Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/69

 ii s x. JULY 25, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

an operetta in which Mrs. Sheridan apparently had a hand, and which was p-obably 'The Haunted Village,' was not acted simply because the music was too sad. A fragment remains under the name of ' Rural Amours.'

" ' Robinson Crusoe ' appeared in 1781. It con- tained a song called ' The Midnight Watch,' scribbled at the last moment on a playbill, and set to music by Thomaa Linley." Ibid., i. 18.

The remaining pantomime mentioned is possibly identical with, or the original of, the ' Harlequin Hurly-burly ' produced by Sheri- dan in 1786 (ib., i.*612, but " 1783 " in index).

Mr. Sichel quotes passages and aphorisms from the fragment of what promised to be a brilliant comedy, had it ever beqn finished. The Morning Post for 6 Nov., 1781, announced that "Mr. Sheridan has made considerable progress in his new comedy of ' Affectation,' which will succeed the opera of Mr. Tickell." Again, as late as the end of April, 1795, the date of his second marriage, Sheridan was reported to have his comedy ready for the stage. But when he was once asked why he had not produced his long- promised work, his interlocutor answered for him : " You are afraid of the author of ' The School for Scandal ' " (ibid., passim).

It was in another passage of his four days' speech at the great trial that Sheridan fastened upon Nathaniel Middleton the nick- name of Memory Middleton ; where, after rallying the discreet witness " prevarica- tion personified " on his assumed forgetful- ness, he assured their Lordships that of nothing would they ever be more oblivious than of Mr. Middleton's memory (ibid., i. 91)

Which of the numerous country houses rented at various times by Sheridan was called Randall's ?

In 1781 Sheridan, who had left the school about thirteen years before, in Mr. Sichel's words,

" resumed his abode at Harrow, this time in the Grove, one of those white Georgian mansions which still adorn the hill. Sheridan's study, the fine old marble mantlepieces, the spreading cedar outside, can still be seen. So can a spot in the garden, commanding the long view towards Windsor, which tradition asserts to have been his wife's favourite nook. The red brick buildings, once his stables, still front the climbing high road, and a coloured print of ' Mr. Sheridan's stables at Harrow ' is yet extant. In the Grove's garden For and Burke and [General the Hon. Richard] Fitzpatrick met and forgathered. From the Grove Mrs. Sheridan addressed some charming letters to her ' dear LeFany,' his sister Alicia. [Three of these letters are given in the Appendix to Mr. Sichel's second volume.] " At the bottom of the page from which I have quoted (ibid., i. 260), Mr. Sichel gives a

vigorous stanza from the Harrow Tercen- tenary Prize Poem of 1871, beginning, Still jaunty Acres walks our cricket field.

The entire poem of twenty-four nine-line stanzas may be seen in the school com- memoration volume of the above date. It presents in singularly happy fashion a brief chronicle in verse of Harrow history, the author being Mr. Sichel himself, at that time a member of the school.

The Grove, which stands near the top of the hill, to the north of the parish church, almost certainly occupies the site of t he- Rectory Manor House. A few remains of former greatness may still be seen : an old well faced with Purbeck stone, some broken fragments of an oriel window built into a wall, and certain cavernous cellars. Indeed,, the house has undergone many vicissitudes.- It has been used as one of the large boarding- houses of the school since about 1819 ; was almost burnt down in January, 1833, but rebuilt ; and was bequeathed, together with its garden of ten acres, to Harrow School, on his death in 1901, by Edward Ernest Bowen, who had presided over its destinies for twenty years. Mrs. Sheridan, in her letter of 20 December (1781) to Alicia Le Fanu, says :

" He (Sherry) intended at that time not to have another Country House as our lease of Heston was expired, but has since chang'd his plan, and

has taken a very pretty place at Harrow, for

a long lease, where he means to put my dear Tom next year."

But Thomas Sheridan, the father of t he- three famous beauties, was never an Harro- vian, although in 1786, when aged 11, he was consigned to the care of Dr. Parr, whom R. B. S. in his career at Harrow had known r both as a senior boy, and later as an assistant master. Charles Brinsley, Sheridan's son by his second wife, was educated at Win- chester and Cambridge.

A. R. BAYLBY. ( To be continued.)

RECTORS OF UPHAM AND DURLEY.

IT is no unusual thing in the present day to- find lists of incumbents hung up in churches. Thereby a great contribution is made to ecclesiastical history, and it is much to be wished that this were done in all ancient parishes.

The following list has been compiled at considerable trouble and some expense from the Diocesan Registers, supplemented by the lists of Oxford and Cambridge graduates,