Discovery, one of the bombastic tragedies which were rendered obsolete by the wit of The Critic. One such piece, William Hodson's Zoraida, brought out in 1780, ran for eight nights only, because its heroine at once recalled Tilburina to the audience. Mad heroines who raved in white silk were no longer possible on the stage.

Between the production of The Critic on the stage and its publication, two skits appeared. In one of those pieces The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed, "a new dramatic piece in three acts, by the author of the Duenna," 1780, the names of Sheridan's characters are borrowed, and applied to the purposes of political satire. The other piece, The Gritick anticipated; or, The Humours of the Green Room, a Farce, by R. B. S., Esq., 1779, is a personal attack on Sheridan, with a dedication to the actors at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Sheridan appears as Young Psalter, his father as Old Psalter, and his wife as Mrs Psalter; and there are various allusions to the elder Sheridan's work as teacher of elocution and compiler of dictionaries. A newspaper paragraph is read to the effect that Sheridan had been detected pilfering from scenes of different authors left in his custody for representation; and that the authoress of a tragedy called The Woeful Countess was greatly enraged at the manager's conduct. It will be remembered that Sheridan himself laughed in The Critic at the charge that he stole from plays forwarded to him as manager, Sir Fretful says he will never send a play to Drury Lane; "it is not always so safe to leave a play in the hands of those that write themselves"; they may steal, "and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own. A dexterous plagiarist may do anything. Why, sir, for aught I know, he might take out

some of the best things in my tragedy and put them into his own comedy."

Forerunners of "The Critic." Sheridan's Critic is in one sense less original than either The Rivals or The School for Scandal, but a charge of plagiarism is as misplaced in the one instance as in the other. There had, of course, been several plays ridiculing the rant and fustian of conventional tragedy, among the best of them being Henry Carey's burlesque, Chrononhotonthologos, and Fielding's Tragedy of Tragedies, or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great; and the rehearsal of a play, often with humorous references to the author's difficulties with the actors, had been a common theme. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, Ralph the apprentice acted the part of a quixotic knight, to the admiration of his master and mistress, who were seated on the stage; and Garrick had produced, in 1767, his successful A Peep behind the Curtain, or, The New Rehearsal. Sheridan had himself written, while a lad, in collaboration with his friend Halhed, a farce called Jupiter, in the form of a rehearsal, with an author, Simile, who is suggestive of Puff. Fielding used the idea of a rehearsal several times, and notably in Pasquin, in which two plays are rehearsed, one a tragedy, the other a comedy, in the presence of their self-satisfied authors, and of a critic, Sneerwell, who reminds the reader of Sheridan's Sneer. Another piece of Fielding's dealing with a rehearsal, The Historical Register for the year 1736, has a character, Dangle, whose name Sheridan used in The Critic. There are, too, in this piece, four Patriots who shake their heads significantly, like Sheridan's Lord Burleigh. The play, however, which most resembles Sheridan's is the Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal, published in

1672. Bayes, the author in that piece, is a satire upon Dryden, but works by other dramatists are burlesqued, and later editions contained many "gags "relating to plays produced after the first appearance of the Rehearsal. Notwithstanding, however, the general likeness between this admirable farce and Sheridan's Critic, the passages in which Sheridan was directly indebted to the earlier piece are very few in number, Sir Fretful Plagiary had a common-place book, said to contain passages stolen from obscure volumes (I. i. 446), and Bayes kept a book of "Drama common-places, the mother of many other plays," in which he recorded witty sayings heard in coffee-houses, and passages from other authors. The appearance of the Thames, with the attendant banks (III. i. 316) may be compared with the eclipse in the fifth act of the Rehearsal, effected by means of a dance between the sun, moon and earth. When Raleigh and Hatton enter (II. ii. 30), Hatton says, "True, gallant Raleigh!" and upon Dangle asking "What, they had been talking before?" Puff replies, "O yes, all the way as they came along." Similarly, in Act II. of the Rehearsal, the Physician says to the Gentleman Usher, "Sir, to conclude," and when Smith exclaims, "What, before he begins?" Bayes replies, "No, sir, you must know they had been talking of this a pretty while without." Puff's "Now then for my magnificence! my battle! my noise! and my procession!" (III. i. 301) recalls Bayes's "Now, gentlemen, I will be bold to say, I'll show you the greatest scene that ever England saw; I mean not for words, for those I do not value; but for state, show, and magnificence." But such occasional reminis cences of the earlier play are far from justifying a charge of plagiarism. Sheridan's indebtedness does not extend beyond the general idea of a satire on bad plays through the medium of a

rehearsal; and the brilliant first act, with the account of the art of puffing, the attack on sentimental comedy (“ nothing ridiculous from the beginning to the end"), the sketches of Dangle, the would-be stage Mæcenas, Sir Fretful Plagiary, the author, Sneer and Puff, is wholly Sheridan's.

Sheridan's Life. A sketch of the author's life has been given in the Introduction to The School for Scandal, in this series; but it may be well to say here that Richard Brinsley Sheridan, son of the actor and writer Thomas Sheridan, and the novelist Frances Sheridan, was born in Dublin on October 30, 1751. After school days at Harrow, Sheridan lived with his family at Bath, and in 1773 he concluded a romantic marriage with the singer, Eliza Ann Linley. Two years later came The Rivals followed by a farce, St Patrick's Day, and a successful comic opera, The Duenna. In 1776 Sheridan and his friends bought Garrick's share in Drury Lane Theatre, but nothing more important than A Trip to Scarborough, an adaptation from Vanbrugh, was produced by the new manager until May 1777, when The School for Scandal was first acted. The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed (1779) was really Sheridan's last play, though he afterwards brought out Pizarro, a translation or adaptation from Kotzebue. In 1780 he was elected member of parliament for Stafford, and at the age of twenty-nine began a new and brilliant career as statesman and orator. During the impeachment of Warren Hastings he delivered his famous speeches respecting the princesses of Oude; but before long, financial and other troubles began to weigh heavily upon him, and he fell under the malign influence of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. In 1809 Drury Lane Theatre, then recently built, was burnt down, and soon afterwards

Sheridan lost his seat in parliament. At the time of his death (July 7, 1816) Sheridan was hard pressed by creditors, though his debts seem not to have exceeded £4000, and the Regent and others sent money at the last moment, on hearing of his position. A few days later he was buried with great ceremony in Westminster Abbey.