SOURCE: “Poet,” in Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Twayne Publishers, 1975, pp. 47-64.

In the following excerpt, Durant surveys Sheridan's work as a poet.

Whether penning a sweet love lyric to Eliza, or dashing off a song for performance at the theater, or acknowledging some special occasion, great or small, Sheridan always displayed a bright flair for versifying. Excluding the songs in his major plays, his poetic canon includes at least sixty titles; and these poems embrace an immense variety of forms and subjects and obviously constitute a substantial segment of Sheridan's literary achievement.

I Poetic Satire: “the Ridotto of Bath”

Quite possibly he broke into print as a poet on May 9, 1771, with the publication in The Bath Chronicle of “Hymen and Hirco: A Vision,” a rather bland “Juvenalian” satire attacking Walter Long, the aging Wiltshire squire who for a time was contracted to marry Elizabeth Linley, Sheridan's own future bride...