gaw. 7. 736.

6 APC MW

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCH

OF

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

The subject of the following notice has been so lately before the world, and played so long and distinguished a part in it, in connexion with other celebrated men and public events, that our slight and hasty sketch must be considered rather as arising from the necessity of saying something about him, however short, in compliance with a plan of publication, than as an attempt to do justice to his fame. Whether it is, also, that the writer of it has come lately from graver studies, or not long since been occupied with the comic dramatists of a former day, who appeared to him warmer-hearted men, he cannot say; but, notwithstanding his admiration and enjoyment of the comedies of the "Rivals" and the "School for Scandal," he is conscious of a want of enthusiasm for the genius of Sheridan; and as, in default of greater detail of his own, he would refer the more curious reader to the two volumes of "Life and Memoirs," written by a distinguished living poet, * with an information no less abundant than his wit, so, as a counteraction, if need be, to his own too sparing encomiums, he has concluded his sketch with a passage out of Mr. Hazlitt's Lectures on the Comic

Thomas Moore. (Ed.)