SHERIDAN, THOMAS (1719-1788), son of Thomas Sheridan (1687-1738; see above), was born in Dublin in 1719. His father sent him to Westminster; but he completed his edu cation at Trinity college, Dublin, where he took his B.A. in 1739. Then he went on the stage, and wrote a play, Captain O'Blunder, or the Brave Irishman, which became a stock piece, though it was never printed. His first appearance in London. was at Covent Garden in March when he acted for three weeks in a succession of leading parts, Hamlet being the first. In October he appeared at Drury Lane, playing Horatio in Rowe's Fair Peni tent, and subsequently as Pierre in Otway's Venice Preserved, and in Hamlet and other parts. In 1747 he became manager of the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and married Frances Chamberlaine, the novelist. He conceived a scheme of British education, and to push this he lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, being incorporated M.A. in both universities. But the scheme did not make way, and in 176o he was acting under Garrick at Drury Lane. As an actor, he is placed by Churchill (Rosciad 1. 987) in the second rank, next to Garrick, but there is no hint of possible rivalry, and he is described as one whose conceptions were superior to his powers of execution, whose action was always forcible but too mechanically calculated, and who in spite of all his defects rose to greatness in occasional scenes. Through Sheridan's efforts
Samuel Johnson had been given a pension, and so impressed was Lord Bute with Sheridan's own scheme for a Pronouncing Dic tionary that he granted him a pension of £200 a year.
In 1764 he went to live in France, partly for Mrs. Sheri dan's health, partly to study the system of education. His wife died in 1766 and soon afterwards he returned to England. In 1769 he published a matured Plan of Education for the Young Nobility and Gentry, and in 178o his General Dictionary of the English Language ( 2 vols.). After his son's brilliant success he assisted in the management of Drury Lane, and occasionally acted. His Life of Swift, a very entertaining work in spite of its incompleteness as a biography, was written for the 1784 edi tion of Swift's works. He died at Margate on Aug. 14, 1788.