The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-07
Centenary of Tragic End of Richard
 Brinsley Sheridan


 on July 2 1916, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the most brilliant writer of comedy that England had known since Congreve and Farquhar. breath ed his last The death of the master wit of his time came as a welcome re- lief from the poverty and loneliness which had embittered his latter years. The story of Sheridan's last months on earth is one of the most painful passages in the history of great men. Edgar Allen Poe, picked up insen- sible in Baltimore street and carried away to a hospital to die; Oscar Wilde, a drunken. bloated carfcature of hu- manity during those last terrible days in Paris, and the precocious. Thomas Chatterton, dying by his own hand at the age of seventeen, after months Of semi-starvation in a London attic even these unfortunate sons of genius were scarcely more miserable than the gifted author of "The School Tor Scandal" Pursued by creditors. brok- en in health, almost penniless, his re- putation blasted, deserted and slight ed by his former friends and associ- ates, plunged into the very depths of melancholy and so enfeebled in spirit as to burst into tears at kindly word, yet to the last able on occasions to tighten the clouds of despair with flashes of his old wit, Sheridan's last years were a foretaste of Gehenna. On the moment that the tortured body stiffened into death, however, the former friends and admirers of the great dramatist returned to their allegiance. So long as the breath re- mained in his body as he was an out law from respectable society. but the corpse was deemed worthy of 8. great public funeral. From the humble house in Saville Row the body was removed to 8 residence in Great George street, and thence the tun- eral procession moved to Westminster Abbey, where the remains of Sheridan were laid to rest in that celebrated nook known as "Pett's Corner. Few there were so humble as to visit the dramatist on, his deathbed, but at the funeral the pail was supported by the Duke of Argyle, the Duke of Bed- ford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Holland, and the Bishop of London. Among the mourn CTS were their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York and Sussex and dozens of peers while Canning, Romtlly and many others represented the aristoc- racy of intellect.
 In a space between the monu- ments of Shakespeare and Addison, and near the grave of Garrick, rests all that is mortal of the Anglo-Irish
 wit. In death he has found rest | ing place under the roof of the ven- erable building which holds the bones of England's immortals-of whom he was certainly one.
 Sheridan was born in Dublin. the
 grandson of that Dr. Thomas Sheri-
 dan who was the boon companion ana
 confidant of Swift. and the son or
 Thomas Sheridan, distinguished ac-
 tor. His mother, Frances Sheridan. 1 gained wide reputation as a novel;
 ist and writer of plays. After TO-
 mantle courtship, in which he fought
 two duels with a rival. young Sheri-
 dan married Miss Linley. the daugh-
 ter of a composer and they settled In
 London, where his first comedy, eThe
 Rivals" was produced in 1775. A
 comic opera, "The Duenna," was soon
 followed by 'The School for Scan
 dal," and the third and last of his
 great comedies, ''The Critic" was
 produced in 1779. Sheridan then en- tered Parliament. where he won fame as a brilliant debater. His par liamentary career terminated in 1872. and then began that tragic period to
 which death brought happy rehef.