Sheridan was an Irishman, and became a prominent wit and politician. His wit is admirably revealed in his three brilliant prose comedies. _The Rivals_ (1775), _The School for Scandal_ (1777), and _The Critic_ (1779). The three all resemble the best of the Restoration comedies, without the immorality that taints their models. The plots are ingenious and effective, though they depend largely on a stagy complexity of intrigue; the characters, among whom are the immortal figures of Mrs. Malaprop, Bob Acres, and Sir Fretful Plagiary, are stage types, but they are struck off with daring skill; and the dialogue is often a succession of brilliant repartees. The worst that can be said against the plays is that they are artificial, and that the very cleverness of them becomes fatiguing. With the work of Sheridan the artificial comedy reaches its climax. =3. Prose.= The prose product of the period is bulky, varied, and of great importance. The importance of it is clear enough when we recollect that it includes, among many other things, possibly the best novel in the language (_Tom Jones_), the best history (_The Decline and Fall_), and the best biography (_The Life of Doctor Johnson_). (_a_) _The Rise of the Novel._ There are two main classes of fictional prose narratives, namely, the tale or romance and the novel. The distinction between the two need not be drawn too fine, for there is a large amount of prose narrative that can fall into either group; but, broadly speaking, we may say that the tale or romance depends for its chief interest on incident and adventure, whereas the novel depends more on the display of character and motive. In addition, the story (or _plot_, or _fable_) of the novel tends to be more complicated than that of the tale, and it often leads to what were called by the older writers “revolutions and discoveries”--that is, unexpected developments in the narrative, finishing with an explanation that is called the _dénouement_. The tale, moreover, can be separated from the romance: the plot of the tale is commonly matter-of-fact, while that of the romance is often wonderful and fantastic. There is little doubt that the modern novel has its roots in the medieval romances, such as _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ and those dealing with the legends of King Arthur. Another source of the novel were the collections of ballads telling of the adventures of popular heroes of the type of Robin Hood. These romances were written in verse; they were supplied with stock characters, like the wandering knight, the distressed damsel, and the wicked wizard; they had stock incidents, connected with enchanted castles, fiery dragons, and perilous ambushes; and their story rambled on almost interminably. They were necessary to satisfy the human craving for fiction, and they were often fiction of a picturesque and lively kind.