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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
[A] new Book came into the World under the specious Title of BRITISH EDUCATION: said to be wrote by Thomas Sheridan … Bless us, what a Cry was rais'd! Ladies that could not spare time from the Card-table, even on Sundays, to read a Chapter in their Bible, or afford half an Hour to consider how Affairs stand between God and their Souls, yet contrived to snatch some Intervals for the reading of Mr. Sheridan's Book.
Anon. (1769)NATIONAL BODIES
Graves and Goldsmith were writing their works during a period in which the business of forging ‘natural’ eloquence among the subjects of Britain had acquired a new degree of public prominence. Much of this interest in matters of public eloquence was due to the sensational publication in 1756 of Thomas Sheridan's weighty and controversial British Education. This was the first of several works in which Sheridan addressed elocution, and in it he laid out the central contention of all his later writing, arguing that an improvement in standards of oratory – including a reform of the manner in which public bodies should perform – would significantly contribute to the strength and stability of the nation.
When Sheridan thought about his nation, he had in mind ‘Great Britain’ – a relatively new concept in his time, described by Linda Colley in her celebrated Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 as ‘an invented nation superimposed … onto much older alignments and loyalties’.
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