Another of the Doctor’s brightest calls to high and animated society
was now, also, utterly eclipsed; for She, the loveliest of the lovely,
the first Mrs. Sheridan, was fading away—vanishing—from the list of
his fair enchantresses.
This paragon of syrens, by almost universal and national consent,
had been looked up to, when she sang at oratorios and at concerts,
as the star of harmony in England: though so short was that _eclât_
of supremacy, that, from the date of her marriage, her claim to
such pre-eminence was known to the public only by remembrance or by
rumour; Mr. Sheridan, her husband, inexorably renouncing all similar
engagements, and only at his own house suffering her to sing.
Far happier had it been for that captivating and beautiful creature,
far happier for her eminent and highly-talented husband, had the
appropriate fame that belonged equally to the birth, education,
and extraordinary abilities of both, been adequate to their pride
of expectation: for then, glowing with rational and modest, not
burning with inordinate and eccentric ambition, they would not
disdainfully—almost madly—have cast away from their serious and real
service the brilliant gifts of favouring nature, which, if seasonably
brought forth, would have opened to them, without struggle or
difficulty, the golden portals of that splendour to which their passion
for grandeur and enjoyment throbbingly aspired.
But from these brilliant gifts, as instruments of advantage, they
turned captiously aside; as if the exquisite powers, vocal and
dramatic, which were severally intrusted to their charge, had been
qualities that, in any view of utility, they ought to shrink from with
secrecy and shame.
Yet Dr. Burney always believed Mrs. Sheridan herself to be inherently
pure in her mind, and elegantly simple in her taste; though first from
the magnetism of affection, and next from the force of circumstances,
she was drawn into the same vortex of dissipation and extravagance, in
which the desires and pursuits of her husband unresistedly rolled.
Every thing, save rank and place, was theirs; every thing, therefore,
save rank and place, seemed beneath their aim.
If, in withdrawing his fair partner from public life, the virtues of
moderation had bestowed contentment upon their retreat, how dignified
had been such a preference, to all the affluence attendant upon a
publicity demanding personal exhibition from a delicate and sensitive
female!
Such was the light in which this act of Mr. Sheridan, upon its early
adoption, had appeared to Dr. Johnson; and, as such, it obtained
the high sanction of his approbation.[22] But to no such view was
the subsequent conduct of this too aspiring and enchanting couple
respondent. They assumed the expenses of wealth, while they disclaimed
the remuneration of talents; and they indulged in the luxuries of
splendour, by resources not their own.
Not such, had he lived to witness the result, had been the sanction of
Dr. Johnson. He had regarded the retirement from public exhibition as a
measure of primitive temperance and philosophic virtue. The last of men
was Dr. Johnson to have abetted squandering the delicacy of integrity,
by nullifying the labours of talents.
The unhappy delusion into which this high-wrought and mis-placed
self-appreciation betrayed them, finished its fatal fanaticism by
dimming their celebrity, mocking their ambition, and hurling into
disorder and ruin their fortune, their reputation, their virtues, and
their genius.
* * * * *