Life of Sheridan, vol 1 | Page 2

was a woman of considerable talents,
and affords one of the few instances that have occurred, of a female
indebted for a husband to her literature; as it was a pamphlet she wrote
concerning the Dublin theatre that first attracted to her the notice of Mr.
Thomas Sheridan. Her affecting novel, Sidney Biddulph, could boast
among its warm panegyrists Mr. Fox and Lord North; and in the Tale
of Nourjahad she has employed the graces of Eastern fiction to
inculcate a grave and important moral,--putting on a fairy disguise, like
her own Mandane, to deceive her readers into a taste for happiness and
virtue. Besides her two plays, The Discovery and The Dupe,--the
former of which Garrick pronounced to be "one of the best comedies he
ever read,"--she wrote a comedy also, called The Trip to Bath, which
was never either acted or published, but which has been supposed by
some of those sagacious persons, who love to look for flaws in the titles
of fame, to have passed, with her other papers, into the possession of
her son, and, after a transforming sleep, like that of the chrysalis, in his
hands, to have taken wing at length in the brilliant form of The Rivals.
The literary labors of her husband were less fanciful, but not, perhaps,
less useful, and are chiefly upon subjects connected with education, to
the study and profession of which he devoted the latter part of his life.
Such dignity, indeed, did his favorite pursuit assume in his own eyes,
that he is represented (on the authority, however, of one who was
himself a schoolmaster) to have declared, that "he would rather see his
two sons at the head of respectable academies, than one of them prime
minister of England, and the other at the head of affairs in Ireland."
At the age of seven years, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was, with his
elder brother, Charles Francis, placed under the tuition of Mr. Samuel
Whyte, of Grafton Street, Dublin,--an amiable and respectable man,

who, for near fifty years after, continued at the head of his profession in
that metropolis. To remember our school-days with gratitude and
pleasure, is a tribute at once to the zeal and gentleness of our master,
which none ever deserved more truly from his pupils than Mr. Whyte,
and which the writer of these pages, who owes to that excellent person
all the instructions in English literature he has ever received, is happy
to take this opportunity of paying. The young Sheridans, however, were
little more than a year under his care--and it may be consoling to
parents who are in the first crisis of impatience, at the sort of hopeless
stupidity which some children exhibit, to know, that the dawn of
Sheridan's intellect was as dull and unpromising as its meridian day
was bright; and that in the year 1759, he who, in less than thirty years
afterwards, held senates enchained by his eloquence and audiences
fascinated by his wit, was, by common consent both of parent and
preceptor, pronounced to be "a most impenetrable dunce."
From Mr. Whyte's school the boys were removed to England, where
Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan had lately gone to reside, and in the year 1762
Richard was sent to Harrow--Charles being kept at home as a fitter
subject for the instructions of his father, who, by another of those
calculations of poor human foresight, which the deity, called Eventus
by the Romans, takes such wanton pleasure in falsifying, considered his
elder son as destined to be the brighter of the two brother stars. At
Harrow, Richard was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but, at
the same time, engaging boy, who contrived to win the affection, and
even admiration of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the
mere charm of his frank and genial manners, and by the occasional
gleams of superior intellect, which broke through all the indolence and
indifference of his character.
Harrow, at this time, possessed some peculiar advantages, of which a
youth like Sheridan might have powerfully availed himself. At the head
of the school was Doctor Robert Sumner, a man of fine talents, but,
unfortunately, one of those who have passed away without leaving any
trace behind, except in the admiring recollection of their
contemporaries. His taste is said to have been of a purity almost perfect,
combining what are seldom seen together, that critical judgment which
is alive to the errors of genius, with the warm sensibility that deeply
feels its beauties. At the same period, the distinguished scholar, Dr.

Parr, who, to the massy erudition of a former age, joined all the free
and enlightened intelligence of the present, was one of the under
masters of the school; and both he and Dr. Sumner endeavored, by
every method