Name of an Anglo-Irish family, made illustrious by the dramatist Richard Brinsley, but prominently connected with literature in more than one generation before and after his.
1. Thomas Sheridan (1687–1738), grandfather of the dramatist, was born at Cavan in 1687, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, taking his B.A. degree in 1711 and that of M.A. in 1714; he became B.D. in 1724 and D.D. in 1726. By a marriage with Elizabeth, heiress of Charles MacFadden, he restored to the Sheridan family Quilcagh House, which they had forfeited by their Jacobite sympathies. Thomas Sheridan is chiefly known as the favourite companion and confidant of Swift during his later residence in Ireland. His correspondence with Swift and his whimsical treatise on the “Art of Punning” 1 make perfectly clear from whom his grandson derived his high spirits and delight in practical joking. The “Art of Punning” might have been written by the author of The Critic. Swift had a high opinion of his scholarship, and that it was not contemptible is attested by a translation of the Satires of Persius, printed in Dublin in 1728. He also translated the Satires of Juvenal and the Philoctetes of Sophocles. When Swift came to Dublin as dean of St. Patrick’s, Sheridan was established there as a schoolmaster of very high repute, and the two men were soon close friends. Sheridan was his confidant in the affair of Drapier’s Letters; and it was at Quilcagh House that Gulliver’s Travels was prepared for the press. Through Swift’s influence he obtained a living near Cork, but damaged his prospects of further preferment by a feat of unlucky absence of mind. Having to preach at Cork on the anniversary of Queen Anne’s death he hurriedly chose a sermon with the text, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” and was at once struck off the list of chaplains to the lord-lieutenant and forbidden the castle. In spite of this mishap, for which the archdeacon of Cork made amends by the present of a lease worth £250 per annum, he “still remained,” said the earl of Orrery (Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift, 1751), “a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler and a wit,” the only person in whose genial presence Swift relaxed his habitual gloom. His latter days were not prosperous, probably owing to his having “a better knowledge of books than of men or of the value of money.” He offended Swift by fulfilling an old promise to tell the dean if he ever saw signs of avarice in him, and the friends parted in anger. He died in poverty on the 10th of October 1738.
The original source of information about Dr. Sheridan is his son’s Life of Swift (vol. i. pp. 369–395), where his scholarship is dwelt upon as much as his improvident conviviality and simple kindliness of nature.
2. Thomas Sheridan (1719–1788), son of the above, was born in Dublin in 1719. His father sent him to an English school (Westminster); but he was forced by stress of circumstances to return to Dublin and complete his education at Trinity College, where he took his B.A. degree in 1739. Then he went on the stage, and at once made a local reputation. He even wrote a play, Captain O’Blunder, or the Brave Irishman, which became a stock piece, though it was never printed. There is a tradition that on his first appearance in London he was set up as a rival to Garrick, and Moore countenances the idea that Garrick remained jealous of him to the end. For this tradition there is little foundation. Sheridan’s first appearance in London was at Covent Garden in March 1744, when, heralded in advance as the brilliant Irish comedian, he acted for three weeks in a succession of leading parts, Hamlet being the first. In October he appeared at Drury Lane, playing Horatio in Rowe’s Fair Penitent, and subsequently as Pierre in Otway’s Venice Preserved, and in Hamlet and other parts. On his return to Dublin he became manager of the Theatre Royal, and married Frances Chamberlaine. He was driven from Dublin as a result of his unpopular efforts to reform the theatre. A young man named Kelly had insulted the actresses, and when Sheridan interfered threatened him. A riot followed, in consequence of which Kelly was imprisoned, but he was released on Sheridan’s petition. This disturbance was followed in 1754 by another outbreak, when he refused to allow the actor, West Digges, to repeat a passage reflecting on the government in James Miller’s tragedy, Mahomet the Impostor. After two seasons in London he tried Dublin again, but two years more of unremunerative management induced him to leave for England in 1758. By this time he had conceived his scheme of British education, and it was to push this rather than his connection with the stage that he crossed St. George’s Channel. He lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, and was incorporated M.A. in both universities. But the scheme did not make way, and we find him in 1760 acting under Garrick at Drury Lane. His merits as an actor may be judged from the description of him in the Rosciad (l. 987) at this period. He is placed in the second rank, next to Garrick, but there is no hint of possible rivalry. Churchill describes him as an actor whose conceptions were superior to his powers of execution, whose action was always forcible but too mechanically calculated, and who in spite of all his defects rose to greatness in occasional scenes. Churchill never erred on the side of praising too much, and his description may be accepted as correct, supported as it is by the fact that the actor eked out his income by giving lessons in elocution. Sheridan solicited a pension for Samuel Johnson from Lord Bute through Wedderburn. The pension, £300 a year, was granted, and shortly afterwards Bute was so favourably impressed with a scheme submitted to him by Sheridan of his Pronouncing Dictionary that he bestowed a pension of £200 on him also. Some hasty remarks of Johnson’s on the matter were repeated to Sheridan, who broke off his acquaintance with the doctor in consequence. Sheridan, however, attracted attention chiefly by his enthusiastic advocacy, in public lectures and books, of his scheme of education, in which elocution was to play a principal part. In the case of his son, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, his instruction was certainly not wasted. Sheridan’s indictment of the established system of education was that it did not fit the higher classes for their duties in life, that it was uniform for all and profitable for none; and he urged as a matter of vital national concern that special training should be given for the various professions. Oratory came in as part of the special training of men intended for public affairs, but his main contention was one very familiar now—that more time should be given in schools to the study of the English language. He rode his hobby with great enthusiasm, published an elaborate and eloquent treatise on education, and lectured on the subject in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and other towns. In 1764 he went to live in France, partly for economy, partly for Mrs. Sheridan’s health, and partly to study the system of education. His wife died in 1766 and soon afterwards he returned to England. In 1769 he published a matured Plan of Education for the Young Nobility and Gentry with a letter to the king, in which he offered to devote the rest of his life to the execution of his theories on condition of receiving a pension equivalent to the sacrifice of his professional income. His offer was not accepted; but Sheridan, still enthusiastic, retired to Bath, and prepared his pronouncing General Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols., 1780). After his son’s brilliant success he assisted in the management of Drury Lane, and occasionally acted. His Life of Swift, a very entertaining work in spite of its incompleteness as a biography, was written for the 1784 edition of Swift’s works. He died at Margate on the 14th of August 1788. See also Literary Criticism.
3. Frances Sheridan (1724–1766), wife of the above and mother of the dramatist, was the daughter of Dr. Philip Chamberlaine of Dublin. When only fifteen years of age she wrote a story, Eugenia and Adelaide, published after her death in two volumes. She took Sheridan’s part in the so-called Kelly riots, writing some verses and a pamphlet in his defence. This led to her acquaintance, and finally in 1747 to her marriage, with the unpopular manager. It was by Richardson’s advice that she wrote the Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph…. It was issued anonymously in 1761 with a dedication to Richardson, and had great success, both in England and France. A second part (2 vols.) was published in 1767. Two of her plays were produced in 1763 at Drury Lane, The Discovery and The Dupe. We have it on the authority of Moore that, when The Rivals and The Duenna were running at Covent Garden, Garrick revived The Discovery at Drury Lane, as a counter-attraction, “to play the mother off against the son, taking on himself to act the principal part in it.” But the statement, intrinsically absurd, is inaccurate. The Discovery was not an old play at the time, but one of Garrick’s stock pieces, and Sir Anthony Branville was one of his favourite characters. It was first produced at Drury Lane in 1763. So far from being jealous of the elder Sheridan, Garrick seems to have been a most useful friend to the family, accepting his wife’s play—which he declared to be “one of the best comedies he ever read”—and giving the husband several engagements. The Dupe was a failure and was only played once. Her last work was an Oriental tale, Nourjahad, written at Blois, where she died on the 26th of September 1766. Her third play, A Journey to Bath, was refused by Garrick, and R. B. Sheridan made some use of it in The Rivals.
