The best of his other plays are _The Jew,
The Wheel of Fortune_, and _The Fashionable Lover_. Goldsmith, in his poem
_Retaliation_, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
his human sympathy,
Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--No man represents the Regency so completely as
Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and
lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays
and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when
he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in
the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who
was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day.
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