Thomas Sheridan (1719-88)

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Bibliographical details
1ST EDN. (1784): The / Life / of the / Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, / Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, / by Thomas Sheridan, MA (London: Printed for C. Bathhurst, W. Strahan, B. Collins, J. F. and C. Rivington, L. Davis, W. Owen, J. Dodsley, T. Longman, R. Baldwin, T. Cadell, J. Nichols, T. Egerton, and W. Bent. MDCCLXXXIV [1784]). Contents [Vol. I, of which no second]: Dedication [to Sir George Savile]; Introduction; Life of Doctor Swift [n.p.; xx]. Sect. I: From his Birth to the Death of Sir William Temple. Sect. II: From the Death of Sir William Temple to the Time of Swift’s Introduction to Lord Oxford [27]. Sect. III: From his Introduction to Mr. Harley, to the Death of the Queen [63]. Sect. IV: A Review of his Conduction during his Connection with the Queen’s last Ministry [165]. Sect. V: From his Return to Ireland to his Death [210]. Sect. VI: Private Memoirs of Swift [283]; Sect. VII: Various anecdotes of Swift [395]. Sect. VIII: Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, written by himself [545]. His Will [557]. [Copy available at Internet Archive - online.] Reprint: Do. Vol. I [and only; facs. rep.] (Gale Ecco 2010), 598pp.

DUBLIN EDN. (1785): Do. (Dublin: Printed for Luke White, Dame-Street 1785). [xx], 489pp., [3; listed by De Burca - as infra]. See also 2nd edn. ([London:] J. F. & C. Rivington, L. Davis, J. Dodsley ... et al. MDCCLXXXVII [1787])

2nd Edn. (1787)
The / Life / of the / Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, / Dean of St. Patrick’s Dublin, by Thomas Sheridan, AM / THE SECOND EDITION (London: Printed for C. Bathurst, W. Strahan, B. Collins, J. F. & C. Rivington, L. Davis, W. Owen, J. Dodsley, T. Longman, R. Baldwin, T. Cadell, J. Nichols, T. Egerton, and W. Bent. MDCCLXXXIV [1784]). Contents of the First Volume [of which no second]: Dedication [ to Sir George Savile]; Introduction; Life of Doctor Swift [n.p.; xx]. Sect. I: From his Birth to the Death of Sir William Temple [n.p.]. Sect. II: From the Death of Sir William Temple to the Time of Swift’s Introduction to Lord Oxford [27]. Sect. III: From his Introduction to Mr. Harley, to the Death of the Queen [55]. Sect. IV: A Review of his Conduction during his Connection with the Queen’s last Ministry [144]. Sect. V: From his Return to Ireland to his Death [182]. Sect. VI: Private Memoirs of Swift [244]; Sect. VII: Various anecdotes of Swift [385]. Sect. VIII: Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, written by himself [468]. His Will [479].

[ See extracts under Quotations - as infra. ]

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Commentary
Faulkner’s Dublin Journal (8-11 Feb. 1777): ‘Deserter: Skirmish - Mr. Ryder, Henry - Mr. Webster, [R]uffet - Mr W / [sic] der, Simkin - Mr. O’Keeffe, Flint - Mr. Remington, Joan - Mrs Thompson, Louisa - Miss Potter. Between the Play and the Farce, Mr. Sheridan will recite (for that night only) Dryden’s celebrated Ode on the Power of Music - Tickets to be had at Mr. Faulkner’s in Parliament-street, and Places for the Boxes to be taken of Mr. Cullen at the Theatre, between the Hours of Eleven and One. - N.B. The house will be illminated by Wax.’ (From [front-page] photo-copy supplied by Robert West.)

Robert Hitchcock gives an account of Garrick’s reception in Dublin by Sheridan, in 1745, ‘On his landing at Dublin, he was met by Mr Sheridan, who offered to fulfil his promise, of sharing the profits and losses. Though nothing could be fairer than this proposal, yet Mr. Garrick insisted on a stipulated sum for performing during the winter. The other objected to the demand, and persisted in his first offer, which, as he justly observed, was the most reasonable, for then Mr Garrick would receive as much money as he brought [into the playhouse], and others would not be losers. In the other case he might perhaps be the only gainer. After some little dispute, which Mr Sheridan decided, by taking out his watch, and insisting upon an answer in five minutes, Mr. Garrick submitted, and the affair terminated in the most amicable manner. (Historical View of the Irish Stage, quoted in Janet Dunbar, Peg Woffington, 1968, p.131.)

Jonah Barrington’s Personal Sketches (1827-32) include memoirs of Sheridan, viz.: ‘I remember [...] seeing old Mr Sheridan perform the part of Cato at one of the Dublin theatres; I do not recollect which, but I well recollect his dress, which consisted of bright armour under a fine laced scarlet cloak, and surmounted by a huge, white, bushy, well-powdered wig (like Dr Johnson’s) over which was stuck his helmet. I wondered much how he could kill himself without stripping off the armour before he performed the operation! I also recollect him particularly (even as before my eyes now) playing Alexander the Great, and throwing the javelin at Clytus, whom happening to miss, he hit the cupbearer, then played by one of the hack performers, Mr Jemmy Fotterel [...] ‘immediately [...] on being struck, he reeled, staggered, and fell very naturally, considering that it was his first death.’ (Extract in Frank O’Connor, ed., Book of Ireland, 1979 ed., pp.278-79.)

G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman (1937) gives an account of Thomas Sheridan, Captain O’Blunder or the Brave Irishman (1738); ‘frequently reprinted and a favourite in Dublin, it also became the legend on inn-signs. It is a one-act play, the plot ultimately from Molière’s Monsieur de Porceaugnac, but reflected also in Charles Shadwell’s The Plotting Lovers. Lucy, daughter of Tradewell, is being wooed by Cheatwell, but also by Capt. O’Blunder, arriving from Dublin with his manservant Sergeant Terence; the Capt. is lured into a madhouse, thinking it a private residence, by Cheatwell, and examined by two doctors, on whom he turns the tables; when Tradewell tests Cheatwell and a Frenchman, Monsieur Ragout, with the pretence that he is bankrupt, the Capt. carries off Lucy.’ (p.197.) Capt. O’Blunder is a good-natured giant, full of patriotism for his native place, Ballymacushlane, near Ballyshans Duff [viz., Ballyjames-duff Co. Monaghan], and malapropisms [of his sergeant], ‘He’s the best recruiting officer in all Ireland; he understands riding as well as no man alive and he was manured to it from his cradle [...] he has long lain under the computation [sic] of being a Papist.’ Also Lucy’s epilogue [as infra]. Qry: incls. erroneous remark, Cheatwell admits to having faked the rumour of shipwreck.

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Esther Sheldon, Thomas Sheridan of Smock Alley (Princeton UP 1967), which includes ‘Smock Alley Calendar’ for his years of management at the Theatre. The Introduction cites major documentary sources for Irish theatre such Benjamen Victor, Hitchcock, Bellamy [her putative autobiography], and La Tourette Stockwell [Stages & Customs, 2nd edn. 1968]; notice no reference to Clarke’s contemporary work. Note also Thomas Sheridan at the Bar of the House of Commons (1780), cited by Frederick Blackwood in prefatory account of the Sheridan’s in his edition of the Songs of Helen Blackwood, Lady Dufferin (1895).

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (Dublin IAP 1976; 1984), notes that Thomas Sheridan recorded [seeing] this notice in an egg-heckler’s window in Co. Waterford, ‘Si sumas ovum/Mol sit atque novum’ (see [C. H. Wilson,] Brookiana, 1, 5; Stanford, op. cit., p.27.) Stanford goes on to quote Sheridan’s View of the State of Education in Ireland (1769): ‘thus after the drudgery of so many years, goaded on by the dread of punishment, in a constant course of disagreeable labour without any degree of pleasure to soften it, or hope of seeing an end to it, all that the young scholars have attained is, a poor smattering in two dead languages.’ (q.p.)

Joseph Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (Amsterdam 1986), The stage Irishman had become so stratified [i.e. petrified] that anti-stage Irishmen could be thought of. Captain O’Blunder is the first example. The Brave Irishman was performed in 1746 and first printed in 1754, largely from actors memories; an early version was acted in Dublin in 1737, with the title The Honest Irishman. O’Blunder is equipt with stage Irish signifiers, but prevails through courage and humour. He forces a stage-Frenchman to eat a potato, much as Fluellen forces Pistol to eat a leek; he is made out to be fond of Gaelic and eager to meet other Gaelic speakers. [131] Sheridan is concerned with the fortunes of his Irishman in England, who becomes involved in a rivalry with Cheatwell for the hand of his fiancée Lucy. A mixture of naive honesty and irascible courage, he is handed over by Cheatwell as a madman to two doctors whom he believes to be inn-keepers. Leerssen comments, ‘the question of imputed insanity sums up Sheridan’s treatment of the confrontation of Irish and English nationality, the madness that the Englishman imputes to the Irishman and that he sees confirmed in each national and personal peculiarity deviating from English pre-expectations, is in the end shown to lie in the misunderstanding between the parties rather than within either of the parties concerned.’ (p.132.)

Joseph [Joep] Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth Century [Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature], Vol 22. (John Benjamins Pub. Co., Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1986).

Alan Bliss, ed., Dialogue in Hybernian Stile Between A & B & Irish Eloquence by Jonathan Swift [Irish Writings from the Age of Swift, No. 6] (Dublin: Cadenus Press 1977): ‘For information about pronunciation we have to turn to Thomas Sheridan, the son of Swift's friend, who some fifty years later prefixed to his Dictionary a set of “Rules to be observed by the Natives of Ireland in order to attain a just Pronunciation of English.” These rules are directed explicitly to the “well-educated natives”, who must presumably correspond in some degree to Swift's planters. According to Sheridan, the Irish err mainly in the pronunciation of the vowels a and e. They pronounce patron and matron with the vowel of father, and balm, psalm, qualm, calm as if they were written bawm, psawm, quawm, cawm. They pronounce [58] the words tea, sea, please as if they were spelt tay, say, plays, and deceit, receive as if they were written desate, resave; in trying to avoid this latter error they sometimes pronounce prey, convey as if they were pree, convee. As well as these general rules, Sheridan also gives a list of individual words liable to mispronunciation; some of these, too, could be reduced to rule, as for instance cold, bold pronounced cowld, bowld. It so happens that none of the words specifically adduced by Sheridan appears in DHS [Dialogue in Hybernian Style] or IE [Irish Eloquence], and very few of the words covered by the general rules, so that Swift had little opportunity of indicating such pronunciations; but he could, of course, have introduced appropriate words if he had wished to bring pronunciation within his scope.’ (pp.58-59.) See Thomas Sheridan, A General Dictionary of the English Language ... to which is prefixed a Rhetorical Grammar, 1780, lxv-lxvi.

Robert Crawford, Devolving English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon 1992), notes that James Boswell first heard of Samuel Johnson from Thomas Sheridan, when the latter was lecturing in Scotland on the English language and public speaking. (Times Literary Supplement, 1 Jan 1993.)

Chris Morash, ‘A Night at the Theatre 2: Mahomet by Voltaire, Smock Alley, Sat. 2 March, 1754’, in A History of Irish Theatre, 1601-2000 (Cambridge UP 2002), pp.58-66: “If nothing else, the events of 2 March 1754 should remind us that the ways in which audiences make sense of plays cannot always be controlled, particularly at moments of political instability. The anger brewing in the Smock Alley pit on that evening had its roots in a confrontation that had taken place in the Irish Parliament on 17 December 1753, when a faction within the House of Commons, led by its Speaker, Henry Boyle, put on a show of strength by voting down what known as “the Money Bill”. the Bill would have allocated an Irish tresury surplus to the payment of the national debt of Great Britain. Although the Protestant landowners and merchants of what was known as the “Country Party” were all vociferous in their loyalty to the king, they objected to subsiding their English counterparts. And so, in what would become an increasingly common paradox, they found themselves in conflict with the king’s representative, the Duke of Dorset, who was Lord Lieutenant. [...] Thomas Sheridan was drawn into this political maelstrom by, as Benjamin Victor put it, “Wit and good company, which have destroyed the ablest and wisest Men from the Beginning of the World.” Liek all managers of the Theatre Royal before him, Sheridan was dependent upon the patronage of the Lord Lieutenant, in whose wke the fashionable world followed, trailing their financial dependants behind them. [...] the duke was a keen theatregoer. Capitalising on his good fortune, Sheridan founded (and funded) an elite private dining society, the Beefsteak Club, whose thirty members were Dorsest, his son Lord George Sackville, and serior parliamentarians from the Court Party who looked after Dublin Castle’s interests in Parliament. [...]

Further: Morash Proceeds to speak of Peg Woffington’s membership and the proroguing of Parliament on the 5th Feb., three days after the Mahomet opening night, when the audience showed disfavour towards Sheridan and Woffington by greeting their entrance in silence and wildy applauding West Digges when he gave his speech as Alcanor.] (pp.59-60; available at Google Books - online [excepting pp.62-63].)

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Quotations
The Brave Irishman (1738): Lucy’s epilogue: ‘For now I find they made me but a child / To tell me that the Irish were all wild. / My captain is as gentle as a dove / As innocent and quite as full of love. / Ye British Fair if ye would wed the TRUTH / You’ll only find it in the Irish YOUTH: / The Irish to our hearts have found a way / I ne’er believed it till I saw - the Key.’ (Quoted in G. C. Duggan, The Stage-Irishman, 1937.)

Note variant ending in FDA1 version: ‘The Irish to our Hearts have found the [sic] Way. / I ne’er believ’d it till I saw the - Key. / Our dearest Secret best such Youth Rewards, / Who finds the Keyhole quick, and hit so true the Wards.’

The Brave Irishman (Captain O’Blunder:) ‘Well, you scoundrels, you sons of whores, did you never see an Irish shentleman before?’ (Duggan, The Stage Irishman, p.291; quoted in Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics, Granta 2000, p.144.)

Defending Ireland: ‘If it passed that day, a deep wound would instantly be given to the confidence of Ireland in Great Britain; if adapted rashly by the Irish Parliament, a decisive blow would be struck, and affection and good faith between the two countries be banished forever.’ (Legislative Independence of Ireland Vindicated, 1790, p.17).

The Life of Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s Dublin (London: C. Bathurst, et al., MDCCLXXXIV [1784])

DETUR DIGNISSIMO: I here prefent the World with the Life of Dr. Swift: a man, whofe original genius and uncommon talents, have raifed him, in the general eftimation, above all the Writers of the age. But, from causes to be hereafter explained, his character as a man, has hithferto been very problematical; nor shal I find it easy, notwithftanding the moft convincing proofs, to perfuade mankind, that one who flourished in the beginning of this century, in times of great corruption, fhould afford in himfelf a pattern of fuch perfect virtue, as was rarely to be found in the annals of the ancient Republic of Rome, when virtue was the mode. Yet if it can be shewn that even at this day, when corruption feems to have arrived at its utmost pitch, when proftitution is openly avowed, and public fpirit turned into a jeft: if in fuch times as these, in fæce Romuli, there lives a man fully equal to Swift , in all the moral virtues attributed tp him; the improbability of the exiftence of fuch a charadter at a former period, will be much leffened. In the following hiftory SWIFT has been represented as a man of the moft difinterefted principles, regardlefs of felf, and conftantly employed in doing good to others. In acts of charity and liberality, in proportion to his means, perhaps without an equal in his days. A warm champion in the caufe of liberty, and fupport of the Englifh Conftitution. [p] A firm Patriot, with withftanding all attempts againft his country, either by oppreffion, or corruption; and indefatigable in pointing out, and encouraging the means to render her state more flouifhing. Of incorruptible integrity, inviolable truth, and fteadinefs in friendfhip. Utterly free from vice, and living in the constant discharge of all Moral and Chriftian duties. If, in thefe times, there fhould be found a man refembling him in all thefe points, it is fit the memorial of him, together with that of his immortal compeer, fhould handed down to lateft pofterity: and that fuch a one does exift, will be acknowledged by all who have ever heard the universally revered name of Sir GEORGE SAVILE. To him therefore is the following Life of a congenial Patriot inscribed by its Author; who has long admired his character, and been well-acquainted with his worth, though a stranger to his person.

POSTSCRIPT: The above was committed to the Press some weeks before the much-lamented death of the excellent man, to whom it was addressed; but the publication has been by some accidents deferred ‘till now. That the author has no interested view in his choice of patron (though he must ever regret the occasion) he has now an opportunity of shewing, by letting the above Dedication remain in it’s [sic] original state, and thus consecrating to the memory of the dead, that tribute of praise, so justly due to the living.

INTRODUCTION

[on Orrery’s Life of Swift:] The cruel manner in which he has treated the memory of his friend Swift, as his Lordship in the course of the work often affects to call him, had something so surprising in it, that people were at a loss to account for it, except by supposing it to proceed from some uncommon degree of malevolence in his Lordship’s nature. But though he cannot be wholly cleared from an imputation of that sort, yet I am persuaded that his chief motive to it was not so black a lie. His father had, in his will, bequeathed his library from him, and this circumstance made the world conclude that he looked upon his son as a blockhead. This stung the young man to the quick; and we may see how deep an impression it made on him, by the account he gives of it in one of his letters to his son. it seems to have been the chief object of his life afterwards, to wipe away this stigma. [...] as Swift was the last man in the world to talk about himself, his Lordship’s acquaintance with him furnished him with no material of that sort, he therefore had recourse to common fame, which, as I have before shewn, had always been busy in calumniating that great man; and with he cruel industry he collected and revived all the reports which had formerly been spread to his disadvantage [...] the Work had a rapid sale [..] The Whigs were then a great majority of the nation, and in possession of all the power [...] They had always entertrained an implacable hatred of Swift, as the great champion of the other side [...] To these and other causes, was owing the favourable reception of this book met with; which, in itself, contains little that could be approved of by men of true taste. [...] Not long after the publication of this Work, there came out an Answer to it, under the title of “Observations on Lord Orrery’s Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift, afterwards known to be written by Mr. Delany: who, from an early and long intimacy with the Dean, was able to refute most of the facts, upon which his Lordship grounded his observations, by producing incontrovertible proofs to the contrary. Yet, even though this book was written with great spirit, and carried the evidence of truth with it; as it was an anonymous publication, it was little attended to except by those who wished well to the memory of the Dean. [...] But whatever favourable reception this book [Orrery’s] met with in England, never did I know such a universal indignation as, was excited in all ranks of people, by the publication of it in Ireland. They were the only proper judges of his character, who had an opportunity of knowing his conduct, during a residence of so many years. If they admired him for his genius, they almost adored him for his virtues. In his public capacity, he was one of the truest Patriots that ever lived; and for the many important services he did his country, he was hailed by the general voice pater patria. In his private life, of the strictest morals; and in the discharge of his clerical duties, of exemplary piety. His charities were boundless, and the whole business of his life was, doing good. [...] Delany’s Answer was followed by another from Deane Swift, Esq. As it came from a near relation of the Dean’s, it, at first, excirted some expectation; which was soon succeeded by disappointment, and the Work consigned to oblivion. Where let it rest. On the publication of a new edition of Swift’s Works, the proprietors applied to Dr. Hawkesworth to write his Life. He was an Author of no small eminence; a man of clear judgement, and great candour. He quickly discerned the truth from the falsehood; wiped away many of the aspersions that had been thrown on Swift’s character; and placed it, so far as he went, in its proper light. But as he had no new material of his own, and was confined to such as were contained in former publications, the view he has given of his life is very imperfect; many of the most important articles are omitted, and others still in a very doubtful state. The last writer who has given any account of Swift is Dr. Johnson. Who seems to have understood this task, rather from the necessity he was under of taking some notice of him in the course of his Biographical History of the English Poets, than from choice. He has prefented us only with a short abstract of what he found in Dr. Hawksworth [...] Accordingly he has produced little new on the subject, except some observations of his own, which are far from being favourable to the character of Swift, [...] It is much to be lamented, that a man of his great abilities, did not choose to follow his friend Hawkfworth in the paths of just and candid criticism, instead of associating himself with Lord Orrery to the band of true critics. Of which body he has shewn himself no unworthy member, not on this occasion only, but in the many severe strictures passed on the Lives and Writings of some of the greateft geniuses this country has produced; to the no small indignation of their feveral admirers; and to the great regret of the Doctor’s own. [...] These several publications, which place the Life and Character of Swift in very different, and often opposite points of light, have occasioned great diversity in the judgements formed of them by the world; according to the different degrees of prejudice, or candour, in their several readers. But as the sale of the first Essay on this subject, written by Lord Orrery, was infinitely superior to that of all the others put together,, the prepossessions in favour of the accounts delivered by him, have, for reasons already assigned, made too deep an impression [...] The portrait he has drawn of him, puts one in mind of certain paintings to be seen at the optician’s in St. Paul’s church-yard, where we behold some scattered and distorted features, covered with blotches of various colours; so that we cannot discover what it is intended to represent: ‘till, by the application of a cylindrical mirror, we are surprised too see start forth a face of the finest proportioned features, and most beautiful complexion. By such an application of the the mirror of truth I hope to shew Swift in a similar light. [...] I have long wished for leisure to set about this task, which a life spent in a variety of laborious occupations has prevented [...]

Text:

‘[...] We may judge of the greatness of his influence, from a passage in a letter of Lord Carteret to him, March 24 1732, “I know by experience how much the city of Dublin thinks itself under your protection; and how strictly they used to obey all orders fulminated from the sovereignty of St. Patrick’s”. And in the postscript to another of March 24 1736, he says, “When people ask me how I governed Ireland? I Say, that I pleased Dr. Swift.” But great as his popularity was, it was chiefly confined to the middling, and lower class of mankind. To the former of these his chief applications wre made, upon a maxim of his own, “That the little virtue left in the world, is chiefly to be found [273] among the middle rank of mankind, who are neither allured out of her paths by ambition, nor driven by poverty.” All of this class he secured almost to a man. And by the lower ranks, and rabble in general, he was reverenced almost to adoration. They were possessed with an enthusiastic love to his person, to protect which they would readily hazard their lives; yet on his appearance among them, they felt something like a religious awe, as if in the presence of one of a superior order of beings. At the very sight of him, when engaged in any riotous proceedings, they would instantly fly different ways, like scholboys at the approach of their master; and he has often been known, with a word, and lifting up his arm, to disperse mobs, that would have stood the brunt of the Civil and Military power united. As to the upper class of mankind, he looked upon them as incorrigible, and therefore had scarcely any intercourse with them. He says himself, that he had little personal acquaintance with any Lord Spirital or Temporal in the kingdom; and he considered the Members of the House of Commons in general, as a set of venal prostitutes, who sacrificed their principles, and betrayed theinterests of their country, to gratify their ambition or avarice. With these he lived in a continued state of warfare, makign them feel severely the sharp stings of his satyr; while the, on the other hand, dreading, and therefore hating him more than any man in the world, endeavoured to retaliate on him by every species of obloquy.’ [273].

(For further extracts, see RICORSO Library, “Authors” - as attached.)

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References
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, pp.506-21. This extensive biographical article gives many details of Sheridan’s theatrical career including the two riots in the Dublin Theatre Royal which respectively established his standing and ruined his career. Ryan also tells a story of Sheridan obtaining an act of Irish Parliament protecting him from arrest for debts of £1,600 earlier incurred before his removal from Ireland; having saved £800 he offers ten shillings in the pound to creditors; Faulkner the printer tells him he will not present his demand until Sheridan dines with him, whereupon he sends him away from the table with a sealed envelope containing his original bond for £200 and a receipt in full for a book debt of £100. (p.520.) [See full copy - as attached.]

[in Ryan, Biog. Hibernica - via index, or as attached ]

Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (London, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast & Edinburgh: Blackie & Son [copz1876-78]), gives circumstantial account in which the Mahomet riots involved a trial where the council for defendant said he had never seen a gentleman actor, to which Sheridan said, ‘Sir, I hope you see one now’; Sheridan procured the release of the main culprit; plans of 1757 to establish academy for youth launched with lectures on subject, rejected, followed by like orations before University of Oxford and Cambridge; granted pension on accession of George III to disgust of Johnson, who remarked, ‘What, give him a pension! Then I must give up mine!’; also compared Sheridan’s influence on language as ‘burning a farting candle at Dover to show light at Calais’’ left stage in 1776; manager Drury Lane, that 1776-79; cites Captain O’Blunder, farce, 1754; Coriolanus, 1755; Royal Subject, alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher; alteration of Romeo and Juliet; Lectures on Art of Reading; British Education; Address on the Stage; Difficulties of English; A General Dictionary, to which prefixed a ‘rhetorical grammar’; The Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift (London 1784), prefixed to his edn. of The Works of Swift [with Life], 18 vols. (1784); misc. articles. Read selects ‘The Perfection of Modern Works only Settled by Comparison’, from British Education’; ‘What of Efficiency in Our Education’ [‘Want of knowledge, and a quantity of false knowledge, far worse than none, are the necessary consequences in a country not studying and understanding the language which is most generally read’ ... ‘If our legislators have at any time acted wrong [sic], how could it be otherwise expected, when there is no care taken in their education to qualify them for the discharge of so important an office.’]

D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); gives extended account of Sheridan’s management at the Theatre Royal, and the riots that enduced him to quit.

Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (Tralee 1946), ... wrote The Brave Irishman, or Captain O’Blunder (Dublin 1738), printed 1748 [?ERR, cf. 1754 elsewhere passim], which shows the Irishman in a favourable light as carrying on through all his blunders; scenes based on Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac; according to Baker, Dram. Biog., it was a farce written while at college and rebuilt from the memories of the actors - with additions of their own; Sheridan also altered plays of Shakespeare.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (1949 Edn.), under William Henry Ireland, the forger, concerning his play Vortigern, Sheridan purchased it for Drury Lane theatre, and an overflowing house assembled on April 2, 1796, to sit in judgement on it. But its one representation was greeted with shouts of laughter. Samuel Ireland had it published in 1795 [EB, 1949, 12, 591]

Esther Sheldon, Thomas Sheridan of Smock Alley, Princeton UP 1967 , contains a full list of Sheridan’s works appears as a bibliographical appendix.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects The Brave Irishman, or Captain O’Blunder [1 act of 7 scenes] (Dublin n.d.) [532-41]; REMS at 505 [Chris Murray, ed., refers to Captain O’Blunder, as the second type of stage-Irishman, more socially elevated, a landowner, man of means, with military experience; the captain was ignorant of English standards and uses the language inefficiently and at times ridiculously, with Gaelicisms sprinkled through his speech; physically a big man; carried not only long sword but big cudgel or shillelagh; costume tended to be equally distinctive, an old red coat, a pinched hat, and a great pair of jackboots; this play told of the Irishman’s love adventures in London, where he was regarded as generous and loveable, &c. Murray goes on to deal with Sir Callaghan O’Brallaghan (Macklin); The Trueborn Irishman (Macklin, 1762); and Cumberland’s Major O’Flaherty in The West Indian (1771)]; introductory remarks, 532; one act romp, Irishman in London ultimately winning all the stakes; records exaggerated form some social and cultural attitudes obtaining between Ireland and England in the eighteenth century; demands to be seen as theatrical rather than literary; Capt. O’Blunder star part; from first production 1743, popular farce in London as well as Dublin [654, bibl. BI, Dublin n.d.]; 655, BIOG. WORKS, A Full Vindication ... &c (Dublin 1747); The Brave Irishman [revised by another hand] (Dublin n.d.) [a portion in Alan Bliss, ed. Spoken English in Ireland 1600-1740 (Cadenus, Monkstown, 1976); A Course of Lectures on Elocution (London: 1762); Lectures on the Art of Reading (2 pts. London 1775); The Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift (London 1784); A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (2nd edn. London 1789). Bibl., Esther Sheldon, Thomas Sheridan [of Smock Alley] (NJ: Princeton 1967).

A. N. Jeffares & Peter Van de Kamp, eds., Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century - An Annotated Anthology (Dublin/Oregon: Irish Academic Press 2006), select extracts from from Lectures on the Art of Reading [208]; Sheridan’s & Henderson’s Practical Method of Reading and Reciting English Poetry [211].

Hyland Books (Cat. 219; 1995) lists A Course of Lectures on Elocution together with Two Dissertations on Language and some Other Tracts Relative to those Subjects (London 1762), 4o, Do., another edn. (1798), 8o.

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Notes
Dr. Johnson : reputedly said, ‘Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken great pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature.’

Edmund Burke attended Smock Alley where the indignant manager and victim was Sheridan’s father - ‘a pitiful fellow’, Burke reckoned. (Corr., I, p.102; see Stanley Ayling, Edmund Burke, 1988, p.8.)

Portraits: Caricatures of Sheridan include W. Holland, The Rival Managers (June 1799), showing Pitt and Sheridan contesting the claims of their theatricals. Sheridan declares: ‘I will maintain it, Sir, - mind is the best conducted Theatre of the two. As to our Finances - ask Mr Reynard, my Property man! - and as to Loyalty, where you have touch’d with a pencil, I have made use of the Trowel, Sir!!’ Pitt urges that his play Union for Ever ‘would make your best Tragedies and Comedies appear mere Farce.’ (Pl. 8; inter. pp.44-45.) Sheridan is also a figure, with Lord Moira, in the oft-reprinted plate the Union Club by James Gillray, in which the whigs who had strongly opposed the Union, drown their sorrows. (See Nicholas Robinson, ‘Marriage against inclination: the union and caricature’, in Dáire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2001, plate 22 [p.144ff.]).

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