RICHARD TICKELL was the most intimate of
all Sheridan's friends -- his alter ego in "wit and want,
talent and thoughtlessness." They played their pranks
like a pair of Harlequins, and innumerable stories are told of
their escapades, for they were boys even in middle age. When
they were staying at Lord Palmerston's at Broadlands, in 1786,
they used to go every morning in different boats, as Mrs.
Sheridan wrote Mrs. Canning, "splashing one another till one
confessed himself conquered by running away, after which
they used to come puffing to us, like Tritons in a sea piece,
dripping from all parts." ¹ At Crewe Hall, Mrs. Sheridan and
Mrs. Crewe would be out riding in the carriage, with Sheridan
and Tickell on their horses before them: suddenly they would
see Sheridan stretched upon the ground, in the agonies of
death, and Tickell standing over him in a theatrical attitude of
despair. ²

Lord John Townshend, who had known them both from
boyhood, told another story which reads like a scene from a
Harlequinade, with Tickell as Pantaloon. Sheridan covered the
door of a dark passage leading from the drawing-room with all
the household plates and dishes, and provoked Tickell to pur-
sue him. He had left a path for his own escape, but Tickell his
play-fellow fell full headlong into the ambuscade, and was se-
verely cut. When Lord John visited his bed-side next day, he
found him covered with patches, and vowing vengeance for
this unjustifiable outrage. In the midst of his anger, however,

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