THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

BY

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, statesman and dramatist, was born in Dublin on Oct. 30, 1751. He belonged to a highly talented family, his grandfather, Thomas Sheridan, being a prominent Jacobite and a historian, and his father, also Thomas Sheridan, a distinguished actor, theatrical manager, and author.

Sheridan was educated for the bar, but the success of his comedy, "The Rivals," led him into close relations with the theatre. "The Rivals" was followed by “St. Patrick's Day," a farce; "The Duenna," a comic opera; “A Trip to Scarborough," an adaptation from Vanbrugh; "The School for Scandal" (1777); and a patriotic melodrama, "Pizarro." He was manager of Drury Lane Theatre, which he twice had a chief part in rebuilding; and though he had periods of marked prosperity in his management, and exercised a powerful influence on the stage history of his time, his theatrical activities frequently involved him in grave financial difficulties.

In 1780 Sheridan entered Parliament, and for over thirty years he took a highly distinguished part in politics. He held cabinet office a number of times, and was regarded as the most brilliant and effective orator of his day. His most famous speeches dealt with the prosecution of Warren Hastings; the French Revolution, in connection with which he urged the policy of letting the French manage their own government, but of resisting their attempts to spread their principles by conquest; the war with the American colonies, by his opposition to which he earned the gratitude of Congress; and the liberty of the press, of which he was an uncompromising champion. Throughout his career he was an honest and intrepid advocate of liberal ideas.

In "The School for Scandal” Sheridan carried the comedy of manners to the highest point it has reached in England. In the permanence of its hold on the public it is surpassed only by the plays of Shakespeare; and in characters like Joseph Surface, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle, and in the scandal scene and the auction scene the author added to the lasting glories of the English stage.

Sheridan died in 1816, and was buried with great pompin Westminster Abbey.

A PORTRAIT

ADDRESSED TO MRS CREWE, WITH THE COMEDY OF THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

BY R. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ.

TELL me, ye prim adepts in Scandal's school,
Who rail by precept, and detract by rule,
Lives there no character, so tried, so known,
So decked with grace, and so unlike your own,
That even you assist her fame to raise,
Approve by envy, and by silence praise!
Attend!-a model shall attract your view-
Daughters of calumny, I summon you!
You shall decide if this a portrait prove,
Or fond creation of the Muse and Love.
Attend, ye virgin critics, shrewd and sage,
Ye matron censors of this childish age,
Whose peering eye and wrinkled front declare
A fixed antipathy to young and fair;
By cunning, cautious; or by nature, cold,
In maiden madness, virulently bold!—
Attend, ye skilled to coin the precious tale,
Creating proof, where inuendos fail!
Whose practised memories, cruelly exact,
Omit no circumstance, except the fact!—
Attend, all ye who boast,- -or old or young,-
The living libel of a slanderous tongue!
So shall my theme as far contrasted be,
As saints by fiends, or hymns by calumny.

Come, gentle Amoret (for 'neath that name

In worthier verse is sung thy beauty's fame);

Come for but thee who seeks the Muse? and while

Celestial blushes check thy conscious smile,

With timid grace, and hesitating eye,

The perfect model, which I boast, supply:-
Vain Muse! couldst thou the humblest sketch create
Of her, or slightest charm couldst imitate-
Could thy blest strain in kindred colours trace
The faintest wonder of her form and face-
Poets would study the immortal line,
And Reynolds own his art subdued by thine;
That art, which well might added lustre give
To Nature's best, and Heaven's superlative:
On Granby's cheek might bid new glories rise,
Or point a purer beam from Devon's eyes!
Hard is the task to shape that beauty's praise,
Whose judgment scorns the homage flattery pays!
But praising Amoret we cannot err,

No tongue o'ervalues Heaven, or flatters her!

Yet she by Fate's perverseness-she alone

Would doubt our truth, nor deem such praise her own.

Adorning fashion, unadorned by dress,

Simple from taste, and not from carelessness;
Discreet in gesture, in deportment mild,
Not stiff with prudence, nor uncouthly wild:
No state has Amoret; no studied mien;

She frowns no goddess, and she moves no queen.
The softer charm that in her manner lies
Is framed to captivate, yet not surprise;
It justly suits the expression of her face,-
'Tis less than dignity, and more than grace!
On her pure cheek the native hue is such,
That, formed by Heaven to be admired so much,
The hand divine, with a less partial care,

Might well have fixed a fainter crimson there,
And bade the gentle inmate of her breast-

Inshrined Modesty-supply the rest.

But who the peril of her lips shall paint?

Strip them of smiles-still, still all words are faint.
But moving Love himself appears to teach
Their action, though denied to rule her speech;
And thou who seest her speak, and dost not hear,
Mourn not her distant accents 'scape thine ear;
Viewing those lips, thou still may'st make pretence

To judge of what she says, and swear 'tis sense:
Clothed with such grace, with such expression fraught,
They move in meaning, and they pause in thought!
But dost thou farther watch, with charmed surprise,
The mild irresolution of her eyes,

Curious to mark how frequent they repose,
In brief eclipse and momentary close-
Ah! seest thou not an ambushed Cupid there,
Too timorous of his charge, with jealous care
Veils and unveils those beams of heavenly light,
Too full, too fatal else, for mortal sight?
Nor yet, such pleasing vengeance fond to meet,
In pardoning dimples hope a safe retreat.
What though her peaceful breast should ne'er allow
Subduing frowns to arm her altered brow,
By Love, I swear, and by his gentle wiles,
More fatal still the mercy of her smiles!
Thus lovely, thus adorned, possessing all
Of bright or fair that can to woman fall,
The height of vanity might well be thought
Prerogative in her, and Nature's fault.
Yet gentle Amoret, in mind supreme

As well as charms, rejects the vainer theme;

And, half mistrustful of her beauty's store,

She barbs with wit those darts too keen before:

Read in all knowledge that her sex should reach,

Though Greville, or the Muse, should deign to teach,

Fond to improve, nor timorous to discern
How far it is a woman's grace to learn;

In Millar's dialect she would not prove

Apollo's priestess, but Apollo's love,

Graced by those signs which truth delights to own,
The timid blush, and mild submitted tone:
Whate'er she says, though sense appear throughout,
Displays the tender hue of female doubt;
Decked with that charm, how lovely wit appears,
How graceful science, when that robe she wears!
Such too her talents, and her bent of mind,
As speak a sprightly heart by thought refined:
A taste for mirth, by contemplation schooled,