at Dull little place, Orchard Street, Portman Square, then an
aristocratic neighbourhood, and he was diligent in the production of
essays, pamphlets, and farces, many of which never saw the light, while
others fell flat, or were not calculated to bring him any fame. What
great authors have not experienced the same disappointments? What men
would ever be great if they allowed such checks to damp their energy, or
were turned back by them from the course in which they feel that their
power lies?

But his next work, the opera of 'The Duenna,' had a yet more signal
success, and a run of no less than seventy-five nights at Covent Garden,
which put Garrick at Drury Lane to his wit's end to know how to compete
with it. Old Linley himself composed the music for it; and to show how
thus a family could hold the stage, Garrick actually played off the
mother against the son, and revived Mrs. Sheridan's comedy of 'The
Discovery,' to compete with Richard Sheridan's 'Duenna.'

The first night 'The Rivals' was brought out at Bath came Sheridan's
father, who, as we have seen, had refused to have anything to say to his
son. It is related as an instance of Richard's filial affection, that
during the representation he placed himself behind a side-scene opposite
to the box in which his father and sisters sat, and gazed at them all
the time. When he returned to his house and wife, he burst into tears,
and declared that he felt it too bitter that he alone should have been
forbidden to speak to those on whom he had been gazing all the night.

During the following year this speculative man, who married on nothing
but his brain, and had no capital, no wealthy friends, in short nothing
whatever, suddenly appears in the most mysterious manner as a
capitalist, and lays down his L10,000 in the coolest and quietest
manner. And for what? For a share in the purchase of Garrick's moiety of
the patent of Drury Lane. The whole property was worth L70,000; Garrick
sold his half for L35,000, of which old Mr. Linley contributed L10,000,
Dr. Ford L15,000, and penniless Sheridan the balance. Where he got the
money nobody knew, and apparently nobody asked. It was paid, and he
entered at once on the business of proprietor of that old house, where
so many a Roscius has strutted and declaimed with more or less fame; so
many a Walking gentleman done his five shillings' worth of polite
comedy, so many a tinsel king degraded the 'legitimate drama,' in the
most illegi