too fine a point on it' (too fine a point is precisely what never _is_
put), he attempted to seduce the pretty, innocent girl, and not dismayed
at one failure, went on again and again. 'Cecilia,' knowing the temper
of Linley père, was afraid to expose him to her father, and with a
course, which we of the present day cannot but think strange, if nothing
more, disclosed the attempts of her persecutor to no other than her own
lover, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Strange want of delicacy, undoubtedly, and yet we can excuse the poor
songstress, with a father who sought only to make money out of her
talents, and no other relations to confide in. But Richard Brinsley,
long her lover, now resolved to be both her protector and her husband.
He persuaded her to fly to France, under cover of entering a convent. He
induced his sister to lend him money out of that provided for the
housekeeping at home, hired a post-chaise, and sent a sedan-chair to her
father's house in the Crescent to convey her to it, and wafted her off
to town. Thence, after a few adroit lies on the part of Sheridan, they
sailed to Dunkirk; and there he persuaded her to become his wife. She
consented, and they were knotted together by an obliging priest
accustomed to these runaway matches from _la perfide Albion_.

The irate parent, Linley, followed, recaptured his daughter, and brought
Her back to England. Meanwhile, the elopement excited great agitation in
the good city of Bath, and among others, the villain of the story, the
gallant Captain Matthews, posted Richard Brinsley as 'a scoundrel and a
liar,' the then polite method of expressing disgust. Home came Richard
in the wake of Miss Linley, who rejoiced in the unromantic praenomen of
'Betsy,' to her angry parent, and found matters had been running high in
his short absence. A duel with Matthews seems to have been the natural
consequence, and up Richard posted to London to fight it. Matthews