which put Garrick at Drury Lane to his wit's end to know how to compete
with it. Old Linley himself composed the music for it; and to show how
thus a family could hold the stage, Garrick actually played off the
mother against the son, and revived Mrs. Sheridan's comedy of 'The
Discovery,' to compete with Richard Sheridan's 'Duenna.'

The first night 'The Rivals' was brought out at Bath came Sheridan's
father, who, as we have seen, had refused to have anything to say to his
son. It is related as an instance of Richard's filial affection, that
during the representation he placed himself behind a side-scene opposite
to the box in which his father and sisters sat, and gazed at them all
the time. When he returned to his house and wife, he burst into tears,
and declared that he felt it too bitter that he alone should have been
forbidden to speak to those on whom he had been gazing all the night.

During the following year this speculative man, who married on nothing
but his brain, and had no capital, no wealthy friends, in short nothing
whatever, suddenly appears in the most mysterious manner as a
capitalist, and lays down his £10,000 in the coolest and quietest
manner. And for what? For a share in the purchase of Garrick's moiety of
the patent of Drury Lane. The whole property was worth £70,000; Garrick
sold his half for £35,000, of which old Mr. Linley contributed £10,000,
Dr. Ford £15,000, and penniless Sheridan the balance. Where he got the
money nobody knew, and apparently nobody asked. It was paid, and he
entered at once on the business of proprietor of that old house, where
so many a Roscius has strutted and declaimed with more or less fame; so
many a Walking gentleman done his five shillings' worth of polite
comedy, so many a tinsel king degraded the 'legitimate drama,' in the
most illegitimate manner, and whose glories were extinguished with the
reign of Macready, when we were boys, _nous autres_.