fleets appearing off Plymouth last summer, and the consternation occasioned in that part of the world in consequence thereof." Lloyd's Evening Post (October 20-22) discusses the same farce as follows: "The business of the French and Spanish fleets appearing off Plymouth was a matter of too serious and alarming a nature to be the subject of wit or humour. The formidable strength of our enemies naturally excites resolutions of opposing them with determined courage, but a truly brave people feel the impropriety of treating them with contempt and ridicule."

Such was the general political situation when Dangle picked up his newspaper in the opening scene of The Critic and read in its head-lines "nothing but about the fleet and the nation.” Only study of the historical setting of The Critic reveals the significance of naming Puff's tragedy The Spanish Armada, or the appeal to patriotic pride of Puff's final "magnificence, battle, and procession" when the stage-direction1 details the destruction of the Spanish Armada by the English Fleet.

Flourish of drums trumpets cannon, &c., &c. Scene changes to the sea the musick plays 'Britons strike home.' Spanish fleet destroyed by fire-ships, &c. - English fleet admusick plays 'Rule Britannia.'

vances

1 As given in the first printed edition of The Critic, 1781, p. 98.

CHIEF FACTS OF SHERIDAN'S LITERARY LIFE

1771. (August) — Publication of The Love Epistles of Aristænetus, translated from the Greek into English meter. (Halhed,

a Harrow school friend, collaborated with Sheridan.) 1775 (January 17) First production of The Rivals (Comedy), at Covent Garden Theatre.

(January 28)

Revised production of The Rivals.

(May 2) St. Patrick's Day; or, The Scheming Lieutenant (Farce), produced at Covent Garden Theatre.

(November 21) — The Duenna (Comic Opera), produced at Covent Garden Theatre.

1777. (February 24)-A Trip to Scarborough (Comedy altered from Vanbrugh's The Relapse; or, Virtue in Danger), produced at Drury Lane Theatre.

(May 8)

The School for Scandal (Comedy), produced at

Drury Lane Theatre.

1779. (March 2)

Verses to the memory of Garrick, spoken as a Monody by Mrs. Yates at Drury Lane Theatre (David Garrick died January 20, 1779).

(October 30) — The Critic: or A Tragedy Rehearsed (Burlesque Farce), produced at Drury Lane Theatre.

1799. (May 24) — Pizarro (Melodramatic Tragedy adapted from the German drama, Spaniards in Peru, by Kotzebue), produced at Drury Lane Theatre.

131

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE pages preceding the text of each play in this volume discuss with some detail a few of the early editions of Sheridan's major dramas. Such discussion is supplemented in the following bibliography by (1) a list of collected editions of Sheridan's dramas, and (2) lists of individual editions of the three major dramas prior to 1821. In that year appeared the two-volume edition of Sheridan's works published by Murray, the supervision of which is commonly credited to Thomas Moore.1 In 1816 Sheridan died, and no edition after Moore's can claim even the doubtful authority of that work, save Fraser Rae's edition of 1902, based on the original Sheridan manuscripts. The extension of the lists of editions of the separate plays after 1821 would accordingly have little significance save as proof of the steady popularity of Sheridan. Most of the collected editions have, however, more or less extended biographies, and some include also critical or explanatory material. So numerous have been the reprints of Sheridan's dramas, and so various the collections in which individual plays have appeared, that even the admirable bibliography by John P. Anderson appended to the Life of Sheridan by Lloyd C. Sanders, in the Great Writers Series, is suggestive rather than exhaustive. Within the narrower limits of the present pages, it has been possible to expand Mr. Anderson's work, based on the British Museum collection, by the inclusion of many American and English editions not there listed, and by the addition of a considerable number of editions published since his work. In the following lists the only edition which I have not examined personally is the first Dublin edition of The Critic, which I have included on the authority of the catalogue of the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

The definitive biography of Sheridan is that by W. Fraser Rae

1 But see Fraser Rae, Sheridan's Plays, Prefatory Notes, xiv.

Sheridan, A Biography, 2 vols. London, Richard Bentley & Son; New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1896. The best of the briefer biographies is by Lloyd C. Sanders in the Great Writers Series. Moore's Life of Sheridan handles carelessly and often inaccurately its wealth of material. The work of Watkins, Sheridan's first biographer, is practically worthless. Even the best of the biographies in the collected editions of Sheridan's works should be carefully checked for errors. For works relating to Sheridan, Mr. Anderson's bibliography may be consulted to advantage. BRITISH MUSEUM,

July 27, 1906.

I. COLLECTED EDITIONS OF SHERIDAN'S DRAMAS 1795? The Dramatic Works of R. B. Sheridan, Esq. Containing, The School for Scandal, The Rivals, The Duenna, The Critic. London [1795?]. .

1821. The Works of the late Right Honourable Richard Brinsley 2 vols. [Edited by Thomas Moore.] London,

Sheridan.
1821.

1828. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With some observations upon his personal and literary character. Greenock, 1828.

1833. The Works of the late Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Collected by Thomas Moore, Esq. A new

edition complete in one volume. With a biographical sketch. Leipsic, 1833.

1840. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With a biographical and critical sketch. By Leigh Hunt. London, 1840.

Another edition. London, 1846.

Another edition. London, 1865.

1848. The Dramatic Works of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With a memoir of his life by G. G. S[igmond]. London, 1848. (In Bohn's Standard Library. Various editions with different dates.)

1851.

Select Comedies by R. B. Sheridan: with explanatory

Italian notes, by John Millhouse.

for Scandal and The Rivals.]
Milan, 1851.

[Includes The School Second Milan edition.

1854. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with
a biographical and critical sketch, edited by Ludwig
Gantter. Stuttgart, 1854. (No. 3 in The Standard Poets
of Great-Britain.)

1869. The Dramatic Works of the Right Honourable Richard
Brinsley Sheridan. [Tauchnitz edition.] Leipzig, 1869.
1873. The Works of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, with a memoir by James P. Browne, M.D.
Containing extracts from the life by Thomas Moore.
[Includes The Camp, not written by Sheridan.]
London, 1873.

2 vols.

Same work, in one volume, without The Camp. London, 1873.

Another edition, in two volumes, with Memoir by Browne. London, 1884.

Another edition, two volumes in one. London, New York, and Melbourne, 1891. (In the Macaulay Library of Great Writers.)

1874. The Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Dramas, poems,

translations, speeches, and unfinished sketches. With a memoir of the author, a collection of ana, and ten chalk drawings. Edited by F. Stainforth. London, 1874. (Also a New York edition, George Routledge & Sons, n. d.) 1879. The Rivals and School for Scandal. Comedies. New York, 1879. (In Harper's Half-hour Series.)

1883. The Plays of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with an introduction by Henry Morley. London, 1883. (In Morley's Universal Library. Various editions with different dates. Included also in Sir John Lubbock's Hundred Books, 1892.) 1883. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With an introduction by Richard Grant White. 3 vols. [Includes The Camp in vol. 1.] New York, 1883.

1884. Dramatic Works of Sheridan and Goldsmith. With Goldsmith's Poems. 2 vols. London, 1884.