land a new home and a new mode of livelihood as a teacher of and lecturer on elocution. He lectured on elocution with great success in London, Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. His house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, became the resort of eminent men; he acquired such an influence with Wedderburn as to persuade him to move the Earl of Bute to bestow a pension of 300l. upon Dr. Johnson; and when he undertook to prepare a pronouncing dictionary, the Earl of Bute procured a pension for him of 200l. Dr. Johnson, who had been on intimate terms with Sheridan, considered this grant of a pension an affront to himself, and talked about giving up his acquaintance. They ceased to meet. Sheridan's revenge was to write of Johnson that had ‘gigantic fame in these days of little men.’ Johnson's contempt for his rival found notable expression. ‘Why, sir,’ he said to Boswell, ‘Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature.’ On 28 Nov. 1758 the university of Oxford ‘incorporated’ him as master of arts, and that of Cambridge did likewise on 16 March 1769. He was made an honorary freeman of the city of Edinburgh on 8 July 1761. He conferred on Home, the author of ‘Douglas,’ the honour of a gold medal, specially struck, ‘for having enriched the stage with a perfect tragedy.’ In 1763 he acted at Drury Lane in his wife's comedy, ‘The Discovery.’
He went to Blois in 1764 with his wife, elder son, and two daughters, partly for the sake of his health, but chiefly, as he wrote to Samuel Whyte, to ‘bid defiance to his merciless creditors.’ He returned home after his wife's death in 1766, residing first in London and next in Bath, visiting Dublin at intervals, where his appearance on the stage attracted playgoers. Later in life he gave readings in London, Henderson being his colleague, and Henderson's rendering of ‘John Gilpin’ pleasing the public even more than that of Dryden's ‘Alexander's Feast,’ upon the delivery of which he plumed himself. He died at Margate on 14 Aug. 1788. Having directed in his will that his remains were to be interred in the parish next to that in which he died, he was buried in the centre aisle of St. Peter's Church in the Isle of Thanet. His younger daughter, Elizabeth, who was then unmarried, tended him in his later years, and was present at his deathbed, as was his eminent younger son, Richard Brinsley, who defrayed the expenses of his last illness and his funeral. His second son, Charles Francis, is, like Richard Brinsley, separately noticed.
Thomas Sheridan was a voluminous but not a popular writer. His chief works were:
- ‘British Education, or the Source of the Disorders of Great Britain,’ 1756.
- ‘A Dissertation on … Difficulties … in Learning the English Tongue, with a Scheme for an English Grammar and Dictionary,’ 1762, 4to.
- ‘A Course of Lectures on Elocution, with two Dissertations and some Tracts,’ 1763.
- ‘A Plan of Education for the young Nobility and Gentry,’ 1769.
- ‘Lectures on the Art of Reading,’ 1775.
- ‘A General Dictionary of the English Language,’ 2 vols. London, 1780, 4to; a revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1789, and was frequently reissued as ‘A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, both with regard to Sound and Meaning.’
- ‘The Works of Swift, with Life,’ in 18 vols. 8vo, 1784.
[The facts in Thomas Sheridan's life are set forth in the first chapter of the Biography of R. B. Sheridan, by the writer of this notice. See also Boswell's Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill; Baker's Biogr. Dramatica; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Webb's Compend. of Irish Biography.]
SHERIDAN, WILLIAM (1636–1711), bishop of Kilmore, who was born at Togher in 1636 near Kilmore, co. Cavan, belonged to a native Irish clan in that district. His younger brother, Thomas Sheridan (fl. 1661–1688) [q. v.], is separately noticed; another brother, Patrick, died bishop of Cloyne in 1682. His father, Dennis Sheridan or O'Sheridan, was brought up as a protestant in the house of John Hill, dean of Kilmore, was ordained by Bishop William Bedell [q. v.] on 10 June 1634, and at once collated by him to the vicarage of Killasher. He lived in a house of Bedell's about a mile from Kilmore, and married an Englishwoman named Foster. When the rebellion of 1641 broke out, Dennis Sheridan did many good services to the distressed English, and his Celtic origin secured him a certain toleration among the insurgents, so that he was allowed to retain his house. There he sheltered the wives of Bedell's sons, there the bishop himself died, and from thence his body was carried to Kilmore. Sheridan saved some of Bedell's treasures, including the Irish Old Testament in manuscript, afterwards printed at the expense of Robert Boyle [q. v.] Hearne says (Collections, ii. 80) Sheridan was the translator, but this is an error. On 20 Sept. 1645 Sheridan was presented by the crown to the lapsed vicarages of Drung and Laragh in the diocese of Kilmore.
