[1] At the age of about sixty, and never previously married, Long became engaged to Elizabeth Ann Linley, a celebrated singer of the town of Bath, and a great beauty.
The engagement was arranged by her father Thomas Linley, an impoverished composer, who had his eyes on Long's great wealth.
[2] Long knew that Elizabeth Ann was in love with a young playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with whom she later eloped in 1772.
The whole business was well publicised at the time, and soon became the subject of a satirical play The Maid of Bath written by Samuel Foote, which opened in 1771 at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
Long's character, played by Foote himself, was named Solomon Flint, described as a "fat, fusty, shabby, shuffling, money loving, water drinking, mirth-marring, amorous old huncks", who "owns half the farms in the country", being 60 at least and "a filthy old goat!