author's experience of the gossip of that kettle of scandal and
backbiting, Bath, where, if no other commandment were ever broken, the
constant breach of the ninth would suffice to put it on a level with
certain condemned cities we have somewhere read of, won for Sheridan a
reputation of which he at once felt the value, and made his purchase of
a share in the property of Old Drury for the time being, a successful
speculation. It produced a result which his good heart perhaps valued
even more than the guineas which now flowed in; it induced his father,
who had long been at war with him, to seek a reconciliation, and the
elder Sheridan actually became manager of the theatre of which his son
was part proprietor.

Old Tom Sheridan had always been a proud man, and when once he was
offended, was hard to bring round again. His quarrel with Johnson was an
instance of this. In 1762 the Doctor, hearing they had given Sheridan a
pension of two hundred a year, exclaimed, 'What have they given _him_ a
pension? then it is time for me to give up mine.' A 'kind friend' took
care to repeat the peevish exclamation, without adding what Johnson had
said immediately afterwards, 'However, I am glad that they have given
Mr. Sheridan a pension, for he is a very good man.' The actor was
disgusted; and though Boswell interfered, declined to be reconciled. On
one occasion he even rushed from a house at which he was to dine, when
he heard that the great Samuel had been invited. The Doctor had little
opinion of Sheridan's declamation. 'Besides, sir,' said he, 'what
influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country
by his narrow exertions. Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover
to show light at Calais.' Still, when Garrick attacked his rival,
Johnson nobly defended him. 'No sir,' he said, 'there is to be sure, in
Sheridan, something to reprehend, and everything to laugh at; but, sir,
he is not a bad man. No, sir, were mankind to be divided into good and