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Rh the expense apparently of the prince of Wales. In 1812 he failed to secure a seat at Stafford. He could not raise money enough to buy the seat. He had quarrelled with the Prince Regent, and seems to have had none but obscure friends to stand by him. As a member of parliament he had been safe against arrest for debt, but now that this protection was lost his creditors closed in upon him, and the history of his life from this time till his death in 1816 is one of the most painful passages in the biography of great men. It may be regarded as certain, however, that the description of the utter destitution and misery of the last weeks of his life given in the Croker Papers (i. pp. 288-312, ed. L. ]. Jennings) is untrue. In any attempt to judge of Sheridan as he was apart from his works, it is necessary to make considerable deductions from the mass of floating anecdotes that have gathered round his name. It was not without reason that his grand-daughter Mrs Norton denounced the unfairness of judging of the real man from unauthenticated stories. The real Sheridan was not a pattern of decorous respectability, but we may fairly believe that he was very far from being the Sheridan of vulgar legend. Against the stories about his reckless management of his affairs we must set the broad facts that he had no source of income but Drury Lane theatre, that he bore from it for thirty years all the expenses of a fashionable life, and that the theatre was twice rebuilt during his proprietorship, the first time (1791) on account of its having been pronounced unsafe, and the second (1809) after a disastrous fire. Enough was lost in this way to account ten times over for all his debts. The records of his wild bets in the betting book of Brooks's Club date from the years after the loss, in 1792, of his first wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. He married again in 1795, his second wife being Esther Jane, daughter of Newton Ogle, dean of Winchester. The reminiscences of his son's tutor, Mr Smyth, show anxious and ftdgetty family habits, curiously at variance with the accepted tradition of his imperturbable recklessness. He died on the 7th of July 1816, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Sheridan's only son by his first marriage, (1775-1817), was a poet of some merit. He became colonial treasurer at the Cape of Good Hope. His wife, Caroline Henrietta, nee Callander (1779-1851), wrote three novels, which had some success at the time. She received, after her husband's death, quarters at Hampton Court, and is described by Fanny Kemble as more beautiful than anybody but; her daughters. The eldest child, (1807-1867), married Commander Price Blackwood, afterwards Baron Dufferin. Her husband died in 1841, and in 1862 she consented to a ceremony of marriage with George Hay, Earl of Gifford, who died a month later. Her Songs, Poems and Verses (1894) were published, with a memoir, by her son, the marquess of Dufferin. The second daughter,, became Mrs Norton (q. v.). The youngest,, married Edward Adolphus Seymour, afterwards 12th duke of Somerset.

.—Memoirs of the. . . Life of. . R. B. Sheridan, with a Particular Account of his Family and Connexions (1817), by John Watkins (“ who deals, ” said Byron, “ in the life and libel line), was an altogether inadequate piece of work, and made many false statements. The Memoirs, &c.(1825), COmpiled by Thomas Moore did not make full use of the papers submitted by the family. William Smyth (Memoir of Mr Sheridan, 1840), who had been a tutor in Sheridan's house, was responsible for many of the scandalous and sometimes baseless stories connected with Sheridan's name. Accounts of the dramatist's parents and of his grandfather are given by Alicia Lefanu in her Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Frances Sheridan, éfc. (1824). There are numerous references to Sheridan in the Letters and Journals of Byron, and several anecdotes (see especially vol. v. p. 411 seq., ed. Prothero, 1901). Popular works on the Sheridans are Mrs Oliphant's Sheridan (1883) in the “ English Men of Letters ” series; Mr Percy Fitzgerald's Lifes of the Sheridans (2 vols., 1886); and the Life of R. B. Sheridan (1890) by Lloyd C. Sanders in the “Great Writers " series. An admirable sketch of Sheridan's political career is given in Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox: the Opposition under George the Third (1874), by Mr W. Fraser Rae, who reconstructed Sheridan's biography from the original sources and vindicated his reputation from the misstatements of earlier writers, in Sheridan:a Biography (2 vols., 1896), which has an introduction by the marquess of Dufferin and Ava, the great-grandson of the dramatist. The Life of R. B. Sheridan by Walter Sichel (1909) is, however, the best account now available.

Among the numerous modern editions of Sheridan's plays, of which only The Rivals was published by the dramatist himself, may be mentioned: Sheridan's Plays now printed as he wrote them (1902), edited by W. Fraser Rae, who quotes at length the criticisms in the contemporary press; The Plays of R. B. Sheridan (1900), edited by Mr A. W. Pollard; and Sheridan's Comedies (Boston, U.S.A., 1885), with a valuable introduction by Mr Brander Matthews. For further details consult the extensive bibliography by Mr J. P. Anderson in the Life by Lloyd C. Sanders.

SHERIDAN, PHILIP HENRY (1831-1888), American general, was born at Albany, N.Y., on the 6th of March 1831. His early life was spent in a country district in Perry county, Ohio, and he proceeded to West Point in 1848, graduating in 1853. He was assigned to the infantry and served on the frontier and on the Pacific coast, gaining some experience of war in operations against the Indians. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he had just become first lieutenant, and soon afterwards he was promoted captain and entrusted with administrative duties in the western theatre of war. Early in 1862 he was commissioned colonel of the 2nd Michigan cavalry, with which he served in Halleck's army on the Tennessee. In June he was placed in command of a cavalry brigade, and a month later he won promotion to the rank of brigadier-general U.S.V. by his skilful conduct of the tight of Booneville on the rst of July. He took part in General Buell's campaign against Bragg, and led the 11th division of the Army of the Ohio at the hard-fought battle of Perryville (October 8). Sheridan distinguished himself still more at the sanguinary battle of Murfreesboro (Stone river), and on the recommendation of Rosecrans was made major-general of volunteers, to date from the 31st of December 1862. His division took part in Rosecrans's campaign of 1863 and a .very distinguished part at Chickamauga and Chattanooga (q.'v.). Sheridan's leading of his division at the latter battle attracted the notice of General Grant, and when the latter, as general in chief of the U.S. armies, was seeking an “ active and energetic man, full of spirit and vigour and life ” to command the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, Sheridan was chosen on the suggestion of General Halleck. The extraordinary activity of the Union cavalry under his command justified the choice. Sheridan's corps took part in the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House (see the article WILDERNESS), incidents of which led to a bitter quarrel between Sheridan and Meade and to Sheridan's being dispatched by General Grant on a far» reaching cavalry raid towards Richmond. In the course of this was fought the battle of Yellow Tavern, where the Confederate General ]. E. B. Stuart was killed. After rejoining the army Sheridan fought another well-contested action at Hawes' Shop and took and held Cold Harbor. After the battle at that place Sheridan undertook another raid, this time towards Charlottesville (June 7-28), in view of co-operation with the army of General David Hunter in the Valley. In the course of this was fought the action of Trevilian's Station (June 11). A little later came General Sheridan's greatest opportunity for distinction. He was appointed t.o command a new “Army of the Shenandoah ” to oppose the forces of General Early, and conducted the brilliant and decisive campaign which crushed the Confederate army and finally put an end to the war in Northerm Virginia (see AMERICAN CIVIL WAR and SHENANDOAH VALLEY CAMPAIGNS). The victories of the Opequan, or Winchester (September 19), Fisher's Hill (September 22) and Cedar Creek (October 19), produced great elation in the Northand corresponding depression in the Confederacy, and Sheridan was made successively brigadier-general U.S.A. for Fisher's Hill and major-general U.S.A. for Cedar Creek. “ Sheridan's Ride ” of 20 m. from Winchester to Cedar Creek to take command of the hard-pressed Union troops is a celebrated incident of the war. His capacity for accepting the gravest responsibilities was shown, not less than by his handling of an army in battle, by his ruthless devastation of the Valley-a severe measure felt to be necessary both by Sheridan himself and by Grant. From the Valley the cavalry rode through the enemy's country to join Grant before Petersburg, fighting the action of Waynesboro', destroying