Several of his children made their mark in music, especially his youngest son, William Linley. A younger daughter, Maria, a favourite at the Bath concerts, died at an early age from brain fever. After one severe paroxysm, she rose up in bed and began to sing the air, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," in as full and clear a tone as when in perfect health. Mary, the second daughter, who was also an excellent vocalist, married Sheridan's friend, Richard Tickell, a wit, author, and man of pleasure, and, after her older sister's retirement, filled her place in concert and oratorio. The sisters were very fond of each other, and one of Gainsborough's finest paintings is that in the Dulwich gallery, which shows them together. In the same collection are the same artist's portraits of the father and the son Thomas. Little Elizabeth Ann Linley, the composer's eldest daughter, used to stand at the Pump-room door, in Bath, with a basket, selling tickets, when only a girl of nine. She was very lovely, gentle, and good, and came to be known as the "Maid of Bath." After she sang before the king and queen at Buckingham House in 1773, George III. told her father that he never in his life heard so fine a voice as his daughter's, nor one so well instructed. Her beauty was praised in high terms by John Wilkes, Horace Walpole, and Miss Burney, and the Bishop of Meath styled her "the connecting link between woman and angel." Of course she had many admirers. The Duke of Clarence persecuted her with his attentions, and her parents wished her to marry Mr. Long, an old gentleman of considerable fortune. The latter, when Elizabeth told him she could not love him, had the magnanimity to take upon himself the burden of breaking the engagement, and settled 3,000 pounds on her as an indemnity for his supposed breach of covenant. A certain rascally Captain Mathews, a married rake, and a so-called friend of her father, had the effrontery to follow her with his solicitations, from which she was rescued by the young Sheridan, who fell in love with Elizabeth and persuaded her to fly with him to France. There, at Calais, they went through a formal ceremony of marriage, separating immediately afterward, the lady entering a convent, and Sheridan returning to England. Here he fought two duels with Captain Mathews, in the second of which he was quite seriously wounded. Mr. Linley went to France and brought his daughter home, and finally, about a year from the time of the Calais episode, the young couple were married again, this time in full sight of the world. The future author of "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal," addressed to his Eliza, among other early productions, this pretty snatch of song: "Dry be that tear, my gentlest love, Be hush'd that struggling sigh; Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove More fix'd, more true than I. Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear; Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear; Dry be that tear.