continued for some years to be connected with Drury Lane,
both as composer and as actor, and produced during this period two of
his best known works, _The Waterman_ (1774) and _The Quaker_ (1775). A
quarrel with Garrick led to the termination of his engagement. In _The
Comic Mirror_ he ridiculed prominent contemporary figures through the
medium of a puppet show. In 1782 he became joint manager of the Royal
circus, afterwards known as the Surrey theatre. In three years he lost
this position owing to a quarrel with his partner. His opera _Liberty
Hall_, containing the successful songs "Jock Ratlin," "The Highmettled
Racer," and "The Bells of Aberdovey," was produced at Drury Lane theatre
on the 8th of February 1785. In 1788 he sailed for the East Indies, but
the vessel having put in to Torbay in stress of weather, he changed his
mind and returned to London. In a musical variety entertainment called
_The Oddities_, he succeeded in winning marked popularity with a number
of songs that included "'Twas in the good ship 'Rover'," "Saturday Night
at Sea," "I sailed from the Downs in the 'Nancy,'" and the immortal "Tom
Bowling," written on the death of his eldest brother, Captain Thomas
Dibdin, at whose invitation he had planned his visit to India. A series
of monodramatic entertainments which he gave at his theatre, Sans Souci,
in Leicester Square, brought his songs, music and recitations more
prominently into notice, and permanently established his fame as a lyric
poet. It was at these entertainments that he first introduced many of
those sea-songs which so powerfully influenced the national spirit. The
words breathe the simple loyalty and dauntless courage that are the
cardinal virtues of the British sailor, and the music was appropriate
and naturally melodious. Their effect in stimulating and ennobling the
spirit of the navy during the war with France was so marked as to call
for special acknowledgment. In 1803 Dibdin was rewarded by government
with a pension of L200 a year, of which he was only for a time deprived
under the administration of Lord Grenville. During this period he opened
a music shop in the Strand, but the venture was a failure. Dibdin died
of paralysis in London on the 25th of July 1814. Besides his _Musical
Tour through England_ (1788), his _Professional Life_, an autobiography
published in 1803, a _History of the Stage_ (1795), and several smaller
works, he wrote upwards of 1400 songs and about thirty dramat