Birth and
Youth.

To these parents was born at 12 Dorset Street, Dublin, on the 30th of October, 1751, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Young Richard went to Harrow in 1762, where he showed no particular scholarship, but won the respect of teachers and companions. The years at Harrow were a period of happiness to Richard, if not of intellectual profit, but of considerable distress to the father, who in true Sheridan fashion buried himself even more deeply in debt. In 1766, while Richard was still at Harrow, the mother died. A little later, in 1769, the father brought together his four children in London and secured for the boys instruction in mathematics and classics.

of Career.

In the following year the family moved to Beginning Bath, then in a particular degree the most famous city of England. As a health resort, known throughout Europe, it attracted all classes,the sick who hoped for health from its waters, the indolent who wished to be amused, the people of society and dress who coveted a more than local distinction; and, finally, rascals of all sorts: thieves, fortune-hunters, gamblers, who naturally flocked to such a place for personal profit. Into this busy world the Sheridans entered, and Richard found at once his place.

Then began the career of the young man. First,

were rich plans, then numerous attempts, and, later, failures and success. There were early pieces, chiefly in collaboration with Nathaniel Halhed, a friend of Sheridan at Harrow; a farce, Ixion, written by Halhed and revised by Sheridan with the title, Jupiter; a periodical called Hernan's Miscellany, which never was published; a translation in verse of the Love Epistles of Aristonetus, - all of which are unimportant. In 1773, Sheridan, in quite romantic fashion, Marriage. married Elizabeth Linley, distinguished as an amateur singer and musician. Certain incidents of this episode find close correspondence to the play, The Rivals. After the marriage, the Sheridans lived happily in seclusion in a country cottage.

His Plays.

It was in January, 1775, that Sheridan's fame really began, for in that month was produced at Covent Garden his first comedy, The Rivals. Though the play on the first night met a rather unfortunate reception, on every subsequent occasion it has had nothing but success. In May of the same year appeared St. Patrick's Day, or The Scheming Lieutenant, a two-act farce, which the author wrote for a benefit performance. In the following November Sheridan produced, again at Covent Garden, a comic opera called Duenna. This comedy at once became popular, and with The Rivals secured national recognition for the author.

When Sheridan, in 1776, assumed the control of Drury Lane Theatre, he began his career as manager. This was the first of many brilliant schemes which the dramatist conceived in unbounded enthusiasm and which went to destruction in the hands of the rash and incompetent business man. For the new management Sheridan adopted Vanbrugh's Restoration Comedy, The Relapse, and produced it under the title, A Trip to Scarborough. This was followed in May by The School for Scandal, which at once took rank with The Rivals. Then came the last important play, The Critic, or A Tragedy Rehearsal. With the exception. of two subsequent adaptations, The Stranger (1798), Pizarro (1799), Sheridan's dramatic career was closed with the production of The Critic.

ment.

After this glorious triumph in the drama, In Parlia- with an increasing reputation for ready wit and genial amiability, Sheridan would seem to have reached the zenith of popularity. And yet his sun had only begun to rise. The Sheridans had always coveted distinction as orators. It was natural, then, that Richard Sheridan, the great and famous dramatist, should turn to Parliament for further glory. Fortune smiled upon his ambition and failed him not. In 1780 the dramatist and theatre-manager began the new career, even more rich, if possible, in splendid achievement. It was the beginning of a series of

triumphs as orator and statesman that scarcely finds its parallel in English history. From his first effort to his most brilliant speeches in the Warren Hastings trial, Sheridan showed himself the peer of Fox, Burke, and Pitt in a time full of great orators and great statesmen.

The testimony of Macaulay, in his Essay on Warren Hastings, and of men prominent in public life at that time, clearly reveals to us the tremendous impression made upon England by the most brilliant orator of the day. His first speech regarding Hastings (February 7, 1787) considered the Begums of Oude, one of the provinces of India, over which Hastings had had control. Contemporaries lavished words of praise upon this speech. Burke declared it "unequalled by anything." Pitt acknowledged that "an abler speech had, perhaps, never been delivered.” Sir Gilbert

Elliot, another member of Parliament, wrote to his wife on the day following Sheridan's speech: "This last night, though the House was up soon after one, and I was in bed before two, I have not slept one wink. Nothing whatever was the matter with me, except the impression of what had been passing still vibrating on my brain. . Sheridan spoke exactly five hours and a half, with such fluency and rapidity that I think his speech could not be read in double the time. You may imagine the quantity of matter

it contained. It was by many degrees the most excellent and astonishing performance I ever heard, and surpasses all I ever imagined possible in eloquence and ability. This is the universal sense of all who heard it. You will conceive how admirable it was when I tell you that he surpassed, I think, Pitt, Fox, and even Burke, in his finest and most brilliant orations. . . . The conclusion in which the whole force of the case was collected, and where his whole powers were employed to the utmost stretch, and indeed his own feelings wound to the utmost pitch, worked the House up into such a paroxysm of passionate enthusiasm on the subject and of admiration for him, that the moment he sat down there was a universal shout, nay even clapping for half a second; every man was on the floor, and all his friends throwing themselves on his neck in raptures of joy and exultation. This account is not at all exaggerated, and hardly does justice to, I dare say, the most remarkable scene ever exhibited, either there or in any other popular assembly." (See Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, first Earl of Minto, Vol. I, p. 123.)

In June, 1788, came Sheridan's speech in the actual trial of Hastings. In the opinion of many this second speech did not approach the success of the first, while others felt that their highest expectations were grati