Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Richard Sheridan (1751-1816). Painting by Karl Anton Hickel (1745-1798), 1793. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The Right Honourable  Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan
Treasurer of the Navy
In office 1806–1807
Prime Minister	William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville
Preceded by	George Canning
Succeeded by	George Rose
Personal details
Born	October 30, 1751(1751-Template:MONTHNUMBER-30) Dublin, Ireland
Died	July 7, 1816(1816-Template:MONTHNUMBER-07) (aged 64) 14 Savile Row, London, England
Political party	Whig
Profession	Politician, theatre manager, playwright

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (baptized Nov. 4, 1751 - July 7, 1816) was an Irish-born English poet and playwright, theatre impresario, and Whig politician.

Life

Overview

Sheridan, born in Dublin, the son of an actor, was educated at Harrow. In 1772 he eloped with Miss Linley, a famous singer, went with her to France, fought 2 duels, and married her in 1773. Sheridan has a reputation of the highest in 2 distinct walks, those of the dramatist and the Parliamentary orator. By his 3 great comedies, [The Rivals (1775), The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779), he raised himself to the 1st place among the writers of the comedy of manners; and by his speeches, specially those in support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, he has a position among the greatest of Parliamentary oratdors. Unfortunately he had little turn for business, and too great a love of pleasure and conviviality, which led to lifelong financial embarrassment, completed by the destruction by fire of Drury Lane Theatre, of which he had become proprietor. As a politician Sheridan supported the Whig party, and held the offices of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Secretary to the Treasury, and Treasurer of the Navy. He was also confidential adviser to George IV when Prince of Wales, but like everybody else who had to do with him suffered from the ingratitude of "the first gentleman in Europe." The accounts long prevalent of the poverty and misery of his last years have been shown to be greatly exaggerated, though he was in reduced circumstances. As a dramatist Sheridan shines in the construction of amusing situations, and in a sparkling flow of witty dialogue which never flags. His only other play was Pizarro (1799), a patriotic melodrama.

He was the long-time owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. For 32 years he was also a Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford (1780-1806), Westminster (1806-1807) and Ilchester (1807-1812).

Youth and education

Sherican, 3rd son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan, was born in Dublin on the 30th of October 1751.

There is a story, discredited by Mr Fraser Rae, that Mrs Sheridan on placing her sons with their 1st schoolmaster, Samuel Whyte, said that she had been the only instructor of her children (including Richard) hitherto, and that they would exercise the schoolmaster in the quality of patience, “for twe such impenetrable dunces she had never met with.” Richard Brinsley was then aged 7.

At the age of 11 he was sent to Harrow School. Sheridan was extremely popular at school, winning somehow, Dr Parr confesses, “the esteem and even admiration of all his schoolfellows”; and he acquired, according to the same authority, more learning than he is usually given credit for.

He left Harrow at the age of 17, and was placed under the care of a tutor. He was also trained by his father daily in elocution, and put through a course of English reading. He had fencing and riding lessons at Angelo's.

Young adulthood and marriage

After leaving Harrow he kept up a correspondence with a school friend who had gone to Oxford. With this youth, N.B. Halhed, he concocted various literary plans, and between them they actually executed and published (1771) metrical translations of Aristaenetus.

In conjunction with Halhed he wrote a farce entitled Jupiter, which was refused by both Garrick and Foote and remained in MS., but is of interest as containing the same device of a rehearsal which was afterwards worked out with such brilliant effect in The Critic. Some of the dialogue is very much in Sheridan's mature manner.

Extracts given from papers written in the 7 years between his leaving Harrow and the appearance of The Rivals - sketches of unhnished plays, poems, political letters and pamphlets - show that he was far from idle.

The family's move to Bath in 1770-1771 led to an acquaintance with the daughters of composer Thomas Linley. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth Ann (born 1754), a girl of 16, the prima donna of her father's concerts, was exceedingly beautiful# and had many suitors, among them Sheridan, N.B. Halhed and a certain Major Mathews. To protect her from this man's persecutions, Sheridan, who seems to have acted at 1st only as a confidential friend, carried out the romantic plan of escorting Miss Linley, in March 1772, to a nunnery in France. Sheridan returned and fought 2 duels with Mathews, which made a considerable sensation at the time. The pair had gone through the ceremony of marriage in the course of their flight, but Sheridan kept the marriage secret, and was sternly denied access to Miss Linley by her father, who did not consider him an eligible suitor.

Sheridan was sent to Waltham Abbey, in Essex, to continue his studies, especially in mathematics. He was entered at the Middle Temple on 6 April 1773, and a week later he was openly married to Miss Linley. V His daring start in life after this happy marriage showed a confidence in his genius which was justified by its success. Although he had no income, and no capital beyond a few thousand pounds brought by his wife, he took a house in Orchard Street, Portman Square, furnished it “in the most costly style,” and proceeded to return on something like an equal footing the hospitalities of the fashionable world.

Early comedies

His 1st comedy, The Rivals, was produced at Covent Garden on 17 January 1775. It is said to have been not so favorably received on its 1st night, owing to its length and to the bad playing of the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger. But the defects were remedied before the 2nd performance, which was deferred to January 28, and the piece at once took that place on the stage which it has never lost.

His 2nd piece, St. Patrick's Day; or, The scheming lieutenant, a lively farce, was written for the benefit performance (end of May 1775) of Lawrence Clinch, who had succeeded as Sir Lucius. In November 1775, with the assistance of his father-in-law, he produced the comic opera of The Duenna, which was played 75 times at Covent Garden during that season.

Theatre impresario

Sheridan now began to negotiate with Garrick for the purchase of his share of Drury Lane, and the bargain was, completed in June 1776. The sum paid by Sheridan and his partners, Thomas Linley and Dr Ford, for the half#sl1are was £35,000; of this Sheridan contributed £10,000. The money was raised on mortgage, Sheridan contributing only £1300 in cash. 2 years afterwards Sheridan and his friends bought the rest of the property for £35,000.

From the 1st the direction of the theatre would seem to have been mainly in the hands of Sheridan, who derived very material assistance from his wife. In February 1777 he produced his version of Vanbrugh's Relapse, under the title of A Trip to Scarborough. This is printed among Sheridan's works, but he has no more title to the authorship than Colley Cibber to that of Richard III. His chief task was to remove indecencies; he added very little to the dialogue.

Robert Baddeley (1733-1794) as Moses in The School for Scandal. Painting by Johann Zofanny (1733-1810), circa 1781. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The School for Scandal was produced on 8 May 1777. Mrs Abington, who had played Miss Hoyden in the Trip, played Lady Teazle, who may be regarded as a Miss Hoyden developed by 6 months' experience of marriage and town life. The lord Chamberlain refused to license the play, and was only persuaded on grounds of personal friendship with Sheridan to alter his decision.

In 1778 Sheridan wrote The Camp, which commented on the ongoing threat of a French invasion of Britain. The same year Sheridan's brother-in-law thomas Linley (the younger), a young composer who worked with him at Drury Lane, died in a boating accident.

Sheridan had a rivaly with his fellow playwright Richard Cumberland and included a parody of Cumberland in his play The Critic. Sheridan's farce, The Critic, was produced on 20 October 1779, The School for Scandal meantime continuing to draw larger houses than any other play every time it was put on the stage.

It seems that he had accumulated notes for another comedy to be called A jeclalioh, but his only dramatic composition during the remaining 36 years of his life was Pizarro, produced in 1799 - a traged in which he made liberal use of some of the arts ridiculed in the person of Mr Puff. He also revised for the stage Benjamin Thompson's translation, The Stranger, of Kotzebue's Menschehhass und Reue.

Member of Parliament

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In Uncorking Old Sherry (1805), James Gillray caricatured Sheridan as a bottle of sherry, uncorked by Pitt and bursting out with puns, invective, and fibs.

File:Britannia recover'd from a trance.jpg

Physical Air,—or—Britannia recover'd from a Trance;—also, the Patriotic Courage of Sherry Andrew; & a peep thro' the Fog (1803) by James Gillray, showing Sheridan as a Silenus-like and ragged Harlequin defending Henry Addington and Lord Hawkesbury on the Dover coast from the advancing French rowboats filled with French soldiers, led by Napoleon. Sheridan says: "Let 'em come! damn'me!!!—Where are the French Buggabo's? Single handed I'd beat forty of 'em!!! dam'me I'd pay 'em like Renter Shares, sconce off their half Crowns!!!—mulct them out of their Benefits, &c, come Drury Lane Slang over em!."

He entered parliament for Stafford in 1780, as the friend and ally of Charles James Fox. Apparently he owed his election for Stafford to substantial arguments. He is said to have paid the burgesses 5 guineas each for the honour of representing them, beside gifts in dinners and ale to the non-voting part of the community, for their interest and applause. His 1st speech in parliament was to defend himself against the charge of bribery, and was well received.

He spoke little for a time and chiefly on financial questions, but soon took a place among the best speakers in the House. The Continental Congress recognized his services in opposing the war in America by offering him a gift of £20,000 which, however, he refused. Under the wing of Fox he filled subordinate offices in the short-lived ministries of 1782 and 1783. He was under-secretary for foreign affairs in the Rockingham ministry, and secretary of the treasury in the Coalition ministry.

In debate he had the keenest of eyes for the Weak places in an opponent's argument, and the happy art of putting them in an irresistibly ludicrous light without losing his good temper or his presence of mind. In those heated days of parliamentary strife he was almost the only man of mark that was never called out, and yet he had no match in the weapon of ridicule.

Sheridan found his great opportunity in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. His speeches in that proceeding were by the unanimous acknowledgment of his contemporaries among the greatest delivered in that generation of great orators. The 1st was on 7 February 1787, on the charges brought against Hastings with regard to the begums or princesses of Oude. Sheridan spoke for more than 5 hours, and the effect of his oratory was such that it was unanimously agreed to adjourn and postpone the final decision till the House should be in a calmer mood.

Of this, and of his last great speech on the subject in 1794, only brief abstracts have been preserved; but with the 2nd, the 4 days' speech delivered in his capacity of manager of the trial, in Westminster Hall, on the occasion so brilliantly described by Macaulay, posterity has been more fortunate. Gurney's verbatim reports of the speeches on both sides at the trial were published at Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's instigation in 118 59, and from them we are able to form an idea of Sheridan's power as an orator. There are passages here and there of gaudy rhetoric, loose ornament and declamatory hyperbole; but the strong common sense, close argumentative force and masterly presentation of telling facts enable us to understand the impression produced by the speech at the time.

From the time of the break-up of the Whig party on the secession of Burke he was more or less an "independent member," and his isolation was complete after the death of Fox.

When Burke denounced the French Revolution, Sheridan joined with Fox in vindicating the principle of non-intervention. He maintained that the French people should be allowed to settle their constitution and manage their affairs in their own way. But when the republic was succeeded by the empire, and it became apparent that France under Napoleon would interfere with the affairs of its neighbors, he employed his eloquence in denouncing Napoleon and urging the prosecution of the war. During the invasion scare of 1803 Sheridan penned an Address to the People:

THEY, by a strange Frenzy driven, fight for Power, for Plunder, and extended Rule—WE, for our Country, our Altars, and our Homes.—THEY follow an ADVENTURER, whom they fear—and obey a Power which they hate—WE serve a Monarch whom we love—a God whom we adore...They call on us to barter all of Good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate Chance of Something better which they promise.—Be our plain Answer this: The Throne WE honour is the PEOPLE'S CHOICE—the Laws we reverence are our brave Fathers' Legacy—the Faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of Charity with all Mankind, and die with Hope of Bliss beyond the Grave. Tell your Invaders this; and tell them too, we seek no Change; and, least of all, such Change as they would bring us.

He delivered a celebrated speech in support of strong measures against the mutineers at the Nore. He was 1 of the few members who actively opposed the union of the English and Irish parliaments.

When the Whigs came into power in 1806 Sheridan was appointed treasurer of the navy, and became a member of the Privy Council; After Fox's death he succeeded his chief in the representation of Westminster, and aspired to succeed him as leader of the party, but this claim was not allowed, and thenceforward Sheridan fought for his own hand.

On 24 February 1809 (despite the much vaunted fire safety precautions of 1794) the theatre burned down. On being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching the fire, Sheridan was famously reported to have said: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside."

When the prince became regent in 1811 Sheridan's private influence with him helped to exclude the Whigs from power. Throughout his parliamentary career Sheridan was a boon companion of the prince, and his champion in parliament in some dubious matters of payment of debts. But he always resented any imputation that he was the prince's confidential adviser or mouthpiece.

A certain proud and sensitive independence was a marked feature in Sheridan's parliamentary career. After a coolness arose between him and his Whig allies he refused a place for his son from the government, lest there should be any suspicion in the public mind that his support had been bought.

Last years

His last years were harassed by debt and disappointment. He sat in parliament for Westminster in 1806-1807. At the general election of 1807 he stood again for Westminster and was defeated, but was returned as member for Ilchester at the expense apparently of the prince of Wales. In 1812 he failed to secure a seat at Stafford. He could not raise money enough to buy the seat. He had quarrelled with the Prince Regent, and seems to have had none but obscure friends to stand by him.

As a member of parliament he had been safe against arrest for debt, but now that this protection was lost his creditors closed in upon him, and the history of his life from this time till his death in 1816 is one of the most painful passages in the biography of great men. It may be regarded as certain, however, that the description of the utter destitution and misery of the last weeks of his life given in the Croker Papers (i. pp. 288-312, ed. L. ]. Jennings) is untrue.

In any attempt to judge of Sheridan as he was apart from his works, it is necessary to make considerable deductions from the mass of floating anecdotes that have gathered round his name. The real Sheridan was not a pattern of decorous respectability, but we may fairly believe that he was very far from being the Sheridan of vulgar legend. Against the stories about his reckless management of his affairs we must set the broad facts that he had no source of income but Drury Lane theatre, that he bore from it for 30 years all the expenses of a fashionable life, and that the theatre was twice rebuilt during his proprietorship, the 1st time (1791) on account of its having been pronounced unsafe, and the 2nd (1809) after a disastrous fire. Enough was lost in this way to account 10 times over for all his debts.

The records of his wild bets in the betting book of Brooks's Club date from the years after the loss, in 1792, of his 1st wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. He married again in 1795, his 2nd wife being Esther Jane, daughter of Newton Ogle, dean of Winchester. The reminiscences of his son's tutor, Mr Smyth, show anxious and fidgetty family habits, curiously at variance with the accepted tradition of his imperturbable recklessness.

He died on 7 July 1816, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Writing

There are tales of the haste with which the conclusion of The School for Scandal was written, of a stratagem by which the last act was got out of him by the anxious company, and of the fervent "Amen" written on the last page of the copy by the prompter, in response to the author's "Finished at last, thank God!" But, although the conception was thus hurriedly completed, we know from Sheridan's sister that the idea of a “scandalous college ” had occurred to him 5 years before in connection with his own experiences at Bath. His difficulty 'was to find a story sufficiently dramatic in its incidents to form a subject for the machinations of the character-slayers. He seems to have tried more than 1 plot, and in the end to have desperately forced 2 separate conceptions together. The dialogue is so brilliant throughout, and the auction scene and the screen scene so effective, that the construction of the comedy meets with little criticism. The School for Scandal, though it has not the unity of The Rivals, nor the same wealth of broadly humorous incident, is universally regarded as Sheridan's masterpiece. He might have settled the doubts and worries of authorship with Puff's reflection: “What is the use of a good plot except to bring in good things?”

In The Critic the laughable infirmities of all classes connected with the stage - authors, actors, patrons and audience - are touched off with the lightest of hands; the fun is directed, not at individuals, but at absurdities that grow out of the circumstances of the stage as naturally and inevitably as weeds in a garden.

Recognition

Sheridan was buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. A black marble gravestone marks the site. His funeral was attended by dukes, earls, lords, viscounts, the Lord Mayor of London, and other notables.

In 1825 Irish writer Thomas Moore published a 2-volume sympathetic biography Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan which became a major influence on subsequent perceptions of him.

In popular culture

• In The Duchess (2008) film, a biography of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Sheridan is played by Aidan McArdle and The School for Scandal is performed in the movie. Sheridan is played by Barry Stanton in the Madness of King George (1994)
• In the Yes, Prime Minister episode 'The Patron of the Arts', two of Sheridan's plays are named as ones the prime minister could not see: 'The Rivals', "there were too many cabinet ministers after his job", and 'The School for Scandal', "well, not after the education secretary had been found in bed with a married primary school headmistress". Later, the same prime minister being asked to name a famous English playwright other than Shakespeare says "Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw" and is told, "they were all Irish"
• In the Blackadder III episode 'Amy and Amiability', Blackadder, dressed in a black mask and cape, is asked if he intends to become a highwayman and replies sarcastically "No, I'm auditioning for the part of Arnold the Bat in Sheridan's new comedy."
• The very first sentence of Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" is "Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814" ( which includes two factual mistakes: Sheridan actually lived in No. 14 and died in 1816). Evidently, Verne assumed as a matter of course that a French readership more than half a century later would know who Sheridan was and would need no further explanation.
• Chris Humphreys has used the character of Jack Absolute from The Rivals as a basis for his books The Blooding of Jack Absolute, Absolute Honour and Jack Absolute. These are published under the name C. C. Humphreys.

Plays

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Programme cover for 1887 revival of The Rivals

• The Rivals (first acted 17 January 1775)
• St Patrick's Day (first acted 2 May 1775)
• The Duenna (first acted 21 November 1775)
• A Trip to Scarborough (first acted 24 February 1777)
• The School for Scandal (first acted 8 May 1777)
• The Camp (first acted 15 October 1778)
• The Critic (first acted 30 October 1779)
• The Glorious First of June (first acted 2 July 1794)
• Pizarro (first acted 24 May 1799; with incidental music by Jan Ladislav Dussek)

He also wrote a selection of poems, and of political speeches for his time in parliament.

See also

Richard Brimsley Sheridan - Had I Heart For Falsehood Framed

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Sheridan, Richard Brinsley". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 845-846. . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 28, 2018.
• Frank J. Klingberg and Sigurd B. Hustvedt (eds.), The Warning Drum. The British Home Front Faces Napoleon. Broadsides of 1803 (University of California Press, 1944).
• Arnold-Baker, Charles. The Companion to British History. Longcross Press, 1996.

External links

Poems

• Selected Poetry of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) at Representative Poetry Online.
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan at the Poetry Foundation
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan at PoemHunter (4 poems).

Books

• Works by Richard Brinsley Sheridan at Project Gutenberg

About

• Richard Brinsley Sheridan at NNDB
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan at Spartacus Educational
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan at TheatreHistory.com
• Sheridan, Richard Brinsley in the Dictionary of National Biography
• RBSheridan.co.uk Official website - Information about Sheridan's life and works, with a comprehensive bibliography.
• Full text of Thomas Moore's Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honorable Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Vol. 1, Vol. 2.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at "Sheridan"

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