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Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was
drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
palliate his faults, are the best.
GEORGE COLMAN.--Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
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