"London, July 3d, 1772.
"DEAR DICK,
"It was with the deepest concern I received the late accounts of you, though it was somewhat softened by the assurance of your not being in the least danger. You cannot conceive the uneasiness it occasioned to my father. Both he and I were resolved to believe the best, and to suppose you safe, but then we neither of us could approve of the cause in which you suffer. All your friends here condemned you. You risked every thing, where you had nothing to gain, to give your antagonist the thing he wished, a chance for recovering his reputation. Your courage was past dispute:—he wanted to get rid of the contemptible opinion he was held in, and you were good-natured enough to let him do it at your expense. It is not now a time to scold, but all your friends were of opinion you could, with the greatest propriety, have refused to meet him. For my part, I shall suspend my judgment till better informed, only I cannot forgive your preferring swords.
"I am exceedingly unhappy at the situation I leave you in with respect to money matters, the more so as it is totally out of my power to be of any use to you. Ewart was greatly vexed at the manner of your drawing for the last L20.—I own, I think with some reason.
"As to old Ewart, what you were talking about is absolutely impossible; he is already surprised at Mr. Linley's long delay, and, indeed, I think the latter much to blame in this respect. I did intend to give you some account of myself since my arrival here, but you cannot conceive how I have been hurried,—even much pressed for time at this present writing. I must therefore conclude, with wishing you speedily restored to health, and that if I could make your purse as whole as that will shortly be, I hope, it would make me exceedingly happy.
"I am, dear Dick, yours sincerely,
"C. F. SHERIDAN."
Finding that the suspicion of their marriage, which Miss Linley's unguarded exclamation had suggested, was gaining ground in the mind of both fathers,—who seemed equally determined to break the tie, if they could arrive at some positive proof of its existence,—Sheridan wrote frequently to his young wife, (who passed most of this anxious period with her relations at Wells,) cautioning her against being led into any acknowledgment, which might further the views of the elders against their happiness. Many methods were tried upon both sides, to ensnare them into a confession of this nature; but they eluded every effort, and persisted in attributing the avowal which had escaped from Miss Linley, before Mr. Panton, and others, to the natural agitation and bewilderment into which her mind was thrown at the instant.
As soon as Sheridan was sufficiently recovered of his wounds, [Footnote: The Bath Chronicle of the 9th of July has the following paragraph: "It is with great pleasure we inform our readers that Mr. Sheridan is declared by his surgeon to be out of danger.">[ his father, in order to detach him, as much as possible, from the dangerous recollections which continually presented themselves in Bath, sent him to pass some months at Waltham Abbey, in Essex, under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Parker of Farm Hill, his most particular friends. In this retirement, where he continued, with but few and short intervals of absence, from August or September, 1772, till the spring of the following year, it is probable that, notwithstanding the ferment in which his heart was kept, he occasionally and desultorily occupied his hours in study. Among other proofs of industry, which I have found among his manuscripts, and which may possibly be referred to this period, is an abstract of the History of England—nearly filling a small quarto volume of more than a hundred pages, closely written. I have also found in his early hand-writing (for there was a considerable change in his writing afterwards) a collection of remarks on Sir William Temple's works, which may likewise have been among the fruits of his reading at Waltham Abbey.
These remarks are confined chiefly to verbal criticism, and prove, in many instances, that he had not yet quite formed his taste to that idiomatic English, which was afterwards one of the great charms of his own dramatic style. For instance, he objects to the following phrases:— "Then I fell to my task again."—"These things come, with time, to be habitual."—"By which these people come to be either scattered or destroyed."—"Which alone could pretend to contest it with them:" (upon which phrase he remarks, "It refers to nothing here:") and the following graceful idiom in some verses by Temple:—