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Unit 18: Richard Sheridan: The School for Scandal—Introduction to the Author and the Text

Ann Linley (1754–92), whose fine soprano voice delighted audiences at the concerts and festivals Notes
conducted by her father, Thomas. In order to avoid the unpleasant attentions of a Welsh squire,
Thomas Mathews of Llandaff, she decided to take refuge in a French nunnery. Sheridan accompanied
her to Lille in March 1772 but returned to fight two duels that same year with Mathews. Meanwhile,
Elizabeth had returned home with her father, and Sheridan was ordered by his father to Waltham
Abbey, Essex, to pursue his studies. He was entered at the Middle Temple in April 1773 but after a
week broke with his father, gave up a legal career, and married Elizabeth at Marylebone Church,
London.

Marriage
In 1770 the Sheridans moved to Bath. There Richard, his brother Charles, and his friend Halhead
were among the many who fell in love with a beautiful young singer, Elizabeth Linley. The most
importunate of her admirers was a Capt. or Maj. Mathews. Terrified by his persecutions, she decided
to seek shelter in a French convent, and Sheridan offered to protect her on her journey. In March 1772
they fled to France and were secretly married there. Leaving her at the convent, Sheridan returned
to England and fought two duels with Mathews. Elizabeth was brought back to Bath by her father,
and Sheridan was sent to London by his, but on April 13, 1773, they were allowed to marry openly
and set-up house in London on a lavish scale with little money and no immediate prospects of
any—other than his wife’s dowry. The young couple entered the fashionable world and apparently
held up their end in entertaining.

Though at first the young couple had nothing to live on except a small dowry, in
January 1775 Sheridan solved the problem of their support with the production of The Rivals
at Convent Garden. A comedy of manners that blended brilliant wit with 18th-century
sensibility, it became and remained a great success. One measure of its popularity was that it
gave a new word to the English language, “malapropism,” based on Mrs. Malaprop’s mistakes.

The year 1775 was a productive one for Sheridan. In May his farce, St. Patrick’s Day, or the Scheming
Lieutenant, was performed, and in November Sheridan’s comic opera, The Duenna, was produced
with the help of his wife’s father at Covent Garden. A son, Thomas, was also born to the Sheridans
in 1775.
Political Career

Sheridan had become Member of Parliament for Stafford in September 1780 and was undersecretary
for foreign affairs (1782) and secretary to the treasury (1783). Later he was treasurer of the navy
(1806–07) and a privy councillor. The rest of his 32 years in Parliament were spent as a member of
the minority Whig party in opposition to the governing Tories.
Sheridan’s critical acumen and command over language had full scope in his oratory and were seen
at their best in his speeches as manager of the unsuccessful impeachment of Warren Hastings,
Governor General of India. Sheridan was recognized as one of the most persuasive orators of his
time but never achieved greater political influence in Parliament because he was thought to be an
unreliable intriguer. Some support for this view is to be found in his behaviour during the regency
crisis (1788–89) following the temporary insanity of George III, when Sheridan acted as adviser to
the unpopular, self-indulgent prince of Wales (George IV). He encouraged the prince to think that
there would be a great majority for his being regent with all the royal powers simply because he
was heir apparent. In the country at large this was seen as a move by Charles James Fox and his

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