elt that it was his
destiny to shine, for an arena in which he could do justice to the gifts
which were clamouring for scope and exercise. And thus, to Mrs
Sheridan's lasting regret, cottage and roses and simple delights of the
country were left behind, and she found herself installed in a Portman
Square house, in the heart of the world of fashion.

Here Sheridan, always the most improvident of men, launched out into
extravagances more suited to an income of L5000 a year than the paltry
L150 which was all he could command. He entertained on a lavish scale;
and his wit and charm, supplemented by his wife's beauty and gift of
song, soon surrounded them with a fashionable crowd eager to eat his
dinners and to attend his wife's _soirees_. Sheridan was in his element
in this environment of luxury and prodigality; but the Bath Nightingale
would gladly have changed it all for "a little quiet home that I can
enjoy in comfort," as she told her husband--above all, for the Burnham
cottage where she had been so idyllically happy.

Perhaps if Sheridan had never left the cottage and the roses, his name
would never have been known to fame. His ambition needed some such
stimulus as this spasm of extravagance to wake it to activity. He must
now make money or be submerged by debts; and under this impulse of
necessity it was that he wooed fortune with _The Rivals_, and awoke to
find himself famous and potentially rich. Other comedies followed
swiftly from his eager and inspired pen--_The School for Scandal_, _The
Duenna_, and _The Critic_--each greeted with enthusiasm by a world to
which such dramatic triumphs were a revelation and a delight. Sheridan
was not only the "talk of the town"; he was hailed universally as the
brightest dramatic star of the age.

It is needless to say that Sheridan's fame was a delight to his wife.

"Not long ago," she wrote to a friend, "he was known as
'Mrs Sheridan's husband.' Now the tables are turned, and,
henceforth, I expect I shall be just Mr Sheridan's wife.
Nor could I wish any more exalted title. I am proud and
thankful to be the wife of the cleverest man in England,
and the best husband in the world!"

That Mrs Sheridan adored her husband is evident from every letter she
wrote to him. She addresses him as "my dearest Love" and "my darling
Dick," and vows that she cannot be happy apart from him. "I cannot love
you," she declares, "and be perfectly satisfied at such a