quence of an accident in childhood. Though endowed with many attractions and with intellectual powers which are as rare as they are enviable, yet that exquisite beauty of feature did not fall to her lot which has distinguished many of her female descendants. She had, however, a bust and arms of incomparable loveliness which painters asked permission to represent on canvas. Her shortcomings were few, uncommon and pardonable. Her husband found no other fault than that she dressed too plainly. She was as little covetous of admiration as she was averse to display. Had she sought for it, she might not have received the nicely turned compliment that a stranger paid in the public coach which between London and Windsor. In common with many other ladies of her day from the Queen downwards, among whom Cowper's attached friend Mrs. Unwin may be named, she was addicted to taking snuff. Having drawn off her glove to indulge in a pinch, her fellow-traveller remarked :-“ There are few ladies, Madam, who would have concealed such a hand and an arm so ran long." Mrs. Sheridan made no more parade of her abilities than she did of her beauties. The Memoirs of Sidney Bidulph appeared without the author's name on the title-page, and her writings did not give her the position in society which inferior authors have obtained from inferior works. These writings are among the best in the lighter literature of the Eighteenth century, yet her name and her works are less familiar to the reading public now VIVERSITY CALIFORNIA 1.] 57 than those of Frances Burney and Jane Austen. After Sidney Bidulph had entranced the Town, Garrick gladly accepted a comedy from the pen of its accomplished author. While the Evelina of young Frances Burney was the rage, Richard Brinsley Sheridan requested her to write a comedy ; she gladly assented, and she produced at intervals The Witlings, a comedy which proved to be entirely unsuited for the stage; a second comedy, Love and Fashion, which was accepted at Covent Garden and withdrawn at her father's urgent request, and a tragedy, Edwy and Elgitha, which was played at Drury Lane for one night only. Her Diary is better known now than her other productions. Mrs. Sheridan's reputation as a writer of successful novels and plays has been overshadowed by the universal and splendid fame of her son. Mrs. Sheridan and Jane Austen differ from each other in many respects. The powers of Mrs. Sheridan were more comprehensive; those of Jane Austen were greater within their range. Both died at the same age and both might have further enriched our literature if their lives had been prolonged. The novels of Jane Austen will continue to interest and to excite unbounded admiration so long as the liking shall survive for delicacy of feeling and finish in composition, and consummate skill in the delineation of character. A like immortality cannot be predicted for the writings of Mrs. Thomas Sheridan. Yet her fate is as enviable as Jane Austen's. Her name will be honoured while that of the first Richard Brinsley is remembered. He owed more than life to her. The exquisite play of fancy, the genuine humour, the iridescence of faculties which were devoid of spot or blemish, the refined and uniform good taste, the innumerable touches of Nature, perfected by the highest art, that adorn and illumine his matchless plays and many of his speeches, are inheritances from the mother who bore him. Her death was an incalculable and irreparable deprivation. He lost her at an age when her care and counsel would have proved of immeasurable value. By dying prematurely she never enjoyed, what such a mother would have accounted a boon infinitely more desirable than length of days or any personal triumph, the assurance of having dowered and delighted the world with a wonderful son to whom had been transmitted all the fine and praiseworthy traits of her own noble and beautiful mind. II. LIFE'S SPRINGTIME. SHERIDAN was born at 12 Dorset Street in the City of Dublin on the 30th of October, 1751.1 He was 1 According to the Biographia Dramatica for 1812, Sheridan was born “at Quilca, near Dublin,” about 1752. Quilca is as near to Dublin as Rugby is to London. In the “Memoirs," by Watkins, published in 1816, it is said that “the second son of Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mrs. Frances Sheridan was born at the latter end of October, 1751, in Dorset Street, Dublin, and baptized on the 4th of November, in the parish church of St. Mary, by the names of Richard Brinsley.” In the “Memoirs," by Moore, the first chapter begins : "Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in the month of September, 1751, at No. 12, Dorset Street, Dublin, and baptized in St. Mary's Church, as appears by the register of the parish, on the 4th of the following month.” A footnote adds: “He was christened aiso by the name of Butler, after the Earl of Lanesborough.” Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his "Lives of the Sheridans," which appeared in 1886, prints this “extract” from the register of St. Mary's: "Richard Brinsley, son of Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan, baptized November 4th, 1751." Both Moore and Mr. Fitzgerald must have seen the register with eyes differing from mine. In the part of it set apart for baptisms in 1751, this record appears on 4th November : "Thos. Brinsley, son of Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan,” “ Thos.” being written in error. " a baptized in the parish church of St. Mary, on the 4th of November, his godfather being Viscount Lanesborough who called him Brinsley, after his own father, in addition to Richard which was the name chosen by the boy's parents in honour of an uncle, Richard Chamberlaine, who was the second brother of Mrs. Thomas Sheridan. His mother had given birth to two boys before he saw the light. Thomas, the first-born, died in 1750, at the age of three, shortly before the appearance before the appearance of a brother who was named Charles Francis. Two daughters completed the family; the elder, Alicia, entering the world in Dublin, 1754 ; the younger, Elizabeth Hume Crawford, doing so in London five years later. The addition made in 1751 to the household in Dorset Street was not unwelcome, as there was abundant provision for new mouths, Mr. Sheridan being then prosperous and his prospects golden. Neither he nor his wife may have speculated whether the newcomer would make his mark in the world. A father thinks well of an infant if it refrain from crying incessantly, and a mother is delighted if it prove to be healthy, while both have reason to be satisfied so long as its natural task of taking adequate nourishment and sleep continues to be performed with unbroken regularity. (y Fathers and mothers were often solicitous in former days about the influence that might be exerted by the stars which reigned at the nativity of their offspring. I regret that the custom has long been I abandoned of casting a child's horoscope, because |