Thomas Sheridan (1687-1738)


Life
[“The Elder”] b. 1687, in Cavan, gs. of Bedell’s collaborator Donnchadh Siordain [Gl. Donnchadh Ó Siordáin], later becoming Rev. Dennis Sheridan; nephew of Thomas and William Sheridan, both Anglican bishops; entered TCD, Oct. 1707; BA 1711; MA 1714; BD 1724; DD 1726; founded the Intelligencer with Swift, 1729; published Philoctetes [1725], and prose translations of Persius and Juvenal; enjoyed patronage of Lord Carteret due to Swift and received a living at Ringcurran, Co. Cork, 1725; opened a school at Capel St. (‘I am famous for giving the best advice and following the worst’), where Swift occasionally taught when he was ill; purportedly unhappy in marriage, with Elizabeth [née McFadden] whom he called his "unkind wife" in his will - where he cut her out of inheritance - and whom Swift loathed and who returned the feeling;
 
lost viceregal favour soon after through the folly of preaching on the text ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil therefore [&c.]’ at the birthday of King George [var. birthday of Queen Anne; anniversary of Hanoverian succession], occasioning suspicions of Jacobitism 1725; disadvantageously exchanged a Cork parish in 1730 for another nr. Quilca (from Gl. Cuilcagh), nr. Virginia, Co. Cavan - a family home ‘cabbin’ he gained through marriage in the 1720s, having previously been lost to the family in the Williamite confiscations; appt. Headmaster of Royal School, Cavan, being in fact the proprietor; failed financially and returned impoverished to Dublin; he lost Swift's friendship and was barred from the Deanery, poss. having accused Swift of avarice; d. 10 Oct. 1738, in Rathfarnham, dining with Mr. O’Callaghan, a br. of a former pupil; discovered by Dr Helsham to have a greatly enlarged heart at autopsy;
 
11 vols. of his manuscript remains are held in Pearse St. Library (Gilbert Collection), and others in TCD Library; called by Lord Orrery ‘ill-starred, good natured, improvident […] a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler and a wit […] his pen and his fiddlestick were in continual motion, and yet to little or no purpose’; a portrait by J. Stewart is held in the Harvard Theatre Collection and another by John Lewis in the National Gallery of Ireland; he was father of Thomas Sheridan, actor, theatre manager, playwright, and elocutionist, and grandfather of the playwright R. B. Sheridan. RR ODNB PI DIL FDA OCIL
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Works
  • An Easy Introduction of Grammar in English for the Understanding of the Latin Tongue (Dublin 1714).
  • Preface to Homer’s Battle of the Frogs and Mice with the Remarks of Zolius, to which is Prefix’d The life of the Said Zolius (Bernard Lintot: Temple Gates [London] 1717).
  • Ars pun-ica, sive Flos linguarum / The Art of Punning; or The Flower of Languages; in seventy nine rules: for the farther improvement of conversation, and help of memory , by the labour and industry of Tom Pun-Sibi [pseud. of Thos. Sheridan] (Dublin: printed by & for James Carson, in Coghill’s-Court in Dame’s-street, opposite to the Castle Market 1719), [16], 38, [2]pp. 4o., and Do. [printed in Dublin] (London: J. Robert [et al.] [1719]), [10], xiii, [1], 27, [5]pp., 21 cm..
  • The Philoctetes of Sophocles, translated from the Greek (Dublin: printed by J. Hyde & E. Dobson for R. Owens Bookseller in Skinner-Row 1725) [ded. to Lady Carteret and Jon. Swift].
  • The Life of Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patric[k]’s Dublin, by Thomas Sheridan, MA (London: Bathurst [et. al.] 1734) [see details].
  • trans. The Satyrs of Persius (Dublin: G. Grierson; London: D. Browne 1739; London: A. Millar 1739); trans. The Satires of Juvenal (London 1739/Dublin 1769; Cambridge: J. Nicholson, 1777).
  • The Life of Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patric[k] ’s Dublin, by Thomas Sheridan, MA (London: C. Bathurst, W. Strahan [et al.] 1784; 2nd edn. 1787.)
Miscellaneous
  • A Prologue to Julius Caesar As It was Acted at Madam Violante’s Booth December the 15th, 1732, by some of the young Gentlemen in Dr. Sheridan’s School [Folger Library], and [with Jonathan Swift,] The Intelligencer, No.1-19 (Dublin & London 1729), Nos. 1-20 (London 1730) [& reps., as infra].
Reprints
  • Robert Hogan [ed.,] ‘Selected Poems of Thomas Sheridan’, in Journal of Irish Literature [ed. Hogan], XVI, 1 (January 1987), pp.33-60, and Do. (May 1987), pp.19-48.
  • Robert Hogan & Edward A. Nickerson, eds., The Faithful Shepherd: A Translation of Battista Guarini's Il pastor fido, by Thomas Sheridan (Delaware UP [1989]), 193pp.
  • Robert Hogan, ed., The Poems of Thomas Sheridan (Assoc. Univ. Presses 1994), 431pp. [see contents]

Bibliographical details

Robert Hogan, ed., The Poems of Thomas Sheridan (Assoc. Univ. Presses 1994), 431pp.

CONTENTS
“Quilca House to the Dean”
“From My Much Honored Friend at Heldelville”
“To Thomas Sheridan”
“Upon the Author”
“Prologue to Hippolytus, Spoken by Boy of Six Years Old”
“In Pity First to Human Kind”
“A Receipt to Frighten Away the Dean”
“A Poem. Or Advice to Authors of Satirical Poem, Upon Tom Punsibi”
“A Description in Answer to the Journal, Sels.”
“With Music and Poetry Equally Blessed”
“Another Picture of Dan”
“Answer”
“Ballyspellin”
“Be Still, Thou Busy Foolish Thing”
“Birthday Poem on Annivrsary of Birth of Rev. Dr. Swift”
“Copy of a Copy of Verses from Thomas Sheridan to George Nim-dan-dean”
“Delany, Most Learned of Men”
“A Description of Doctor Delany’s Villa”
“Drapier’s Ballad to Tune of the London ’prentice”
“Elegy on Much Lamented Death of Demar, the Famous Rich Man”
“Epilogue to Julius Caesar
“The Epilogue to a Play Performed at Mr. Sheridan’s School”
“Epitaph”
“Five Ladies’ Answer to the Beau, With Wig and Wings at Head”
“From Tim and the Fables”
“From Upon a Certain Bookseller, Or Printer, in Utopia”
“Good Jonathan, I’ve Read Your Ditty”
“Grouse Pouts Are Come In”
“Grouse Pouts”
“A Highlander Once Fought a Frenchman at Margate”
“His Modest Apology for Knocking Out Newsboy’s Teeth”
“How Can I Finish What You Have Begun”
“Humble Petition of Stella’s Friend (possibly P. Delany & others)”
“I Can’t But Wonder, Mr. Dean”
“I Like Your Collyrium”
“I Send This at Nine”
“I Wish Your Reverence Were Here to Hear the Trumpets”
“I’ll Write While I Have Half An Eye in My Head”
“If These Can’t Keep Your Ladies Quiet”
“Inviation to Dinner from Dr. Sheridan to Dr. Swift, 1727”
“The Invitation (in Imitation Horace’s Epistle to Torquatus)”
“Joshua Battus’ Spepeech to the Paparliament”
“The Last Speech and Dying Words of Daniel Jackson”
“Letter from Cobbler in Patrick’s Street to Jet Black”
“A Letter from Dr. Sheridan to Dr. Swift”
“A Letter of Advice to Right Hon. John Earl of Orrery”
“Life’s Bad on Just a Bit, But”
“Mr. Sheridan’s Prologue to Greek Play Phaedra & Hippolytus
“My Hens Are Hatching”
“My Pedagogue Dear, I Read With Surprise”
“My Walk It Is Finished”
“A New Simile for Ladies”
“New Year’s Gift for the Dean of St. Patrick’s”
“O Would That Enemy I Dread, My Fate”
“An Ode. to be Performed at the Castle of Dublin”
“On a Caricature”
“The Original of Punning (from Plato’s Symposiacs)”
“Our River Is Dry”
“Palinodia (Horace, Book I, Ode xvi)”
“The Pedagogue’s Answer”
“Poem Delivered to Rev. Doctor Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s”
“Prologue Designed for the Play of Oedipus
“Prologue Spoke By Mr. Elrington at the Theatre-royal ... Weavers”
“Prologue Spoken at Mr. Sheridan’s School”
Prologue Spoken Before Greek Play at Dr. Sheridan’s School”
“A Prologue to a Play Performed at Mr. Sheridan’s School”
“Prologue to Julius Caesar, Acted at Madam Violante’s Booth”
“Prologue to the Farce of Punch Turned Schoolmastee
“Quatrain”
“Quatrain: Now to Lampoon Myself for My Presumption”
“A Riddle”
“The Rivals. Poem, Occasioned By Tom Punsibi, Metamorphosed”
“A Scribbler from the Northern Bear”
“Sheridan to Dan Jackson”
“The Sick Lion and the Ass”
“So on the Stream the Silver Swan”
“Some Nymphs May Boast External Grace”
“The Song”
“The Tale of the T—D”
“Thus Did Great Socrates Improve the Mind”
“Thus Puppies That Adore the Dark”
“To Dean Swift”
“To George Nim-dan-dean, Upon His Incomparable Verses”
“To His Excellency Our Lord Carteret, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland”
“To Rev. Doctor Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s. a Birthday Poem”
“To Right Honorable the Lord Viscount Mont-cassel”
“To the Author of Tom Pun-sibi Metamorphosed’”
“To the Dean (1)”
“To the Dean (2)”
“To the Dean of St. Patrick’s (1)”
“To the Dean of St. Patrick’s (2)”
“To the Dean of St. Patrick’s (3)”
“To the Dean of St. Patrick’s (4)”
“To the Dean, When in England, in 1726”
“To the Honorable Mr. D.t.”
“Tom Punsibi’s Letter to Dean Swift”
“True and Faithful Inventory of Goods Belonging to Dr. Swift”
“Upon Stealing a Crown When the Dean Was Asleep”
“Upon William Tisdall, D.D.”
“When G—le Has Her Mind at Ease”
“Why Spatter Me, You Madly Babbling Bard”
“You Made Me in Your Last a Goose”
“You Shall Want Nothing Fit for Mortal Man”
“You That Would Read the Bible”
“A Satyr, Sels.”
“From a Letter from D. S.—t to D. S—y”
“From to Mr. Delany”
“A Portrait from the Life”
“To My Learned Friend, Thomas Sheridan”
“To Quilca; a Country House in No Good Repair”
“To Thomas Sheridan”
“Tom Pun-sibi Metamorphosed: Or, the Giber Gibed”
“From the Critical Minute”
“Elegy on Deplorable Death of Mr. Thomas Sheridan”
“From Epistle in Behalf Our Irish Poets to Right Hon. Lady C”
“Imitation of Anacreon’s Grasshopper, Applied to Mr. T. S.”
“Letter to Tom Punsibi, Occasioned By Reading His Excellent Farce”
“A New Jingle on Tom Dingle”
“Poem on Tom Pun on Occasion of His Late Death”
“A Panegyric Upon Tom Pun-sibi’s Ars Pun-ica
“The Puppet Show: 17”
“The Puppet Show: 18”
“The Puppet-show: 16”
“To My Worthy Friend T S — on His Incomparable Translation of Persius”
“Tom Pun-sibi’s Resurrection Disproved”
“Tom Punsibi’s Farewell to the Muses”
“Upon Mr. Sheridan’s Turning Author, 1716”
“From Some Critical Annotations on Various Subjects, Sels.”
Index at Poem Finders -  online; defunct Jan. 2024

 

Criticism
  • James Woolley, ‘Sheridan’ [bibliographical essay], in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature, XI (1979), and Woolley, ed., The Intelligencer (OUP [q.d.]).
  • Briciu Dolan, ‘Tom the Punman, Dr.Thomas Sheridan, Friend of Swift,’ in Journal of Irish Literature, XVI, I (January 1987), pp.3-32.
  • Robert Hogan, intro. to The Poems of Thomas Sheridan (Assoc. Univ. Presses 1994) [431pp.].
  • Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996), pp.73-76.
See also Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, pp.504-06,

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Commentary
Jonathan Swift, Blunders, Deficiencies, Distresses and Misfortunates of Quilca (1724), on shortcomings of Sheridan’s home in Co. Cavan: ‘But one lock and a half in the whole house. The key of the garden lost ... The door of the Dean’s bed-chamber full of large chinks ... the Dean’s bed threatening every night to fall under him ... the little table loose and broken in the joints [...]. A great hole in the floor of the ladies’ chamber, every hour haphazarding a broken leg’. (Quoted in Constantia Maxwell, Ireland Under the Georges (1940; rev. 1949), with the remark that ‘Quilca was the little house in Co. Cavan which belonged to his thriftless friend Thomas Sheridan, where he himself had occasionally spent many happy weeks of quiet enjoyment in the company of Mrs Dingley and Esther Johnson, and where he is said to have written part of Gulliver’s Travels. (op. cit., p.93, ftn.)

Further: ‘But one chair in the house for sitting on, and tha is in a very ill state of health. / The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages. Not a bit of turf in this cold weather; and Mrs Johnson [Stella] and the Dean in person, with all their servants, forced to assist at the bog, in gathering [...]’ (Quoted in Victoria Glendinning, Jonathan Swift, Hutchinson 1998, pp.163-64; cited in Pauline Holland, doct. diss., UUC 2004.)

Jonathan Swift, “History of the Second Solomon”, in Works, ed. Hawksworth, Vol. XI (1784).

[...] Solomon has no ill design upon any person but himself, and he is the greatest deceiver of himself on all occasions. His thoughts are sudden, and most unseasonable alway comes uppermost and he constantly revolves and acts upon his first thoughts; and then asks advice, but never once before.

The person mentioned, whom he lampooned in three months after their acquaintance, procured him a good preferment from the Lord Lieutenant: Upon going down to take possession, Solomon preached, at Corke, a sermon on King George’s birthday, on tis texts, Sufficient to the day is the evil therefore. Solomon haivn been famous for a high Tory, and suspected as a Jacobite, it was a most difficult thing to get any [320] thing for him: But that person being an old friend of Lord Carteret, prevailed against all Solomon’s enemies, and got him made likewise one of his Excellencies chaplains. But, upon this sermon, he was struck out of the list, and forbid the Castle, until that same person brought him again to the Lieutenant, and made them friends.

A fancy sprung in Solomon’s head,, that a house near Dublin would be commodious for him anjd his boarders, to lodge in on Saturdays and Sundays: Immediately, without consulting with any creature, he takes a leaf of a rotten house at Rathfarnham, the worst air in Ireland, for 999 years, at twelve pounds a year; the land, which was only a strip of ground, not being worth twenty shillings a-year. whent he same person whom he lampooned heard the thing, he begged Solomon to get a clause of surrender, and at last prevailed to have it done after twenty-one years; because it was a madness to pay eleven pounds a-year, for a thousand yearts, for a house that could not last twenty. But Solomon made an agreement with his landlady, that he should be at liberty to surrender his lease in seven years; and, if he did not do it at that time, should be obliged to keep it for 999 years. In the meantime, he expends about one hundred pounds on the house and the garden-wallç and in less than three years, contracts such a hardred for the ouse, that he lets it run to ruin: So that [...].

(pp.320-21; static page view available at unnamed bookseller in E-Bay, 24.01.2024.)
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies, Vol.II [of 2] (London & Dublin 1821)

The intimate friend of Dean Swift; is said by Shield, in Cibber’s "Lives of the Poets,” to have been born about 1684, in the county of Cavan; where, according to the same authority, his parents lived in no very elevated state. They are described as being unable to afford their son the advantages of a liberal education; but he being observed to give early indications of genius, attracted the notice of a friend to his family, who sent him to the college of Dublin, and contributed towards his support while he remained there. He afterwards entered into orders, and set up a school in Dublin, which long maintained a very high degree of reputation, as well for the attention bestowed on the morals of the scholars, as for their proficiency in literature. So great was the estimation in which this seminary was held, that it is asserted in some [504] years to have produced the sum of £1,000 It does not appear that he had any considerable preferment; but his intimacy with Swift, in 1725, procured for him a living in the south of Ireland, worth about £150 ayear, of which he went to take possession, and by an act of inadvertence destroyed all his future expectations of rising in the church; for, being at Cork on the 1st of August, the anniversary of King George’s birthday, he preached a sermon which had for its text, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof”; on its being known he was struck out of the list of chaplains to the lord-lieutenant, and forbidden the castle. This living Dr. Sheridan afterwards changed for that of Dunboyne, which, by the knavery of the farmers and power of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, fell as low as £80 per annum. He gave it up for the free school of Cavan, where he might have lived well in so cheap a country on £80 a year salary, besides his scholars; but the air being, as he said, too moist and unwholesome, and being disgusted with some persons who lived there, he sold the school for about £400; and having soon spent the money, became infirm in health, and died September 10, 1738, in his fifty-fifth year.

Lord Cork has given the following character of him “Dr. Sheridan was a schoolmaster, and in many instances perfectly adapted for that station. He was deeply versed in the Greek and Roman languages, and in their customs and antiquities. He had that kind of good nature which absence of mind, indolence of body, and carelessness of fortune produced; and, although not over strict in his own conduct, yet he took care of the morality of his scholars, whom he sent to the university remarkably well founded in all classical learning, and not ill instructed in the social duties of life. He was slovenly, indigent, and cheerful. He knew books much better than men; and he knew the value of money least of all. In his situation, and with this disposition, Swift fastened upon him as upon a prey with which he intended to regale himself, whenever his appetite should prompt him.” His lordship [505] then mentions the event of the unlucky sermon, and adds, “This ill-starred, good natured, improvident man returned to Dublin, unhinged from all favour at court, and ever banished from the castle. But still he remained a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler, and a wit: not a day passed without a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal. His pen or his fiddlestick were in continual motion, and yet to little or no purpose,” &c. &c. This character is in a great measure confirmed by his son in his Life of Swift.

He published a prose translation of Persius, to which he added the best notes of former editors, together with many judicious ones of his own, 12mo. 1739. Many of his letters are also to be found in Swift’s Miscellanies.

See copy in RICORSO via index or as attached.

Sir Leslie Stephen, Swift [1882] (London: Macmillan 1899): ‘After the war of Wood’s halfpence Swift became friendly with Carteret, whom he respected as a man of genuine ability, and who had besides the virtue of being thoroughly distrusted by Walpole. When Carteret was asked how he succeeded in Ireland, he replief that he had pleased Dr. Swift. Swift took advantage of the mutual goodwill to recommend several promising clerymen to Carteret’s notice. He was especially warm in behalf of Sheridan, who received the first vacant living and a chaplaincy. Sheridan characteristically spoint his own chances by preaching a sermon upon the day of the accession of the Hanoverian family, from the text, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The sermon was not political, and the selection of the text a pure accident; but Sheridan was accused of Jacobitism, and lost his chaplaincy in consequence. Though generously compensated by the friend in whose pulpit he had committed this “Sheridanism”, he got into difficulties. His school fell off; he exchanged his preferments for others less preferable; he failed in a school at Cavan, and ultimately the poor man came back to die at Dublin, in 1738, in distressed circumstances. Swift’s relations with him were thoroughl characteristic. He defended his cause energetically; gave him most admirable good advice in rather dictatorial terms; admitted him to this closest familiarity, and sometimes lost his temper when Sheridan too a liberty [192] at the wrong moment, or resented the liberties taken by himself.’ [Cont.]

Sir Leslie Stephen (Swift [1882], Macmillan 1899) - cont [no para.]: ‘ A queer character of the “Second Solomon”, written, it seems, in 1729, shows the severity with which Swift could sometimes judge his shiftless and impulsive friend, and the irritability with which he could resent occasional assertions of independence. “He is extremely proud and captious”, says Swift, and “apt to resent as an affront or indignity what was never intended for either”, but what, we must add, had a strong likeness to both. One cause of poor Sheridan’s troubles was doubtless that assigned by Swift. Mrs. Sheridan, says this frank critic, is “the most disagreeable beast in Europe”, a “most filthy slut, lazy, and slothful, luxurious, ill-natured, envious, suspicious”, and yet managing to govern Sheridan. This estimate was probably shared by her husband, who makes various references to her detestation of Swift. In spite of all jars, Swift was not only intimate with Sheridan and energetic in helping him, but to all appearances really loved him. Swift came to Sheridan’s house when the workmen were moving the furniture, preparatory to his departure for Cavan. Swift burst into tears, and hid himself in a dark closet before he could regain his self-possession. He paid a visit to his old friend afterwards; but waws now in that painful and morbid state in which violent outbreaks of passion made him frequently intolerable. Poor Sheridan rashly ventured to fulful an old engagement that he would tell Swift frankly of a growing infirmity, and said something about avarice. “Doctor”, replied Swift, significantly, “did you never read Gil Blas?” When Sheridan soon afterwards sold his school and returned to Dublin, Swift received his old friend so inhospitably that Sheridan left him, never again to enter his house. Swift [193] indeed had ceased to be Swift; and Sheridan died soon afterwards.’. [Cont.]

Sir Leslie Stephen (Swift [1882], Macmillan 1899) - cont. [next para.] ‘Swift often sought relief from the dreariness of the deaney by retiring to, or rather by taking possession of, his friends’ country-houses. In 1725 he stayed for some months, together with “the ladies”, at Quilca, a small country-house of Sheridan’s and compiled an account of the deficiencies of the establishment - meant to be continued weekly. Broken tables, doors without locks, a chimney stuffed with the dean’s great-coat, a solitary pair of tongs forced to attend all the fireplaces and also to take the meat out of the pot, holes in the floors, spikes protruding from the bedsteads, are some of the items; whilst the servants are all thieves, and act upon the proverb, “The worse their sty, the longer they lie.” Swift amused himself here and elsewhere by indulging his taste in landscape gardening, without the consent and often to the annoyance of the proprietor.’ [There follows a narration of Swift’s relations in this vein with Sir Arthur Acheson of Market Hill.] (pp.192-94; Source: Sir Leslie Stephen, Swift [1899 Edn.; rep. by BiblioLife - online; accessed 29.12.2009.) Note that Stephen was the founding editor of the DNB - for which he was knighted - and therefore the most probable author of the article therein.

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Henry Craik (Life of Jonathan Swift, 1894): ‘Most of the summers of 1724 and 1725, he [Swift] spent at Quilca, the quiet country retreat which Dr. Sheridan had made for himself in a bleak spot amongst the wildest of Cavan heaths [...] Round it have clung many traditions of its owner, Swift, and their amusements. The stretch along which Sheridan was wont, as it is said, to attempt a revival of Roman chariot races; the slope close by the lake which he used for a theatre; the seat in the garden where Stella’s arbour stood; the lake itself where Sheridan is said to have constructed an impromptu island out of twigs and turf to astonish Swift - all these have their place in the stories that haunt the neighbourhood, with a vitality strange when we consider how completely the surrounding in habitants are separated from the class for whom Swift wrote and spoke. Not far off is the house of Rantavan, near the street of Mullagh, the home, in Swift’s days, of Henry Brooke, where, according to tradtion, Brooke’s mother showed her superiority to the general fear of the Dean, by meeting Swift on his own ground of sarcasm.’ (Vol. II, p.170.)

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984): As headmaster of the Cavan Royal School from 1720 to 1726, Thomas Sheridan trained seniors to perform classical plays in the original Greek; the first performances of their kind in Ireland or Britain; Archbishop King refers to one in a letter of Dec. 1720, ‘I was invited to see Hippolytus acted in Greek by Dr Sheridan’s pupils. They did very well—spoke an English preface. The master had made one for them, but a parcel of wags got the boy and made another prologue for him.’ Quoted Elrington Ball, Correspondence of Swift 6 vols. (1910-14), iii, 124, n.3. The dedication of Sheridan’s Philoctetes (Dublin 1725) shows that the performance was attended by the Lord Lieutenant. [Cf. A. Lefanu, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Frances Sheridan (London 1824), p.12.] ([Cont.)

W. B. Stanford (Ireland and the Classical Tradition, 1984) - cont.: Swift wrote a commendation to Lord Dorset, Viceroy in 1735, ‘Your Grace must please to remember that I carried you to see a comedy of Terence acted by the scholars of Dr Sheridan with which performance you were well pleased. The doctor is the most learned person I know in this kingdom and the best schoolmaster here in the memory of man having an excellent taste in all parts of literature.’ (Ball, Correspondence, v. p.150). Stanford characterises this as the ‘exaggerated praise by a friend’, and notes a translation of Sophocles’s Philoctetes, and of Persius’ Satires as well as a Latin grammar and miscellaneous writings. [33]

Further (Stanford): Dublin printing of textbooks nearly restricted to a handsome production of Sheridan’s Philoctetes (1729) printed by Hyde and Dobson in 1725; also eds. of Terence (1729) and Tacitus (1730) from Grierson [by Sheridan?] [54]. Bibl.., T. Sheridan, Philoctetes (1725) [sic].

Richard Cargill Cole, Irish Booksellers and English Writers, 1740-1800 (1986), writes, ‘Sheridan was so alarmed by Dublin printers’ Patrick Wogan and Patrick Byrne’s piracy of his Dictionary, first printed in London, that he wrote a notice in the Edinburgh Advertiser (6 July 1784): “Whoever shall discover any person vending, or exposing to sale, any book or books, of the above pirated edition, in Scotland, or elsewhere in Great Britain, shall, upon conviction of the delinquent, receive the sum of Ten Pounds from the author, over and above the penalty by act of parliament, to be paid by Mr. Alexander Johnston, writer [i.e. lawyer] in Edinburgh.”’ (Cargill, p.7.)

Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth Century (John Benjamins Pub. Co., Amsterdam & Philadelphia, 1986), writes: Thomas Sheridan ... made a vigorous attack on the cheaper kinds of pun in a book with the unashamedly punning title, Ars Pun-ica sive Flos Linguarum, or the Flowers of Languages, by ‘Tom Pun-sibi’ (1719); answered by The Folly of Puns by ‘Jack Serious’ (1719), and in a bitterly hostile anonymous broadsheet, Tom-Pun-Sibi Metamorphosed (1719). [p.174].

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Pat Rogers, review of Jonathan Swift & Thomas Sheridan, The Intelligencer, ed. James Woolley (Clarendon Press ?1991), 363pp., in Times Literary Supplement (17 July 1992), [q.pp.]; The Intelligencer appeared more or less weekly between May 11 and early December 1728, split into two series, the break occurring between the tenth and eleventh, with a 20th emerging later in May 1729. Extracts were reprinted in the London paper, [Nathaniel] Mist’s Weekly Journal (becoming Fog’s Journal in the process, when the Jacobite Mist left England). Sheridan’s contributions include a vicious Tale of a Tub-style allegory on the treatment of Patrick and Andrew by their brother George. The first 19 numbers were ed. by William Bowyer in 1729, and Swift’s contributions went into Faulkner’s landmark ed. of Works, 1735. Swift’s familiar contributions include his review of The Beggar’s Opera; a scabrous poem, ‘Mad Mullinix and Timothy’, and several items echoing the gloomy Short View of the State of Ireland (actually reprinted in one Intelligencer issue) and anticipating the Modest Proposal. Thomas Sheridan, best known as father of the person who figures in Boswell’s Johnson, and grandfather of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, shows as an accomplished polemicist and not just a monkey to Swift’s organ-grinder; not easy to distinguish the two men on internal evidence alone; indeterminate authorship of some parts of the series, including the poem on Dean Jonathan Smedley (who can now be dated d.1729); The Intelligencer shows frequent influence from Pope’s gallery of villains in the first Dunciad. The Intelligencer is full of the life of Dublin streets; draws on the resurgent Irish historiography [making] the first ever edition of a Swiftian text set squarely in its Irish context.

Maureen E. Mulvihill, review of Hogan, ed., The Poems of Thomas Sheridan (Assoc. Univ. Presses 1994), in ILS (Fall 1995), p.13; cites John Boyle, 5th Earl Orrery, ‘Thomas Sheridan possessed cacoethes scribendi to the greatest degree, and was continually letting off squibs, rockets, and all manner of little fireworks from the press, by which he offended many particular persons, who, although they stood in awe of Swift, held Sheridan in defiance ... He was slovenly, indigent, and cheerful. He knew books better than men; and he knew the value of money least of all ... he remained a punster, a quibbler, a diffler, and a wit. Not a day passed without a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal. His pen and fiddlestick were in constant motion.’ (Remarks on the life and writings of Dr Jonathan Swift, 1752).

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Quotations

To the Dean, when in England, in 1726

You will excuse me, I suppose,
For sending rhyme instead of prose,
Because hot weather makes me lazy,
To write in metre is more easy.
While you are trudging London town,
I’m strolling Dublin, up and down;
While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here, my books:
Fix’d in an elbow chair at ease,
I chuse companions as I please.
I’d rather have one single shelf,
Than all my friends, except your self;
For after all that can be said,
Our best acquaintances, are the dead. While you’re in raptures with Faustine,
I’m charmed at home, with our Sheelina;
While your staving there in state,
I’m cramming here with the best of wine;
Burgundy, Cyprus, and Tockay,
Why so can we, as well as they.
No reason, my dear Dean,
But you should travel home again.
What tho’ you mayn’t in Ireland hope,
To find such folk as Gay and Pope:
If you with rhymers here would share,
But half the wit, that you can spare;
I’d lay twelve eggs, that in twelve days,
You’d make a doz’n of Popes and Gays.
Our weather’s good, our sky is clear.
We’ve ev’ry joy, if you were here;
So lofty, and so bright a skie,
Was never seen by Ireland’s-Eye!

I think it fit to let you know,
This week I shall to Quilca go;
To see McFayden’s horny brothers,
First suck, and after bull their mothers.
To see alas, my wither’d trees!
To see what all the country sees!
My stunted quicks, my famish’d beeves
My servants such a pack of thieves;
My shatter’d firs, my blasted oaks,
My house in common to all folks:
No cabbage for a single snail,
My turnips, carrots, parsnips, fail;
My no green pease, my few green sprouts;
My mother always in the pouts:
My horses rid, or gone astray,
My fish all stol’n, or run away:
My mutton lean, my pullets old,
My poultry starv’d, the corn all sold.
A man come now, from Quilca says,
They’ve stolen the locks from all your keys:
But what must fret and vex me more,
He says, they stole the keys before.
They’ve stol’n the knives from all the forks,
And half the cows from half the sturks;
Nay more, the fellow swears and vows,
They’ve stol’n the sturks from half the cows,
With many more accounts of woe,
Yet tho’ the devil be there, I’ll go:
’Twixt you and me, the reason’s clear,
Because, I’ve more vexation here.

A. N. Jeffares & Peter Van de Kamp, eds., Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century - An Annotated Anthology, Dublin/Oregon: Irish Academic Press 2006, pp.138-40.)

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References
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (Tralee 1946), refers to him as author of the first English trans. of Philoctetes of Sophocles (1725), and father of the theatre manager [and namesake].

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: selects ‘To the Dean when in England in 1726’ [Swift’s Poems, ed. Williams, 1958, III, pp.1042-44, here at 495-60; bibl., p.492]; p.395 [social life similar to that in London in ‘To the Dean’]; p.498.

Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996), cites The Philoctetes of Sophocles, translated from the Greek (Dublin: printed by J. Hyde and E. Dobson for R. Owens Bookseller in Skinner-Row 1725) [ded. to Lady Carteret and Swift] (Cronin, n.100 [p.89].)

A. N. Jeffares & Peter Van de Kamp, eds., Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century - An Annotated Anthology (Dublin/Oregon: Irish Academic Press 2006), selects “To the Dean, when in England, in 1726” [138; as supra]; from The Intelligencer, 2 [140]; from The Intelligencer, 13 [144].

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Notes
Kith & Kin: Thomas Sheridan was descended from Donnchadh Ó Siaradáin, one of Bedell’s translators of a century before. (See Robert Welch, A History of Verse Translation from the Irish 1789-1897, Gerrards Cross 1988, p.17). And note poss. connection with Bishop Bedell: ‘Early in 1642 he [Bishop Bedell] was allowed to transfer to the house of a clergyman friend, Rev. Dennis Sheridan, at Dromlor, which was already crowded with English refugees. He died there of a fever on 7 Feb. 1642 [...] &c.’ (Dictionary of Irish Biography, 1988;, under Bedell.)

Portraits: A portrait of Thomas Sheridan by J. Stewart held in the Harvard Theatre Collection is reproduced in Jane Dunbar, Peg Woffington (1968), facing p.183; see also “Dr Sheridan’s School”, drawn by T. Archdeaken, in Samuel Whyte, [ed.,] Poems on Various Subjects (1795; rev. edn.), p.44.

Samuel Fitzpatrick (Dublin) has the story about Sheridan preaching the text, ‘Sufficient unto the day ..’, and losing all chance of preferment, adding that the ODNB erroneously states that this was Queen Anne’s birthday. (The story is also told in W. E. H. Lecky’s History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.)

James Joyce: Joyce alludes to Sheridan’s ‘art of panning’ [sic] in Finnegans Wake (1939; p.184).

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