FAMOUS LOVE STORIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8674, 14 July 1906, Page 3

FAMOUS LOVE STORIES.

Shondaa's Igrightiagale.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century there was living in fashionable Bath a family ci the name of Linley. "lie father was a composer of some distinption. Hifi daughters were remarkable for their beauty, their singing and their agreeable manners. People spoke of them as "the nest of nightingales," and an invitation to their house was as highly prized, among the dandies as attention from Royalty. THE TRIFLING TOWN. Bath was then a pretty town whose existence was scarcely touched by trade or necessity. Its narrow streets were thronged by languorous gentlemen peeping under the boniieWbrims of fashionable belies, or gazing into the shopwindows of print-sellers and vendors of bric-a-brac. Its drawing-rooms were Crowded with affected dudes,' dashing soldiers, gouty statesmen, and witty poets and authors, all trifling life away vrcth jest and epigram, and contriving, each in Bis own fashion, to cut a figure before tho beautiful and sometimes daring ladies of Bath. Among all these women none was ©o beautiful, none so seductive, none so gifted with powers of fascination ac Elizabeth Linley, the prima donna and sixteen-year-old daughter of tbefamous composer. She haa been described by Processor Minto as " exceedingly beautiful and very much run after by suitore, young and old, honourable and dishonourable." Moore says of her, " There has seldom, perhaps, existed a finer combination of all those qualities that attract both eye and heart than this accomplished and lovely person exhibited." Of all Linley's nest of nightingales it was she who, by her exquisite beauty and charming voice, fascinated , and enchained the" town. There was at Bath in those days a Captain Matthews, a married man, who appears in some dishonourable fashion to have obtained a certain mastory over the young girl. Whether she foolishly flirted with him in the first instance, we do not know, but by .some means he was able to establish hie influence in her life, and even to intimidate her. When she knew his real • purpose, the beautiful child shrank from him in horror, and yet for some reason she was afraid to go to her father for prelection. The captain blustered, threatened, whined; finally he frightened her to death by avowing his intention to commit- suicide if she did not yield to his importunity. ENTER ROMEO. In this quandary stood the unhappy I affair when there appeared, upon the fashionable stage of Bath a young and beautiful gentleman named Dick Sheridan. He had come from London with a reputation for wit, and soon established himself in Bath as a man of blood. His verses were quoted, his mots repeated, his escapades disoused. He was asked everywhere, and delighted everybody. But he was a mere boy, with the frankness of Harrow etill upon him, and his worldly prospects were aa vague as any scamp's under heaven. He was just a harum-«carum young Irishman, good to look upon, delightful to talk to—but not a serious consideration with match-making parents. But this pretty youth and Linley's lovely nightingale drew together. Each was charmed with the other, a boy and girl affair which excited nobody c notice, and of which even the two young people themselves do not appear to nave entertained serious notions. Indeed, Dick _ Sheridan does not seem to i have been in love at all, and we have Miss Linley's own dogmatic statement that she thought of Sheridan only as a friend. Captain Matthews, however, was the means of altering their feelings, and the cause of a most romantio episode in their lives. ELOPEMENT AND RUIN. The persecutions of this frantic man becoming more than she could bear, the lovely nightingale confided the whole story to Dick Sheridan. The boy's generous and passionate nature rose up in hot indignation against this perfidious scoundrel. He saw the whole matter from a romantic standpoint, and his Irish blood hastened him to a course of action which in a colder age we regard as whimsical and Quixotic. He determined to carry the young lady over to France to save her from the wicked captain. His goal was not'the altar, but a nunnery. His eloquence p&rsusadMiss Linley that her only safety was within nunnery walls, and nunnery walls on French soil. Carried away by the youth's romantic eloquence the girl consented. One day they stole out of Bath and with stern and resolute faces made their way to Calais. But on the journey the chivalrous soul of young Dick Sheridan received a shock from a reflection which would 6urely have occurred to a cooler English brain a little earlier in the day. He had ruined Miss Linley I By his noble, chivalrous, and romantio action he had as effectually compromised her fair fame as if he had encouraged her to yield to her persecutor. The thought flung him into a cold sweat and brought his heart into his mouth. There was only one thing for it— he must marry the lady. He was not yet of age, his puree was empty,- prof ession he had none; but to save her fair name he must needs ruin her fortunes by a sacred marriage. They were secretly joined together in France, the lady was left in a nunnery, and young Sheridan hastened "back to Bath to explain matters to parents and to have it out with Captain Matthewß. As it happened, Linley came so hot upon the heels of his daughter that the need of the marriage service wae quite unnecessary, and the tangle became greater when Sheridan (in a private confabulation with his wife) agreed, for the lady's sake, to keep their union a secret. However, he requested the father to regard him as a suitor for his daughter' 6 hand, and to his consternation was informed pretty brusquely that such a union was out of the question. In these unhappy circumstances Sheridan returned to England to fight Captain Matthews. THE COURTSHIP OF A YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE. The two duels fought between these men created a profound sensation, and were the talk of the time. The fights were of the fiercest desoription. ending in a furious rough-and-tumble, in which hard knocks were exchanged almost in the manner of bargees lighting with their fists. Sheridan was wounded, and upon Miss Linley hearing it she exclaimed, "My husband 1 my husband 1" but without attracting suspicion to the words. The secret was well kept on either side, The courtship of husband and wife which followed is as full of romance as any novel-reader could demand. Elizabeth was taken to London by her ambitious father to sing in oratorio. Sheridan, poshing jhis fortunes in the Metropolis, had twice to disguise himself as a cab-driver, and thus contrived to exchange a few words with his wifesweetheart. But in the midst of tihis desperate love-making the young people , managed to exchange letters, and from their correspondence It is easy to see that they were of a quarreWme nature. We know that Mire Linley did not regard her marriage in Franco as binding. On one occasion she wrote to Sheridan:— " There are insurmountabfe obstacles to prevent our ever being united, even supposing I could be induced again to believe you. T did not think to have told you of a great one, but I m>i6t. or you will not be convinced that I " am In earnest. Know, then, that before I left Bath, after I had refused Sir Thomas Clarges and other gentlemen of fortune, on your account, who I .found had given up all thought of me,

in the anguish of my soul, which was torn with all the agonies of remorse and rage, I vowed in the roost solemn manner upon my knees, before my parents, that I never would be yours by my own consent, k<t what would be the consequence."

but between the lines of this letter the student of the eternal Feminine will read a romantic and a tender passion for harum-scarum Dick Sheridan, and a year after their mad dash for a nunnery the lovely Miss Linley conquered the objections of her parents and was married to the man. who had bled for her honour. The row made "in the most solemn manner" was broken, and the man mho had. "given up all thought " of her became her adored and faithfully-tended husband. MANAGING A WILD IRISHMAN. The marriage was entirely happy. Mies Linley brought the penniless young Irishman a few thousand pounds, and he set up for himself a faehionab^ house in London, and began to entertain in a manner which remains the wonder of the world. He refused to let his wife sing in public, and the fashionable world crowded. his drawing-room in order to hear "the celebrated 5-isa Linley" and to see- "the beautiful Mm Sheridan." Before bankruptcy overtook the adventurous couple Sheridan had written "The Rivals/ and their fortune was made. For nearly twenty years the Linley nightingale proved the most faithful and helpful wife to the erratic, somewhat dissolute, and always undependeblo Sheridan. Not only with his many debts did clio help him, not only in society, a-nd not only in his plays, but even in his political career she was his right band and the inspiration of bis brain. The famous three hours' speech for the impeachment of Warren Hastings was, in the documental part of it at least-, the work of this beautiful creature. She ,had a mind of the finest calibre, sympathised with the intellectual aspirations of her husband, rebuked and controlled him in his extravagance, and administered the difficult affairs of his household with a rare and unflagging genius. WHEN "SHERRY" WEPT. Sheridan spoke of her as the "connecting link between woman and angel.".- and at her death-bed watched over her with the sweetness and devotion of a father for his favourite child. After her death he broke out into a paroxysm of weeping, 'and refused to be comforted. . The light of the world was gone out for him, and all the glittering pages of romance, torn out from his book of life, lay scattered at his feet. Never was woman so romantically, so tragically mourned. And yet a' man so romantic, and whose wild marritf -see. had proved so full of happiness and blessing, could find it in his heart to forbid his son marriage with an impecunious girl to whom the boy was devotedly attached. " If you marry her," cried the father, "I'll cut you off with ft shilling." " You'll have to borrow it, sir," was the reply of the son. Three years later he married again.