Richard Brinsley Sheridan.—No man represents the Regency so completely as Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist; and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day. A duel with one of her former admirers was the result.
As a dramatist, he began by presenting A Trip to Scarborough, which was altered from Vanbrugh's Relapse; but his fame was at once assured by his production, in 1775, of The Duenna and The Rivals. The former is called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to The Rivals, which is based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs. Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, father and son, have been prime favorites upon the stage ever since.
In 1777 he produced The School for Scandal, a caustic satire on London society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. Without the rippling brilliancy of The Rivals, The School for Scandal is better sustained in scene and colloquy; and in spite of some indelicacy, which is due to the age, the moral lesson is far more valuable. The satire is strong and instructive, and marks the great advance in social decorum over the former age.
In 1779 appeared The Critic, a literary satire, in which the chief character is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary.
Sheridan sat in parliament as member for Stafford. His first effort in oratory was a failure; but by study he became one of the most effective popular orators of his day. His speeches lose by reading: he abounded in gaudy figures, and is not without bombast; but his wonderful flow of words and his impassioned action dazzled his audience and kept it spellbound. His oratory, whatever its faults, gained also the unstinted praise of his colleagues and rivals in the art. Of his great speech in the trial of Warren Hastings, in 1788, Fox declared that "all he had ever heard, all he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapor before the sun." Burke called it "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition;" and Pitt said "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times."
Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July, 1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly palliate his faults, are the best.
George Colman.—Among the respectable dramatists of this period who exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention. George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford. After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study to court the comic muse. His first piece, Polly Honeycomb, was produced in 1760; but his reputation was established by The Jealous Wife, suggested by a scene in Fielding's Tom Jones. Besides many humorous miscellanies, most of which appeared in The St. James' Chronicle,—a magazine of which he was the proprietor,—he translated Terence, and produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still presented upon the stage. The best of these is The Clandestine Marriage, which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play, Davies says "that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor were so happily blended." In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a mental invalid until his death in 1794.
George Colman. The Younger.—This writer was the son of George Colman, and was born in 1762. Like his father, he was educated at Westminster and Oxford; but he was removed from the university before receiving his degree, and was graduated at King's College, Aberdeen. He inherited an enthusiasm for the drama and considerable skill as a dramatic author. In 1787 he produced Inkle and Yarico, founded upon the pathetic story of Addison, in The Spectator. In 1796 appeared The Iron Chest; this was followed, in 1797,. by The Heir at Law and John Bull. To him the world is indebted for a large number of stock pieces which still appear at our theatres. In 1802 he published a volume entitled Broad Grins, which was an expansion of a previous volume of comic scraps. This is full of frolic and humor: among the verses in the style of Peter Pindar are the well-known sketches The Newcastle Apothecary, (who gave the direction with his medicine, "When taken, to be well shaken,") and Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.
The author's fault is his tendency to farce, which robs his comedies of dignity. He assumed the cognomen the younger because, he said, he did not wish his father's memory to suffer for his faults. He died in 1836.