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never differ again, you know-ha! ha! ha! Well, you are going to be in a passion, I see, and I shall only interrupt you; so, bye-bye. [Exit LADY TEAZLE. Sir P. Plagues and tortures! Can't I make her angry

either! Oh, I am the most miserable fellow! But I'll not bear her presuming to keep her temper: no! she may break my heart, but she shan't keep her temper.

[Exit

SHERIDAN.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, the celebrated orator, statesman, and comic play-writer, was born at Dublin in 1751. His father, THOMAS SHERIDAN, was well known as an actor, elocutionist, and author of a pronouncing dictionary RICHARD, an idle and mischievous boy, passed at school for a hopeless blockhead. He left Harrow at the age of eighteen, studied law with indifferent success in the Middle Temple, and, when barely of age, made a runaway marriage with Miss LINLEY, a beautiful and accomplished singer. His earliest comedy "The Rivals," a humorous and lively play, appeared in 1775, when the author was little more than twenty-three years old. About the same period he became one of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theater. His farce of "St. Patrick's Day," and opera of" The Duenna," appeared in 1776; and "The School for Scandal," which in plot, character, incident, dialogue, humor, and wit, perhaps, surpasses any comedy of modern times, was played in 1777. His last play, "The Critic," appeared in 1779. He obtained a seat in parliament in 1780. He worked hard for the House of Commons, and, in his great efforts, was one of the most showy and striking of parliamentary orators. His famous speech on the trial of WARREN HASTINGS produced an impression on the public mind never, perhaps, surpassed. Losing his wife in 1792, he married again, in 1796, a lady with whom he received £5000; and with this money, and £15,000 from shares in the theater, he purchased an estate, but his sottish habits soon dispelled his dreams of splendor, and finally reduced him to penury. He was treasurer of the navy during the ministry of Fox and GRENVILLE; but after 1812 he was no longer able to speak in the house. He died in 1816, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

131. A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE.1 AII! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What

sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than taken our umbrella.-Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say

This lesson presents an excellent field for the display of what may be called the colloquial style of reading. Anger generally expresses itself with rapidity, and the character of a scold is best sustained by great vo ubility of language.

do you hear the rain? day! Do you hear it don't impose upon me; you can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh! you Do hear it! Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house.

And, as I'm alive, if it isn't St. Swithin's against the windows? Nonsense! you

2. Fooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don't insult me; he return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella! There: do you hear it? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs, and for six weeks always six weeks; and no umbrella!-I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow! They shan't go through such weather; I am determined. No; they shall stop at home and never learn any thing (the blessed creatures!), sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing: who, indeed, but their father. People who can't feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.

3. But I know why you lent the umbrella: oh! yes, I know věry well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow: you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate to have me go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle; no, sir: if it comes down in bucketsful, I'll go all the more. No; and I won't have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from? You've got nice high notions at that club of yours! A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteen-pence, at least. Sixteen-pence! two-and-eight-pence; for there's back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for 'cm; for I'm sure you can't, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas!

4. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don't care-I'll go to mother's to-morrow-I will; and what's more, I'll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman; it's you that's the foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs;

and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold: it al

ways does; but what do you care for tlrat may be laid up, for what you care, as I dare

Nothing at all. I say I shall; and a

pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will. It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death: yes, and that's what you lent the umbrella for. Of course!

5. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear 'em, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, Sir; I'm not going out a dowdy, to please you, or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the threshold :—indeed, I might as well be a slave at once: better, I should say; but when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady.

6. Oh! that rain-if it isn't enough to break in the windows. Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to mother's, I'm sure I can't tell; but if I die, I'll do it.—No, Sir; I won't borrow an umbrella: no; and you shan't buy one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it into the street. Ha! And it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! Oh! it's all věry well for you; you can go to sleep. You've no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own dear children; you think of nothing but lending umbrellas! Men, indeed!-call themselves lords of the creation! pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella!

7. I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me. But that's what you want: then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used; but then, Sir, then you'll be happy. Oh! don't tell me! I know you will: else you'd never have lent the umbrella !——-You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and, of course, you can't go. No, indeed: you don't go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt, for what I care-it won't be so much as spoiling your clothes-better lose it; people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas!

8. And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the umbrella. Oh! don't tell me that I said I would go; that's nothing to do with it,-nothing at all. She'll think I'm ueglecting her and the little money we're to have, we shan't

have at all;-because we're no umbrella.-The children, too! (dear things!) they'll be sopping wet: for they shan't stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave them, I'm sure! But they shall go to school. Don't tell me they shouldn't (you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the temper of an angel!); they shall go to school: mark that! and if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault; I DIDN'T

LEND THE UMBRELLA.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

DOUGLAS JERROLD was born in London on the 3d of January, 1803. His father, SAMUEL JERROLD, was manager of the two theaters of Sheerness and Southend, and in these sea-places much of his childhood was passed. His school-days were few, and the results of his studies unimportant. At eleven years of age he became a midshipman in the British navy, and served about two years, thus acquiring nautical experience, which he used in writing" Black-eyed Susan," one of his most successful plays. A mere boy when he came ashore, he went to London, became an apprentice in a printing-office, and went through the ordinary course of a printer's life. At this time, though the hours of labor were long, he studied very hard, and wrote pieces for the magazines. Emboldened by success, he wrote numerous plays for the theaters before he was twenty years old. Among the greatest and maturest of his comedies are "The Prisoner of War," ,” “Bubbles of a Day," "Time works Wonders," "St. Cupid," and "The Heart of Gold." His chief brilliant and original prose writings, except "A Man made of Money," were first prepared for magazines. "Men of Character" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine,"-"The Chronicles of Ciovernook," in the "Illuminated Magazine," of which he was founder and editor,-and "The Story of a Feather," "Punch's Letters to his Son," and "The Caudle Lectures" in "Punch," of which he was the originator. The last literary event in his life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper," which rose under his hand to great circulation and celebrity. He died, from disease of the heart, on the 8th of June, 1857.

132. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE.

I.

EXHORTATION TO COURAGE.

BUT wherefore' do you droop? Why look you sad?

Be great in act, as you have been in thought;

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust

Govern the motion of a kingly eye;

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,

'Wherefore (whår for).

Grow great by your example; and put on
The dauntless' spirit of resolution;
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there, and make him tremble there?→
Oh, let it not be said! Forage, and run

To meet displeasure further from the doors,
And grapple with him ere he comes so nigh!

II.

FAME.-POPE.

NOR Fame I slight, nor for her favors call:
She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all.
But if the purchase cost so dear a price
As soothing Folly, or exalting Vice,

Oh! if the Muse must flatter lawless sway,
And follow still where Fortune leads the way,-
Or if no basis bear my rising name,

But the fallen ruins of another's fame,—

Then teach me, Heaven, to scorn the guilty bays,'
Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise;
Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown: .
Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

III.

VALUE OF REPUTATION.-SHAKSPEARE.

GOOD name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse, steals trash;-'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;— But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

IV.

PLEASURE.-BURNS.3

Bur pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower-its bloom is shed;

'Daunt' less.- Bays (bȧz), a prize; an honorary crown or garland.— ROBERT BURNS, the great peasant poet of Scotland, was born near Ayr,

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