Some Old Time Beauties | Page 7

to the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I own to still find handsomer, and Miss Linley, to be the superlative degree. The king admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as 'Alexander's Feast.'" Musical prominence and personal beauty in this maid of but twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king. The wits and gallants of the gay city sought and courted her. The family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,--afterwards becoming a judge there,--and Charles Sheridan retired from the race, and left the literary youth to win as pure a heart as ever cheered incipient genius to works of worth. She was lauded in verse by her young Irish suitor, and championed in deed. He asserts his constancy in a poem, of which the first stanza is--
"Dry that tear, my gentlest love; Be hushed that struggling sigh; Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove More fixed, more true than I. Hushed be that sigh, be dry that tear; Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear; Dry be that tear."
He proves his devotion by his action when appealed to by his divinity.
A certain Captain Matthews, one of a numerous breed in Bath in those days,--that is, a fashionable scoundrel and a married man,--made himself obnoxious to Miss Linley by improper addresses. He annoyed and harassed her, threatening to destroy himself unless she gratified him, and later attempted to sully her reputation by calumnies. This brought about the culmination of her attachment to Sheridan. She fled her father's house and sought the protection of her lover. Accompanied by a chaperon, they left for France. After some romantic adventures, they were married in March, 1772, at a little village near Calais; but it was a wedding without the wherewithal to maintain a home, so the bride entered a convent, and, later, the house of an English physician, until literature should be remunerative. The eloping lady's father sought the runaways; and, after some explanations, they returned with him to England. It was shortly after this that Sheridan fought two duels with Matthews, being wounded in the later one to such an extent that his recovery was doubtful. "Sweet Betsy" claimed the right of a wife to tend her hurt husband, and so revealed the fact of the marriage in France. The old actor rejected his impulsive son, but Linley's aversion to the union of his daughter being at last set aside, the pair were re-married in England in April, 1773.
The sweet singer had been admired by another, an elderly suitor of much fortune, whom her father had approved, but to whom she was averse. This gentleman now became the benefactor of the pair. He settled a moiety of three thousand pounds on the bride. Her father retained half of this as compensation for the loss of the services of his daughter. On the balance, the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance, understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant attitude of the young blades of the town toward all public performers; so he sought to save her, who was so sacred to him, from such insult, insincere adulation, and insinuation as she had heretofore suffered from. They retired to a cottage at East Burnham; and there she, who had received the plaudits of the public as a vocalist, won as noble a name in the character of the ideal wife, one in whom were united all the attributes of loveliness,--temper, manners, virtues, and surpassing beauty. What the then public lost, later generations have gained in the picture of that lovable woman, making a golden age of happiness for her greatly-gifted husband in the little cottage at East Burnham.
Fanny Burney records her pleasant impressions of the bride,--"I was absolutely charmed at the sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley