at Gloucester, with her more celebrated sister Elizabeth Ann, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan [q. v.] On the retirement of Mrs. Sheridan, Mary Linley filled her place in oratorio and concert room. On 25 July 1780 she married Richard Tickell, pamphleteer and commissioner of stamps. She died at Clifton on 27 July 1787, leaving two sons and a daughter, and was buried in Wells Cathedral.
Mrs. Sheridan was passionately attached to this sister, and on her death in 1788 wrote some pathetic verses, which are quoted by Moore (Life of R. B. Sheridan, pp. 392–6). Moore also gives some letters written from Bath by Mary Linley upon the production there of the ‘Rivals’ in 1775.
Gainsborough painted Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell together, the original picture being at present in the Dulwich College Gallery. A miniature by Cosway, after a sketch of Mrs. Tickell taken shortly before her death, while asleep (see Moore, Sheridan, p. 390), by a Bristol artist, is in the possession of Lumsden Propert, esq., M.D.; another miniature, by Gainsborough, belongs to C. E. Lees, esq.
[Annals of the Three Choirs, pp. 48, 49; Brayley's Surrey, iii. 242; Gent. Mag. 1787, pt. ii. p. 741.]
LINLEY, THOMAS, the younger (1756–1778), violinist and composer, son of Thomas Linley the elder [q. v.], was born at Bath in May 1756. Under his father's instruction he showed at a very early age marked skill on the violin, and at the age of seven was taken as pupil for five years by Dr. Boyce. When eight years old he performed in public, and at the end of his period of tuition with Dr. Boyce he wrote six violin solos, which are dated 1768. In 1770 he went to Florence, where he received lessons on the violin from Nardini, and made the acquaintance of Mozart, who became warmly attached to him. On his return to England in 1773 Linley became leader of the orchestra and solo player at his father's concerts at Bath, and subsequently at the Drury Lane Oratorios. Parke (Musical Memoirs, i. 204) considered him ‘one of the finest violin-players in Europe.’
He was drowned, through the capsizing of a boat, on 5 Aug. 1778, while on a visit to the Duke of Ancaster at Grimsthorpe in Lincolnshire, and was buried in the duke's vault. A portrait of him together with his sister Mary (by Gainsborough) is at Knole, in the possession of Lord Sackville.
Linley's compositions include: An anthem with orchestral accompaniment, ‘Let God arise!’ written for the Worcester festival of 1773; the overture, a duet, trio, and three or four airs for the ‘Duenna,’ 1775; a chorus and two songs for the ‘Tempest,’ and an ‘Ode on the Witches and Fairies of Shakspere,’ 1776; a short oratorio, ‘The Song of Moses,’ composed for Drury Lane; additional accompaniments for wind instruments to the music in ‘Macbeth;’ and a glee for five voices, ‘Hark! the Bird's Melodious Strain,’ written at the request of his sister, Mrs. Sheridan, who usually sang the upper part. Most of his musical works were comprised in the posthumous collection of his father's works and his own, published in 1800. There was published anonymously in London, 1778, ‘A Monody (after the manner of Milton's ‘Lycidas’) on the Death of Mr. Linley, who was drowned August 5th, 1778.’
[Grove's Dict. of Music, ii. 144; Fétis's Biog. Univ. des Musiciens, v. 311, 312; Parke's Musical Memoirs, i. 204; Fitzgerald's Lives of the Sheridans, i. 76; Harmonicon for 1825, p. 221; British Museum Catalogues; cf. Egerton MSS. 2492–3.]
LINLEY, THOMAS, the elder (1732–1795), musical composer, born at Wells in 1732, was the son of a carpenter. Being sent on one occasion to execute some carpentering work at Badminton, the seat of the Duke of Beaufort, he derived such pleasure from listening to the playing and singing of Thomas Chilcot, the organist of Bath Abbey Church, that he determined to become a musician.
He studied first under Chilcot at Bath, and afterwards at Naples under Paradies. On his return to England he set up in Bath as a singing-master, in which capacity Parke (Musical Memoirs, i. 203) declares him to have been ‘almost unrivalled in England.’ For many years, assisted by his children, he carried on the concerts in the Bath Assembly Rooms with great success, devoting special attention to the production of Handel's works.
On the retirement in 1774 of John Christopher Smith, Linley took his place as joint-manager with Stanley of the Drury Lane Oratorios. He still, however, made his home in Bath, at No. 5 Pierrepont Street, in which house his daughter Elizabeth Ann (afterwards Mrs. Sheridan) was born. After Stanley's death in 1786, Linley continued to direct the Oratorios with the assistance of Dr. Arnold.
In 1775, together with his eldest son, Thomas, he composed and compiled the music to the comic opera ‘The Duenna,’ written by his son-in-law, Sheridan, who added one or two airs by Jackson of Exeter. The piece was produced at Drury Lane on 21 Nov. 1775, and enjoyed the then unparalleled run of seventy-five nights. While the piece was in
