Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Rating: 4.67
Rating: 4.67

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Poems

If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life,
No peace shall you know, tho' you've buried your wife,
At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter.
...

Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you;
For though your tongue no promise claimed,
Your charms would make me true:
...

Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting extravagant quean,
And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.
...

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 deck’d with grace, and so unlike your own,
...

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Biography

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, third son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan, was born in Dublin. At the age of eleven he was sent to Harrow school. Sheridan was extremely popular at school. He left Harrow at the age of seventeen, and was placed under the care of a tutor. He was also trained by his father in daily elocution, and put through a course of English reading. He had fencing and riding lessons at Angelo's. He kept up correspondence with his school friend N.B Halhed and they published in 1771 metrical translations of Aristaenetus. The removal of the family to Bath in 1770-1771 led to an acquaintance with the daughters of the composer Thomas Linley. Thomas Linley's elder daughter, Elizabeth Ann fell in love with Sheridan, The couple married in secret but her father did not allow Sheridan to meet his daighter as he did not consider him an eligible suitor. Sheridan also fought two duels with another suitor of Elizabeth's, a Major Matthews. Sheridan was sent to Waltham Abbey, in Essex, to continue his studies, especially in mathematics. He was entered at the Middle Temple on the 6th of April 1773, and a week later he was openly married to Miss Linley. His first comedy, The Rivals, was produced at Covent Garden on 17th January, 1775. His second piece, St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant, a lively farce. In February 1777 he produced his version of Vanbrugh's Relapse, under the title of A Trip to Scarborough. His chief task was to remove indecencies; he added very little to the dialogue and though it is printed among his work he has no title to it. The School for Scandal was produced on the 8th of May 1777. The School for Scandal, though it has not the unity of The Rivals, nor the same wealth of broadly humorous incident, is universally regarded as Sheridan's masterpiece. Sheridan's farce, The Critic, was produced on the 29th of October 1779. It seems that he had accumulated notes for another comedy to be called Affectation, but his only dramatic composition during the remaining thirty-six years of his life was Pizarro, produced in 1799 -- a tragedy in which he made liberal use of some of the arts ridiculed in the person of Mr. Puff. He also revised for the stage Benjamin Thompson's translation, The Stranger, of Kotzebue's Menschenhass und Reue. He entered parliament for Stafford in 1780, as the friend and ally of Charles James Fox. Under the wing of Fox he filled subordinate offices in the short-lived ministries of 1782 and 1783. He was under-secretary for foreign affairs in the Rockingham ministry, and a secretary of the treasury in the Coalition ministry. His last years were harassed by debt and disappointment. He sat in parliament for Westminster in 1806-1807. At the general election of 1807 he stood again for Westminster and was defeated, but was returned as member for Ilchester, at the expense, apparently, of the prince of Wales. In 1812 he failed to secure a seat at Stafford. He could not raise money enough to buy the seat. He had quarrelled with the Prince Regent, and seems to have had none but obscure friends to stand by him. As a member of parliament he had been safe against arrest for debt, but now that this protection was lost his creditors closed in upon him, and the history of his life from this time till his death in 1816 is one of the most painful passages in the biography of great men.)

The Best Poem Of Richard Brinsley Sheridan

If A Daughter You Have

If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life,
No peace shall you know, tho' you've buried your wife,
At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter.
Sighing and whining,
Dying and pining,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter.

When scarce in their teens, they have wit to perplex us,
With letters and lovers for ever they vex us,
While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter.
Wrangling and jangling,
Flouting and pouting,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Comments

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes

The Right Honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.

Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms through the year. And depend on it ... that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.

Take care; you know I am compliance itself, when I am not thwarted! No one more easily led, when I have my own way; but don't put me in a phrenzy.

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse—why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked.

My valour is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!

Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.

An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!

When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.... There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed—and I thought it my duty to do so.

He is the very pineapple of politeness!

There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed; and I thought it my duty to do so.

Sure if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs.

I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience—it also marks the time, which is four o'clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Popularity

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Popularity

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