before the sun." Burke called it "the most astonishing effort
of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or
tradition;" and Pitt said "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient
or modern times."

Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was
drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
palliate his faults, are the best.

GEORGE COLMAN.--Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his
education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford.
After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study
to court the comic muse. His first piece, _Polly Honeycomb_, was produced
in 1760; but his reputation was established by _The Jealous Wife_,
suggested by a scene in Fielding's _Tom Jones_. Besides many humorous
miscellanies, most of which appeared in _The St. James' Chronicle_,--a
magazine of which he was the proprietor,--he translated Terence, and
produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still
presented upon the stage. The best of these is _The Clandestine Marriage_,
which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play,
Davies says "that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and
Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor
were so happily blended." In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the
Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a
mental invalid until his death in 1794.

GEORGE COLMAN. THE YOUNGER.--This writer was the son of George Colman, and
was b