gave him another wound. The same scene was
now enacted, and a _combat a l'outrance_ took place, ending in mutual
wounds, and fortunately no one dead.

Poor little Betsy was at Oxford when all this took place. On her return
to Bath she heard something of it, and unconsciously revealed the secret
of her private marriage, claiming the right of a wife to watch over her
wounded husband. Then came the _denouement_. Old Tom Sheridan rejected
his son. The angry Linley would have rejected his daughter, but for her
honour. Richard was sent off into Essex, and in due time the couple were
legally married in England. So ended a wild, romantic affair, in which
Sheridan took a desperate, but not altogether honourable, part. But the
dramatist got more out of it than a pretty wife. Like all true geniuses,
he employed his own experience in the production of his works, and drew
from the very event of his life some hints or touches to enliven the
characters of his imagination. Surely the bravado and cowardice of
Captain Matthews, who on the first meeting in the Park is described as
finding all kinds of difficulties in the way of their fighting,
objecting now to the ground as unlevel, now to the presence of a
stranger, who turns out to be an officer, and very politely moves off
when requested, who, in short, delays the event as long as possible,
must have supplied the idea of Bob Acres; while the very conversations,
of which we have no record, may have given him some of those hints of
character which made the 'Rivals' so successful. That play--his
first--was written in 1774. It failed on its first appearance, owing to
the bad acting of the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, by Mr. Lee; but when
another actor was substituted, the piece was at once successful, and
acted with overflowing houses all over the country. How could it be
otherwise? It may have been exaggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but
such characters as Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia
Languish, and most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so
carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. They
have become household words; they are even now our standards of
ridicule, and be they natural or not, these last eighty years have
changed the world so little that Malaprops and Acreses may be found in
the range of almost any man's experience, and in every class of society.

Sheridan and his divine Betsy were now living in their own house, in
th