Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish satirist, playwright, poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as The Rivals and The School for Scandal. As a Whig Member of Parliament, he was active in politics from 1780 until 1812.

October 30, 1751

July 7, 1816

English

Literary Lady, The

What motley cares Corilla's mind perplex,
Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex!
In studious dishabille behold her sit,
A lettered gossip and a household wit;
At once invoking, though for different views,
Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse.
Round her strewed room a frippery chaos lies,
A checkered wreck of notable and wise,
Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass,
Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass;
Unfinished here an epigram is laid,
And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid.
There new-born plays foretaste the town's applause,
There dormant patterns pine for future gauze.
A moral essay now is all her care,
A satire next, and then a bill of fare.
A scene she now projects, and now a dish;
Here Act the First, and here, Remove with Fi...

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan

Wife, A

Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife "a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? consider'd aright,
A canister's useful, and polish'd, and bright:
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan