He made a fortune but he died in poverty. He was buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, in London. His funeral was attended by earls, viscounts, lords, dukes, the Lord Mayor of London and other notables of the time. I am talking of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the most successful, the most talked of, and the most conspicuous young man of his time. The three plays he wrote, The Rivals, The School for Scandal and The Critic set a fashion in the theatre. Why he didn’t write another play, after the age of twenty eight, is a mystery. It is conceivable that his creative juices had dried up, or perhaps he was so disenchanted with the sentimental dross that was being presented in the name of drama at the time that he did not think it worth his while to pursue his vocation.

He began writing his first play, The Rivals, at the age of twenty-two. When it was first produced in 1775 at the Drury Lane Theatre, it was a failure and was withdrawn. (Ibsen, Shaw, Chekhov had met with a similar fate). He re-jigged the play, tightened it by making some cuts and presented it again eleven days later at the same theatre. The play was received enthusiastically and Sheridan, at the age of twenty three, became the talk of the town.

The Rivals would always be remembered, if only because Sheridan created the delightful comic character of Mrs Malaprop, an elderly provincial lady, a shallow show-off, who tries her best to emulate the fashionable ladies of London. The word, ‘malaprop’, has since become a noun and an adjective in the English dictionary.

Sheridan may have taken a tip from Shakespeare’s Dogberry in (Much Ado About Nothing) who is fond of misusing words ("Comparisons are oderous" he says, when he means to say odious) but Mrs Malaprop is in a class of her own. The scene in which she is coaxing her ward to look favourably upon the man who has been chosen to be her husband, she says:

"Oh he is so well-bred, so full of alacrity and adulation. His physiognomy so grammatical! -- Then his presence is so noble! -- I protest when I saw him, I thought what Hamlet says in the play: Hesperion curls -- the front of Job himself -- an eye like March, to threaten and command! - a station like Harry Mercury, new -- something about kissing on a hill -- however the similitude struck me directly."

What she means to say is that he is so full of affability and animation. His phraseology is so grammatical -- then his presence is so noble, I protest, when I saw him I thought of what Hamlet says in the play. As for her quotation from Hamlet, well, it is a gem of a howler. Hamlet, in the scene in which he is trying to make her mother understand how wrong she was to have married his father’s brother, says:

"See what a grace was seated on his brow

Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself

An eye like Mars, to threaten or command

A station like the herald Mercury

New lighted on a heavenly kissing hill…"

* * * * *

The neo-classical spirit of the age had, by the later half of the eighteenth century, destroyed serious drama. The changing life of the audience, middle class, squeamish and unrefined, had no taste for the old comedies of manners. They preferred farce, but at the same time had a horror of anything that they regarded to be ‘low’ and immoral. They could tolerate folly and a bit of vice in a play but would not tolerate the inevitable consequences of vice and folly to be put upon the stage. Drama had now turned into an artificial comedy. If you read English plays written during this period, you will find that most of them are sentimental trash. Among this dross, Sheridan’s plays stand out like diamonds.

The early and middle period of the eighteenth century had been a period of prosperity, but the most influential grade in society was ceasing to be the aristocracy, their place having been taken by the middle classes. "The middle classes", wrote the scholar Robert Herring, "brought to their new position all their heavy and slightly hypocritical qualities which the aristocracy was too weak to repudiate and too impoverished to refine. Morals had taken the place of manners."

In London, the centre of theatre, there were now only two theatres - Drury Lane and Convent Garden -- at which spoken drama could be presented. All other playhouses had begun to offer musical entertainment, burlettas or spectacular shows featuring horsemanship and aquatics. All this had a serious effect on drama.

* * * * *

Sheridan inherited the art of playwriting from his mother who was a dramatist and a novelist. His father was an actor in Ireland, but when he and his family migrated to England (young Richard was seven at the time) he gave up acting and began writing books on education. He also taught oratory for a while.

Fame and fortune followed Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His second -- and his best -- play, The School for Scandal was also a great success but Sheridan was no longer interested in playwriting. By now he had already acquired a part share in the Drury Lane Theatre. Within two or three years he acquired the rest of the shares and, at twenty nine, became the owner of Drury Lane Theatre.

He then became a whig member of Parliament. The Right Honourable R.B. Sheridan remained to be in the Commons for thirty two years. Politically, he is remembered only for having demanded the impeachment of Warren Hastings, (much praised in my school text book), who amassed on enormous amount of wealth during his tenure as the Governor-General of India. Sheridan’s most famous speech during the impeachment trial of Hastings is said to have lasted five and a half hours.

He was twenty six when he wrote The School For Scandal, a play which has been considered to be one of the greatest comedies of manners. Hazlitt, the best known critic of the eighteenth century, wrote: "The School for Scandal is, if not the most original, perhaps the most finished and faultless comedy which we have. Besides the wit and ingenuity of this play, there is a general spirit of frankness and generosity about it, that relieves the heart as well as clears the lungs. It professes a faith in the natural goodness as well as habitual depravity of human nature."

The play is still performed. In the 20th century alone, not a single decade has gone by without at least one, if not two or three, productions of the play being staged in the English-speaking world.