Sheridan, RICHARD BRINSLEY BUTLER, was born in Dublin, 30th October 1751. He was the grandson of Swift's friend, Thomas Sheridan, D.D. (1687-1738), and the second son of Thomas Sheridan (1719-88), a man of established reputation as a teacher of elocution, and the author of a now forgotten Life of Swift. His mother, Frances Sheridan, née Chamberlaine (1724-66), also had achieved some success in literature, being the author of a novel called Sidney Biddulph, and of one or two plays. Richard Sheridan was educated at Harrow, where he does not seem to have distinguished himself much. After leaving school he made his first attempt at literature, in collaboration with a school-friend named Halhed, in the form of a three-act farce called Jupiter, the general idea of which bears some resemblance to that afterwards worked out in the Critic. It does not, however, appear to have ever been completed. The two friends next attempted a verse translation of the Epistles of Aristænetus—a pseudo-classical author of unknown date and doubtful identity—of which the first part was published, but attracted no favourable notice. In 1771 the Sheridans settled at Bath, where they made acquaintance with the family of Linley the composer. A sort of sentimental friendship, ripening into a warmer feeling, appears to have been set up almost immediately between Elizabeth Linley, the eldest daughter—a girl of great beauty and musical talent, popularly known as the Maid of Bath—and Richard Sheridan, which, after various romantic episodes, terminated in a marriage, with the rather reluctant consent of the parents in 1773.
The young couple settled down in London to a life considerably beyond their means. Mrs Sheridan had a fortune in her voice, but her husband would not allow her to use it professionally. He himself now made more serious efforts at dramatic composition—which had always attracted him—and got a play accepted at Covent Garden. On the 17th of January 1775 the Rivals was produced for the first time with no great success; but after a slight alteration in the cast the play met with universal approval. Probably it will always remain the most popular of Sheridan's performances. There is nothing in it to strain the understanding or require any education of mind to comprehend. Nor does it contain the least touch of bitterness; vices are not satirised, but only oddities laughed at. Above all, the plot is clear and connected, a point by which the ordinary playgoer is naturally apt to judge. It is not too much to say that in genuine mirthful humour Sheridan has been surpassed by Shakespeare alone; and this quality predominates in the Rivals. In the same year appeared the farce called St Patrick's Day—a poor performance which Sheridan wrote for the benefit of the Irish actor whose personation of Sir Lucius had saved the Rivals—and also the Duenna, which received an exaggerated meed of praise, and had a (then) phenomenal run of sixty-three nights. In 1776 Sheridan, with the aid of his father-in-law, Linley, and another friend, bought half the patent of Drury Lane Theatre for £35,000 from Garrick, who was retiring from the stage, and some years later the remaining share for £45,000 from Mr Willoughby Lacy, thus becoming complete owner. His first production here was a purified edition of Vanbrugh's Relapse, under the title of a Trip to Scarborough, while three months later appeared his greatest work, the School for Scandal. As a dramatic composition the School is inferior to the Rivals; the plot is involved and its details obscure, the play a series of extraordinarily brilliant scenes, but wanting in cohesion. So powerful is the satire, however, and so real and striking are the characters, that Sheridan's contempt for the dramatic unities has never diminished the enthusiastic approval awarded to it from the first. It brought back prosperity for a time to Drury Lane, where Sheridan's idle and careless management had done much mischief. In 1779 he produced the Critic, a play of even more heedless composition than the School for Scandal, but teeming from end to end with a sparkling wit which carries it over all obstacles. This was Sheridan's last dramatic effort, with the exception of a tragedy called Pizarro—in no respect superior to Mr Puff's tragedy—prepared for the stage by him some twenty years later.
Sheridan now began to turn his thoughts to another field for ambition, and on the dissolution of parliament in 1780 he was elected member for Stafford. He adhered to the opposition, then under the leadership of Burke and Fox, and on the change of government in 1782 became under-secretary for foreign affairs under Rockingham, afterwards serving as secretary to the Treasury in the coalition ministry (1783). His parliamentary reputation, however, may be said to date from the impeachment of Warren Hastings. His part in the attack was to expose the connivance at the plundering of the Begums of Oudh, on which subject he delivered three great speeches. The first, in the House of Commons, was a marvel of oratory, and produced such an effect upon the audience that the House decided to adjourn, as being still too much under the influence of this wonderful speech to give a cool, impartial vote. The second, on the actual trial of Hastings, was rather less successful, and the answer to the pleadings of Hastings' counsel, seven years later, was, comparatively speaking, a failure. The reputation thus acquired was not sustained, his habitual indolence perhaps rendering him incapable of a continued effort. During the thirty-two years he sat in parliament Sheridan took an active part in the debates, and was known as a lively and occasionally impassioned speaker. In 1794 he again electrified the House by a magnificent oration in reply to Lord Mornington's denunciation of the French Revolution, but with this exception he never again rose to the same height. At the critical period of the mutiny at the Nore he did much to strengthen the hands of the government by his unselfish and patriotic support. He remained the devoted friend and adherent of Fox till the latter's death, and was also the defender and occasional mouthpiece of the Prince Regent. Few rewards fell to his share. In 1806 he was appointed Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall, and in 1806 held for a short time the small post of treasurer to the navy. In 1812 he was defeated at the polls at Westminster, and his parliamentary career came to an end.
To turn to his private life. In 1792 his first wife, to whom he had been passionately attached, though he must at times have caused her great unhappiness, died; and three years later he married again a Miss Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester, who survived him. The affairs of the theatre had gone badly. The old building had to be closed as unfit to hold large audiences, and a new one built which was opened in 1794, but this also was destroyed by fire in 1809. This last calamity put the finishing touch to Sheridan's pecuniary difficulties, which had long been serious. Misfortunes gathered thick upon him, and his latter days were spent in trouble and privation. He died on the 7th July 1816 in great poverty, with bailiffs actually in possession of his house; but the friends of his prosperity came forward to give him a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey.
See the Memoirs prefixed to editions of his works by Leigh Hunt (1840), James P. Browne (2 vols. 1873-75), and Stainforth (1874); Lives by Watkins (2 vols. 1817) and Moore (2 vols. 1825); Sheridan and his Times (2 vols. 1859); Memoirs of Mrs Frances Sheridan, by her granddaughter, Alicia Le Fanu (1824); W. Fraser Rae, Wilkes, Sheridan, and Fox (1874); the short life by the present writer ('English Men of Letters' series, 1883); Percy Fitzgerald, Lives of the Sheridans (2 vols. 1887); Lloyd C. Sanders, Sheridan (1891); and the Life by Fraser Rae (2 vols. 1896). See also NORMON (MRS).