R. B. Sheridan. 151 first play, "Love and a Bottle," and steadily improved in his art till the close of his brief life in his thirtieth year. His best plays are his two last, the "Recruiting Officer" (1706) and the "Beaux Stratagem" (1707). In the first, scenes of low life, evidently drawn from actual observation, are described with great humour and fidelity to nature. The second, which was written in the short space of six weeks, contains the admirable portrait of Boniface, the landlord, which has become as classical in its way as that of Mr. Pickwick or any other hero of fiction. This is the proper place in which to mention the last great writer of the prose comedy of manners. Though many years separate Richard Brinsley Sheridan from Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, he is animated by their spirit, though happily he has none of their license of language. Sheridan was born in Dublin in 1751. His father, a man of some note in his day, is now chiefly remembered as the theme of certain of Johnson's most pungent sarcasms. "Why, sir," said the Doctor on one occasion, "Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature." Sheridan was educated at Harrow, and his first production was a translation of a worthless Greek writer, done in conjunction with a friend whose acquaintance he had formed there. While still a very young man, without fortune and without any high position in society, he married the beautiful Miss Linley, who had been courted by many wealthy and titled admirers. In 1775 he produced his first comedy, "The Rivals," an admirable piece of writing, carefully elaborated, and one blaze of wit from beginning to end. In 1777 appeared his masterpiece, the "School for Scandal," which is still, after so many years, always welcomed on the stage. In 1779 was produced the farce of "The Critic," the idea of which is borrowed from the "Rehearsal," but which is nevertheless a most admirable and mirth-provoking performance. Besides these, he wrote, in 1775, a slight farce called "St. Patrick's Day," and "The Duenna," containing some songs which are excellent of their kind. "His table-songs," says Leigh Hunt, “are always admirable. When he was drinking wine he was thoroughly in earnest." He also wrote two serious dramas, but they are of no value. In 1780 Sheridan became a member of Parliament, and though the faults of his private life told greatly against him, he soon became noted as one of the most eloquent speakers in an assembly which contained Burke, and Fox, and Pitt. "Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do," said Byron, "has been, par excellence, the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal'), the best drama (The Duenna,' to my mind far beyond that St. Giles lampoon, the 'Beggar's Opera'), the best farce ('The Critic,' it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick); and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or heard of in this country." This is absurdly over-laudatory; but Sheridan was certainly a man of brilliant abilities, and, with all his love of dissipation, could labour strenuously when he had made up his mind to achieve any design. His comedies are a continual running fire of wit; not true to nature and utterly destitute of that highest kind of humour which approaches pathos, but full of happy turns of expression and admirably constructed with a view to stage representation. He is the last of our playwriters who have produced works both excellent as literature and also good acting dramas. Sheridan lived a shifty and vagabond existence, constantly in debt and constantly harassed by duns, whose demands he, by long experience, acquired unrivalled dexterity in evading. In the closing years of his life his wealthy and titled friends forsook him, and he was reduced to sore straits. He died in 1816. Only three good writers of tragedy appeared in the period with which we are dealing. Thomas Otway (1651-1685) possessed more of the fire and passion of the great Elizabethans than any of his contemporaries. His chief plays, "The Orphan" and "Venice Preserved," show great powers of pathos, and, although too inflated in style, are more impressive and of deeper interest than the dramas of any other tragedian of the time. The unfortunate poet died in a state of wretched poverty. In the plays of Nathaniel Lee, who was subject to attacks of insanity, we find considerable genius for tragedy united with a propensity to indulge freely in bombast and fustian. The "Rival Queens" and "Lucius Junius Brutus" are his best plays. He died in 1692. Nicholas Rowe (16731718), who also deserves remembrance as having been the first editor and biographer of Shakespeare, was the author of two tragedies which were at one time much admired, the "Fair Penitent" and "Jane Shore." In the former appears the "gallant, gay Lothario," the prototype of Richardson's Lovelace and of innumerable romance-heroes of a similar description. Rowe, who was a very estimable man, had his death commemorated by the following epitaph of Pope, which shows the extent of his popularity among his contemporaries : "Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakespeare place thy honoured bust; As already stated, Dryden in force and elegance of style stands at the head of the prose writers of this period, which does not contain many authors whose fame has outlived their own time. Nevertheless there are a few great names, notably some divines of the Church of England, whose works are still reckoned classics. Of these, Dr. Isaac Barrow is especially memorable, not only for his literary gifts, but for his varied. 1 learning. Born in 1630, the son of a linendraper in London, he entered the University of Cambridge when very young. There at first his attention was turned to the study of physical science, and after he had obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts he applied himself to the study of medicine. Dis appointed in the hopes he had formed of obtaining the Greek professorship, he determined to go abroad, and spent some years in travelling in France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and Holland. On his return to England he took orders, and in 1660 was elected professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. Two years after he was appointed professor of geometry in Gresham College. In 1663 he became Lucasian professor of mathematics in Cambridge, and resigned both his other offices. In 1669, having resolved to devote himself to the study of theology, he resigned his chair in favour of Isaac Newton. In 1670 he was made D.D. by royal mandate; two years after he was appointed master of Trinity College, and in 1675 he was chosen vice-chancellor of the University. He died in 1677. Barrow is the author of numerous mathematical publications in Latin, and of three folio volumes of English works, published posthumously in 1685. They consist for the most part of sermons. Barrow was in his day a very popular preacher, though his sermons were of unusual length even for that age. He seldom employed less than an hour and a half in delivering a discourse, and on one occasion, when preaching before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, spoke for three hours and a half. Being asked on coming down from the pulpit whether he was not tired, he replied, "Yes, indeed, I began to be weary with standing so long." Barrow's mathematical keenness and ingenuity of intellect is well shown by his famous definition of wit, which has been so often quoted. It also shows his fertility of illustration and his habit of dealing fully with all sides of a subject. Occasionally in his writings. we meet with happy phrases, such as "A straight line is the shortest in morals as well as in geometry;" but such epigrammatic turns are rare. In one place he describes with considerable felicity the general literary character of his period: “All reputation appears now to vail and stoop to that of being a wit. To be learned, to be wise, to be good, are nothing in comparison thereto; even to be noble and rich are inferior things, and afford no such glory. Many at least, to purchase this glory, to be deemed considerable in this faculty, and Archbishop Tillotson. 155 enrolled among the wits, do not only make shipwreck of conscience, abandon virtue, and forfeit all pretences to wisdom, but neglect their estates and prostitute their honour; so, to the private damage of many particular persons, and with no small. prejudice to the public, are our times possessed and transported with this humour." John Tillotson, also born in 1630, became after the Revolution the most admired preacher in London, and was a special favourite of Queen Mary. He was born in Yorkshire of Puritan parents, but in 1662 submitted to the Act of Uniformity. After holding various ecclesiastical appointments, he removed to London, where his sermons soon attracted attention. After the Revolution he obtained from King William the deanery of St. Paul's, and in 1691 was appointed. Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1694. Tillotson was a tolerant, open-minded man, without a trace of ecclesiastical bigotry, always more willing to conciliate than to crush opponents, and fondly cherishing schemes to draw the Nonconformists within the pale of the Church of England. His popularity is shown by the high price obtained for his sermons, which were published posthumously in three folio volumes. They were, says Macaulay, "bought by the booksellers for the almost incredible sum of two thousand five hundred guineas, equivalent, in the wretched state in which the silver coin then was, to at least three thousand six hundred pounds. Such a price had never before been given in England for any literary copyright. About the same time Dryden, whose reputation was then in its zenith, received thirteen hundred pounds for his translation of all the works of Virgil, and was thought to have been splendidly remunerated." Dryden, it may be mentioned, is said "to have owned with pleasure that if he had any talent for English prose, it was owing to his having often. read the writings of Archbishop Tillotson." But Dryden had written excellent prose before Tillotson appeared as an author, and long before he became famous; nor indeed is there any noticeable resemblance between their styles. The merits of Tillotson's style are its ease and simplicity; but he is tauto |