenna,' for which his father-in-law Linley pre-
pared the score, and which was produced at Covent Garden Novem-
ber 21st, 1775,- making three new plays which the young dramatist
had brought out within the year.
The great actor, David Garrick, who had managed Drury Lane
Theatre with the utmost skill for many years, was now about to
retire. He owned half of the theatre, and this half he sold to Sheri-
dan and to some of Sheridan's friends; and a little later Sheridan
was able to buy the other half also, paying for it not in cash, but
by assuming mortgages and granting annuities. It was in the middle
of 1776 that David Garrick was succeeded in the management of
Drury Lane Theatre by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was then not
yet twenty-five years old.
The first new play of the new manager was only an old comedy
altered. A Trip to Scarborough,' acted February 24th, 1777, was a
deodorized version of Vanbrugh's 'Relapse'; rather better than most
of the revisions of old plays, and yet a disappointment to the play-
goers who were awaiting a new comedy. The new comedy came at
last in the spring, and those who had high expectations were not dis-
appointed. It was on May 8th, 1777, that the School for Scandal'
was acted for the first time, with immense success,- a success which
bids fair to endure yet another century and a quarter. With a stronger
dramatic framework than the 'Rivals,' and a slighter proportion of
broad farce, the 'School for Scandal' is as effective in the acting as
its predecessor, while it repays perusal far better.
When Garrick died, early in 1779, Sheridan wrote a 'Monody,' to
be recited at the theatre the incomparable actor had so long directed.
And in the fall of that year, on October 30th, 1779, he brought out
the brightest of farces and the best of burlesques, 'The Critic; or,
A Tragedy Rehearsed'; a delightful piece of theatrical humor,—
suggested by Buckingham's 'Rehearsal,' no doubt, but distinctly
superior. The 'Critic,' like the 'Rivals' and the School for Scandal,'
continues to be acted both in Great Britain and the United States.
## p. 13319 (#125) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13319
"
Sheridan's best plays have revealed a sturdy vitality, and a faculty of
readaptation to changing theatrical conditions. After the production
of the Critic,' Sheridan did not again appear before the public as
an original dramatist. Perhaps he was jealous of his reputation; and,
aware of the limit of his powers, he knew that he could not sur-
pass the School for Scandal. ' Just as Molière used to talk about his
'Homme de Cour,' which he had not begun when he died, so Sheridan
used to talk about a comedy to be called 'Affectation,' for which he
had done no more than jot down a few stray notes and suggestions.
Thereafter he confined himself to the outlining of plots for pan-
tomimes, and to improving the plays of other authors. Thus the
'Stranger' indubitably owed some of its former effectiveness in Eng-
lish to his adroit touch. Perhaps it was the success of the 'Stranger'
which led him to rework another of Kotzebue's plays into a rather
turgid melodrama with a high-patriotic flavor. This, Pizarro,' was
produced on May 24th, 1799; and it hit the temper of the time so
skillfully that it filled all the theatres in England for many months.
But long before this, Sheridan had entered into political life. He
took his seat in Parliament in 1780,- being then not yet thirty. His
first speech was a failure, as his first play had been.
But he per-
severed; and in time he became as completely master of the platform
as he was of the stage. He was a Whig; and when Fox and North
drove out Shelburne, Sheridan was Secretary of the Treasury: but
the Whigs went out in 1783. When Burke impeached Warren Hast-
ings, Sheridan was one of the managers of the prosecution; and in
the course of the proceedings he delivered two speeches, the recorded
effect of which was simply marvelous.
In 1792 Sheridan's wife died, and from that hour the fortune that
had waxed so swiftly waned as surely. He neglected the theatre for
politics, and his debts began to harass him. He married again in
1795; but it may be doubted whether this second marriage was not
a mistake. In 1809 Drury Lane was burnt to the ground; and Sher-
idan had rebuilt it at enormous cost only fifteen years before. This
fire ruined him. In 1812 he made his last speech in Parliament. In
1815 he suffered the indignity of arrest for debt. He died on July
7th, 1816.
Sheridan's indebtedness was found to be less than £5,000: that
it had not been paid long before was due to his procrastination, his
carelessness, and his total lack of business training. He seems to
have allowed himself to be swindled right and left. In other ways
also is his character not easy to apprehend aright. In his political
career he unhesitatingly sacrificed place to patriotism; and during the
mutiny at the Nore he put party advantage behind him, and came
forward to urge the course of conduct best for the country as a whole.
## p. 13320 (#126) ##########################################
13320
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
In his private life he was not altogether circumspect; but he lived in
days when it was thought no disgrace for a statesman to be over-
taken with wine. In all things he was his own worst enemy.
It is as a writer of comedies that Sheridan claims admission into
this work; and here his position is impregnable. Of the four comic
dramatists of the Restoration, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Wycherley, and
Farquhar, only one, Congreve, was Sheridan's superior as a wit; and
Sheridan is the superior of every one of the four as a playwright, as
an artist in stage effect, as a master of the medium in which they
all of them worked. His only later rival is his fellow-Irishman,
Oliver Goldsmith: but of Goldsmith's two comedies, one, the 'Good-
Natured Man,' has always been a failure, when first acted and when-
ever a revival has been attempted; and the other, 'She Stoops to
Conquer,' delightful as it is, is what its hostile critics called it when
it was first seen, a farce,- - it has the arbitrary plot of a farce, though
its manner is the manner of comedy. Neither in the library nor in
the theatre does 'She Stoops to Conquer' withstand the comparison
with the School for Scandal'; and Sheridan has still to his credit
the 'Rivals' and the 'Critic. ' (It is true that Goldsmith has to his
credit the Vicar of Wakefield' and his poems and his essays; but it
is of his plays that a comparison is here made. )
Sheridan is not of course to be likened to Molière: the Frenchman
had a depth and a power to which the Irishman could not pretend.
But a comparison with Beaumarchais is fair enough, and it can be
drawn only in favor of Sheridan; for brilliant as the 'Marriage of
Figaro' is, it lacks the solid structure and the broad outlook of the
'School for Scandal. ' Both the French wit and the Irish are masters
of fence, and the dialogue of these comedies still scintillates as steel
crosses steel.
Neither of them put much heart into his plays; and
perhaps the School for Scandal' is even more artificial than the
'Marriage of Figaro,' but it is wholly free from the declamatory
shrillness which to-day mars the masterpiece of Beaumarchais.
It is curious that the British novelists have often taken up their
task in the maturity of middle age, and that the British dramatists
have often been young fellows just coming into man's estate. One
might say that Farquhar and Vanbrugh, Congreve and Sheridan, all
composed their comedies when they were only recently out of their
'teens. Lessing has told us that the young man just entering on the
world cannot possibly know it. He may be ingenious, he may be
clever, he may be brilliant,- but he is likely to lack depth and
breadth. Here is the weak spot in Sheridan's work. Dash he had,
and ardor, and dexterity, and wit; but when his work is compared
with the solid and more human plays of Molière, for example, its
relative superficiality is apparent. And yet superficiality is a harsh
P
-
-
## p. 13321 (#127) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13321
word, and perhaps misleading. What is not to be found in Sheridan's
comedies is essential richness of inspiration. Liveliness there is, and
dramaturgic skill, and comic invention, and animal spirits, and hearty
enjoyment: these are gifts to be prized. To seek for more in the
'Rivals' and the School for Scandal' is to be disappointed.
Brander Mattheers
MRS. MALAPROP'S VIEWS
From the Rivals'
The scene is Mrs. Malaprop's lodgings at Bath. Present, Lydia Languish.
Enter Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute.
MRS
RS. MALAPROP-There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliber-
ate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish
herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.
Lydia - Madam, I thought you once.
Mrs. Malaprop — You thought, miss! I don't know any busi-
ness you have to think at all: thought does not become a young
woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will
promise to forget this fellow; to illiterate him, I say, quite from
your memory.
Lydia - Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our
wills. It is not so easy to forget.
Mrs. Malaprop-But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on
earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm
sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had
never existed-and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me
tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young
➖➖
woman.
Sir Anthony-Why, sure she won't pretend to remember what
she's ordered not! Ay, this comes of her reading!
Lydia - What crime, madam, have I committed to be treated
thus ?
Mrs. Malaprop— Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from
the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But tell
me, will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a hus-
band of your friends' choosing?
## p. 13322 (#128) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13322
Lydia - Madam, I must tell you plainly that had I no pref-
erence for any one else, the choice you have made would be my
aversion.
Mrs. Malaprop-What business have you, miss, with prefer-
ence and aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you
ought to know that as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matri-
mony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your
poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor;
and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made? and when
it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what
tears I shed! But suppose we were going to give you another
choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?
Lydia - Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that
promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.
You are fit
Mrs. Malaprop-Take yourself to your room.
company for nothing but your own ill-humors.
Lydia - Willingly, ma'am—I cannot change for the worse.
[Exit.
Mrs. Malaprop―There's a little intricate hussy for you!
Sir Anthony-It is not to be wondered at, ma'am: all this
is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a
thousand daughters, by heaven I'd as soon have them taught
the black art as their alphabet!
Mrs. Malaprop-Nay, nay, Sir Anthony: you are an absolute
misanthropy.
Sir Anthony-In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed
your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! She
had a book in each hand; they were half-bound volumes with
marble covers! From that moment I guessed how full of duty
I should see her mistress!
Mrs. Malaprop-Those are vile places indeed!
Sir Anthony-Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an
evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge,―it blossoms through the
year! And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so
fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last.
Mrs. Malaprop-Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak la-
conically.
Sir Anthony-Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation now, what
would you have a woman know?
Mrs. Malaprop-Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no
means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I
## p. 13323 (#129) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13323
don't think so much learning becomes a young woman: for in-
stance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or
algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory
branches of learning; neither would it be necessary for her to
handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instru-
ments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send her at nine years old to
a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice.
Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts;
and as she grew up I would have her instructed in geometry,
that she might know something of the contagious countries: but
above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that
she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as
girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true
meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I
would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a super-
stitious article in it.
Sir Anthony-Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute the
point no further with you; though I must confess that you are
a truly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every third word
you say is on my side of the question. But, Mrs. Malaprop, to
the more important point in debate: you say you have no objec-
tion to my proposal?
Mrs. Malaprop — None, I assure you. I am under no positive
engagement with Mr. Acres; and as Lydia is so obstinate against
him, perhaps your son may have better success.
Sir Anthony-Well, madam, I will write for the boy directly.
He knows not a syllable of this yet, though I have for some
time had the proposal in my head. He is at present with his
regiment.
Mrs. Malaprop - We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony;
but I hope no objection on his side.
Sir Anthony-Objection! let him object if he dare! No, no,
Mrs. Malaprop, Jack knows that the least demur puts me in a
frenzy directly. My process was always very simple: in their
younger days, 'twas "Jack, do this"; if he demurred I knocked
him down, and if he grumbled at that I always sent him out of
the room.
Mrs. Malaprop-Ay, and the properest way, o' my con-
science! Nothing is so conciliating to young people as sever-
ity. Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and
## p. 13324 (#130) ##########################################
13324
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
prepare Lydia to receive your son's invocations; and I hope you
will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether
illegible.
Sir Anthony-Madam, I will handle the subject prudently.
Well, I must leave you; and let me beg you, Mrs. Malaprop, to
enforce this matter roundly to the girl. Take my advice — keep
a tight hand: if she rejects this proposal, clap her under lock and
key; and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her
dinner for three or four days, you can't conceive how she'd come
about.
[Exit.
Mrs. Malaprop - Well, at any rate I shall be glad to get her
from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered my par-
tiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger: sure, Lucy can't have betrayed
me! No, the girl is such a simpleton, I should have made her
confess it. [Calls. ] Lucy! Lucy! Had she been one of your
artificial ones, I should never have trusted her.
SIR LUCIUS DICTATES A CARTEL
From the Rivals'
The scene is Bob Acres's lodgings at Bath. Acres is discovered as his
servant shows in Sir Lucius.
SIR
IR LUCIUS-Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you.
Acres - My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands.
Sir Lucius-Pray, my friend, what has brought you so
suddenly to Bath?
Acres - Faith! I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and
find myself in a quagmire at last. In short, I have been very
ill used, Sir Lucius. I don't choose to mention names, but look
on me as on a very ill-used gentleman.
Sir Lucius - Pray, what is the case? I ask no names.
Acres - Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need be in
love with a young lady: her friends take my part-I follow her
to Bath-send word of my arrival; and receive answer that the
lady is to be otherwise disposed of. This, Sir Lucius, I call
being ill used.
Sir Lucius- Very ill, upon my conscience.
divine the cause of it?
Pray, can you
## p. 13325 (#131) ##########################################
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
13325
Acres - Why, there's the matter: she has another lover, one
Beverley, who, I am told, is now in Bath. Odds slanders and
lies! he must be at the bottom of it.
Sir Lucius - A rival in the case, is there? and you think he
has supplanted you unfairly?
Acres - Unfairly! to be sure he has. He never could have
done it fairly.
Sir Lucius-Then sure you know what is to be done!
Acres Not I, upon my soul.
Sir Lucius-We wear no swords here, but you understand me.
Acres-What! fight him?
Sir Lucius-Ay, to be sure: what can I mean else?
Acres But he has given me no provocation.
Sir Lucius-Now, I think he has given you the greatest prov-
ocation in the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offense
against another than to fall in love with the same woman? Oh,
by my soul! it is the most unpardonable breach of friendship.
Acres - Breach of friendship! ay, ay; but I have no acquaint-
ance with this man. I never saw him in my life.
Sir Lucius-That's no argument at all: he has the less right
then to take such a liberty.
Acres Gad, that's true. I grow full of anger, Sir Lucius!
I fire apace!
Odds hilts and blades! I find a man may have a
deal of valor in him and not know it! But couldn't I contrive
to have a little right on my side?
Sir Lucius - What the devil signifies right, when your honor
is concerned? Do you think Achilles, or my little Alexander the
Great, ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul: they
drew their broadswords, and left the lazy sons of peace to settle
the justice of it.
――――
-
Acres - Your words are a grenadier's march to my heart: I
believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of
valor rising, as it were,-
a kind of courage, as I may say. Odds
flints, pans, and triggers! I'll challenge him directly.
Sir Lucius - Ah, my little friend, if I had Blunderbuss Hall
here, I could show you a range of ancestry in the O'Trigger
line that would furnish the new room, every one of whom had
killed his man! For though the mansion-house and dirty acres
have slipped through my fingers, I thank heaven our honor and
the family pictures are as fresh as ever.
――――
## p. 13326 (#132) ##########################################
13326
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
Acres O Sir Lucius! I have had ancestors too! every man
of 'em colonel or captain in the militia! Odds balls and barrels!
say no more I'm braced for it. The thunder of your words
has soured the milk of human kindness in my breast.
as the man in the play says, I could do such deeds.
Zounds!
Sir Lucius-Come, come, there must be no passion at all in
the case: these things should always be done civilly.
Acres-I must be in a passion, Sir Lucius,-I must be in a
rage. Dear Sir Lucius, let me be in a rage, if you love me.
Come, here's pen and paper. [Sits down to write. ] I would the
ink were red! Indite, I say indite! How shall I begin? Odds
bullets and blades! I'll write a good bold hand, however.
Sir Lucius-Pray compose yourself.
Acres -Come, now, shall I begin with an oath? Do, Sir
Lucius, let me begin with a "damme. "
Sir Lucius-Pho! pho! do the thing decently, and like a
Christian. Begin now. "Sir-»
Acres-That's too civil by half.
>>>
Sir Lucius-"To prevent the confusion that might arise -
Acres - Well-
---
Sir Lucius- "From our both addressing the same lady-
Acres-Ay, there's the reason same lady": well-
Sir Lucius "I shall expect the honor of your company —
Acres - Zounds! I'm not asking him to dinner.
Sir Lucius - Pray be easy.
