FRENCH REVOLUTION.--MR. BURKE.--HIS BREACH WITH MR.
SHERIDAN.--DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.--MR. BURKE AND MR. FOX.--RUSSIAN
ARMAMENT.--ROYAL SCOTCH BOROUGHS.
We have now to consider the conduct and opinions of Mr. Sheridan, during
the measures and discussions consequent upon the French Revolution,--an
event, by which the minds of men throughout all Europe were thrown into a
state of such feverish excitement, that a more than usual degree of
tolerance should be exercised towards the errors and extremes into which
all parties were hurried during the paroxysm. There was, indeed, no rank
or class of society, whose interests and passions were not deeply
involved in the question. The powerful and the rich, both of State and
Church, must naturally have regarded with dismay the advance of a
political heresy, whose path they saw strewed over with the broken
talismans of rank and authority. Many, too, with a disinterested
reverence for ancient institutions, trembled to see them thus approached
by rash hands, whose talents for ruin were sufficiently certain, but
whose powers of reconstruction were yet to be tried. On the other hand,
the easy triumph of a people over their oppressors was an example which
could not fail to excite the hopes of the many as actively as the fears
of the few. The great problem of the natural rights of mankind seemed
about to be solved in a manner most flattering to the majority; the zeal
of the lover of liberty was kindled into enthusiasm, by a conquest
achieved for his cause upon an arena so vast; and many, who before would
have smiled at the doctrine of human perfectibility, now imagined they
saw, in what the Revolution performed and promised, almost enough to
sanction the indulgence of that splendid dream. It was natural, too, that
the greater portion of that unemployed, and, as it were, homeless talent,
which, in all great communities, is ever abroad on the wing, uncertain
where to settle, should now swarm round the light of the new
principles,--while all those obscure but ambitious spirits, who felt
their aspirings clogged by the medium in which they were sunk, would as
naturally welcome such a state of political effervescence, as might
enable them, like enfranchised air, to mount at once to the surface.
Amidst all these various interests, imaginations, and fears, which were
brought to life by the dawn of the French Revolution, it is not
surprising that errors and excesses, both of conduct and opinion, should
be among the first products of so new and sudden a movement of the whole
civilized world;--that the friends of popular rights, presuming upon the
triumph that had been gained, should, in the ardor of pursuit, push on
the vanguard of their principles, somewhat farther than was consistent
with prudence and safety; or that, on the other side, Authority and its
supporters, alarmed by the inroads of the Revolutionary spirit, should
but the more stubbornly intrench themselves in established abuses, and
make the dangers they apprehended from liberty a pretext for assailing
its very existence.
It was not long before these effects of the French Revolution began to
show themselves very strikingly in the politics of England; and,
singularly enough, the two extreme opinions, to which, as I have just
remarked, that disturbing event gave rise, instead of first appearing, as
might naturally be expected, the one on the side of Government, and the
other on that of the Opposition, both broke out simultaneously in the
very heart of the latter body.
On such an imagination as that of Burke, the scenes now passing in France
were every way calculated to make a most vivid impression. So susceptible
was he, indeed, of such impulses, and so much under the control of the
imaginative department of his intellect, that, whatever might have been
the accidental mood of his mind, at the moment when this astounding event
first burst upon him, it would most probably have acted as a sort of
mental catalepsy, and fixed his reason in the very attitude in which it
found it. He had, however, been prepared for the part which he now took
by much more deep and grounded causes. It was rather from circumstances
than from choice, or any natural affinity, that Mr. Burke had ever
attached himself to the popular party in politics. There was, in truth,
nothing democratic about him but his origin;--his tastes were all on the
side of the splendid and the arbitrary. The chief recommendation of the
cause of India to his fancy and his feeling was that it involved the fate
of ancient dynasties, and invoked retribution for the downfall of thrones
and princedoms, to which his imagination, always most affected by objects
at a distance, lent a state and splendor that did not, in sober reality,
belong to them. Though doomed to make Whiggism his habitual haunt, he
took his perch at all times on its loftiest branches, as far as possible
away from popular contact; and, upon most occasions, adopted a sort of
baronial view of liberty, as rather a question lying between the Throne
and the Aristocracy, than one in which the people had a right to any
efficient voice or agency. Accordingly, the question of Parliamentary
Reform, from the first moment of its agitation, found in him a most
decided opponent.
This inherent repugnance to popular principles became naturally
heightened into impatience and disgust, by the long and fruitless warfare
which he had waged under their banner, and the uniform ill success with
which they had blasted all his struggles for wealth and power. Nor was he
in any better temper with his associates in the cause,--having found that
the ascendancy, which he had formerly exercised over them, and which, in
some degree, consoled him for the want of official dominion, was of late
considerably diminished, if not wholly transferred to others. Sheridan,
as has been stated, was the most prominent object of his jealousy;--and
it is curious to remark how much, even in feelings of this description,
the aristocratical bias of his mind betrayed itself. For, though Mr. Fox,
too, had overtaken and even passed him in the race, assuming that station
in politics which he himself had previously held, yet so paramount did
those claims of birth and connection, by which the new leader came
recommended, appear in his eyes, that he submitted to be superseded by
him, not only without a murmur, but cheerfully. To Sheridan, however, who
had no such hereditary passport to pre-eminence, he could not give way
without heart burning and humiliation; and to be supplanted thus by a
rival son of earth seemed no less a shock to his superstitious notions
about rank, than it was painful to his feelings of self-love and pride.
Such, as far as can be ascertained by a distant observer of those times,
was the temper in which the first events of the Revolution found the mind
of this remarkable man;--and, powerfully as they would, at any time, have
appealed to his imagination and prejudices, the state of irritability to
which he had been wrought by the causes already enumerated peculiarly
predisposed him, at this moment, to give way to such impressions without
restraint, and even to welcome as a timely relief to his pride, the
mighty vent thus afforded to the "_splendida bilis_" with which it
was charged.
There was indeed much to animate and give a zest to the new part which he
now took. He saw those principles, to which he owed a deep grudge, for
the time and the talents he had wasted in their service, now embodied in
a shape so wild and alarming, as seemed to justify him, on grounds of
public safety, in turning against them the hole powers of his mind, and
thus enabled him, opportunely, to dignify desertion, by throwing the
semblance of patriotism and conscientiousness round the reality of
defection and revenge. He saw the party, too, who, from the moment they
had ceased to be ruled by him, were associated only in his mind with
recollections of unpopularity and defeat, about to adopt a line of
politics which his long knowledge of the people of England, and his
sagacious foresight of the consequences of the French Revolution, fully
convinced him would lead to the same barren and mortifying results. On
the contrary, the cause to which he proffered his alliance, would, he was
equally sure, by arraying on its side all the rank, riches, and religion
of Europe, enable him at length to feel that sense of power and triumph,
for which his domineering spirit had so long panted in vain. In this
latter hope, indeed, of a speedy triumph over Jacobinism, his
temperament, as was often the case, outran his sagacity; for, while he
foresaw clearly that the dissolution of social order in France would at
last harden into a military tyranny, he appeared not to be aware that the
violent measures which he recommended against her would not only hasten
this formidable result, but bind the whole mass of the people into union
and resistance during the process.
Lastly--To these attractions, of various kinds, with which the cause of
Thrones was now encircled in the eyes of Burke, must be added one, which,
however it may still further disenchant our views of his conversion,
cannot wholly be omitted among the inducements to his change,--and this
was the strong claim upon the gratitude of government, which his
seasonable and powerful advocacy in a crisis so difficult established for
him, and which the narrow and embarrassed state of his circumstances
rendered an object by no means of secondary importance in his views.
Unfortunately,--from a delicate wish, perhaps, that the reward should
not appear to come in too close coincidence with the service,--the
pension bestowed upon him arrived too late to admit of his deriving much
more from it than the obloquy by which it was accompanied.
The consequence, as is well known, of the new course taken by Burke was
that the speeches and writings which he henceforward produced, and in
which, as usual, his judgment was run away with by his temper, form a
complete contrast, in spirit and tendency, to all that he had put on
record in the former part of his life. He has, indeed, left behind him
two separate and distinct armories of opinion, from which both Whig and
Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the
most highly tempered, that ever Genius and Eloquence have condescended to
bequeath to Party. He has thus too, by his own personal versatility,
attained, in the world of politics, what Shakspeare, by the versatility
of his characters, achieved for the world in general,--namely, such a
universality of application to all opinions and purposes, that it would
be difficult for any statesman of any party to find himself placed in any
situation, for which he could not select some golden sentence from Burke,
either to strengthen his position by reasoning or illustrate and adorn it
by, fancy. While, therefore, our respect for the man himself is
diminished by this want of moral identity observable through his life and
writings, we are but the more disposed to admire that unrivalled genius,
which could thus throw itself out in so many various directions with
equal splendor and vigor. In general, political deserters lose their
value and power in the very act, and bring little more than their treason
to the new cause which they espouse:--
_"Fortis in armis
Caesaris Labienus erat; nunc transfuga vilis."_
But Burke was mighty in either camp; and it would have taken _two_
great men to effect what he, by this division of himself achieved. His
mind, indeed, lies parted asunder in his works, like some vast continent
severed by a convulsion of nature,--each portion peopled by its own giant
race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and
committed in eternal hostility with each other.
It was during the discussions on the Army Estimates, at the commencement
of the session of 1790, that the difference between Mr. Burke and his
party in their views of the French Revolution first manifested itself.
Mr. Fox having taken occasion to praise the late conduct of the French
Guards in refusing to obey the dictates of the Court, and having declared
that he exulted, "both from feelings and from principles," in the
political change that had been brought about in that country, Mr. Burke,
in answering him, entered fully, and, it must be owned, most luminously
into the question,--expressing his apprehension, lest the example of
France, which had, at a former period, threatened England with the
contagion of despotism, should now be the means of introducing among her
people the no less fatal taint of Democracy and Atheism. After some
eloquent tributes of admiration to Mr. Fox, rendered more animated,
perhaps, by the consciousness that they were the last offerings thrown
into the open grave of their friendship, he proceeded to deprecate the
effects which the language of his Right Honorable Friend might have, in
appearing to countenance the disposition observable among "some wicked
persons" to "recommend an imitation of the French spirit of Reform," and
then added a declaration, equally remarkable for the insidious charge
which it implied against his own party, and the notice of his approaching
desertion which it conveyed to the other,--that "so strongly opposed was
he to any the least tendency towards the _means_ of introducing a
democracy like that of the French, as well as to the _end_ itself,
that, much as it would afflict him, if such a thing should be attempted,
and that any friend of his could concur in such measures (he was far,
very far, from believing they could), he would abandon his best friends,
and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end."
It is pretty evident, from these words, that Burke had already made up
his mind as to the course he should pursue, and but delayed his
declaration of a total breach, in order to prepare the minds of the
public for such an event, and, by waiting to take advantage of some
moment of provocation, make the intemperance of others responsible for
his own deliberate schism. The reply of Mr. Fox was not such as could
afford this opportunity;--it was, on the contrary, full of candor and
moderation, and repelled the implied charge of being a favorer of the new
doctrines of France in the most decided, but, at the same time, most
conciliatory terms.
"Did such a declaration," he asked, "warrant the idea that he was a
friend to Democracy? He declared himself equally the enemy of all
absolute forms of government, whether an absolute Monarchy, an absolute
Aristocracy, or an absolute Democracy. He was adverse to all extremes,
and a friend only to a mixed government like our own, in which, if the
Aristocracy, or indeed either of the three branches of the Constitution,
were destroyed, the good effect of the whole, and the happiness derived
under it would, in his mind, be at an end."
In returning, too, the praises bestowed upon him by his friend, he made
the following memorable and noble acknowledgment of all that he himself
had gained by their intercourse:--
"Such (he said) was his sense of the judgment of his Right Honorable
Friend, such his knowledge of his principles, such the value which he set
upon them, and such the estimation in which he held his friendship, that
if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from
books, all which he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge
of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the
improvement which he had derived from his Right Honorable Friend's
instruction and conversation were placed in the other, he should be at a
loss to decide to which to give the preference."
This, from a person so rich in acquirements as Mr. Fox, was the very
highest praise,--nor, except in what related to the judgment and
principles of his friend, was it at all exaggerated. The conversation of
Burke must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting
power and riches at every step--occasionally, perhaps, mingling the low
Fescennine jest with the lofty music of its march, but glittering all
over with the spoils of the whole ransacked world.
Mr. Burke, in reply, after reiterating his praises of Mr. Fox, and the
full confidence which he felt in his moderation and sagacity, professed
himself perfectly satisfied with the explanations that had been given.
The conversation would thus have passed off without any explosion, had
not Sheridan, who was well aware that against him, in particular, the
charge of a tendency to the adoption of French principles was directed,
risen immediately after, and by a speech warmly in favor of the
Revolution and of the National Assembly, at once lighted the train in the
mind of Burke, and brought the question, as far as regarded themselves,
to an immediate issue.
"He differed," he said, "decidedly, from his Right Honorable Friend in
almost every word that be had uttered respecting the French Revolution.
He conceived it to be as just a Revolution as ours, proceeding upon as
sound a principle and as just a provocation. He vehemently defended the
general views and conduct of the National Assembly. He could not even
understand what was meant by the charges against them of having
overturned the laws, the justice, and the revenues of their country. What
were their laws? the arbitrary mandates of capricious despotism. What
their justice? the partial adjudications of venal magistrates. What their
revenues? national bankruptcy. This he thought the fundamental error of
his Right Honorable Friend's argument, that he accused the National
Assembly of creating the evils, which they had found existing in full
deformity at the first hour of their meeting. The public creditor had
been defrauded; the manufacturer was without employ; trade was
languishing; famine clung upon the poor; despair on all. In this
situation, the wisdom and feelings of the nation were appealed to by the
government; and was it to be wondered at by Englishmen, that a people, so
circumstanced, should search for the cause and source of all their
calamities, or that they should find them in the arbitrary constitution
of their government, and in the prodigal and corrupt administration of
their revenues? For such an evil when proved, what remedy could be
resorted to, but a radical amendment of the frame and fabric of the
Constitution itself? This change was not the object and wish of the
National Assembly only; it was the claim and cry of all France, united as
one man for one purpose."
All this is just and unanswerable--as indeed was the greater part of the
sentiments which he uttered. But he seems to have failed, even more
signally than Mr. Fox, in endeavoring to invalidate the masterly view
which Burke had just taken of the Revolution of 1688, as compared, in its
means and object, with that of France. There was, in truth, but little
similarity between them,--the task of the former being to preserve
liberty, that of the latter to destroy tyranny; the one being a regulated
movement of the Aristocracy against the Throne for the Nation, the other
a tumultuous rising of the whole Nation against both for itself.
The reply of Mr. Burke was conclusive and peremptory,--such, in short,
as might be expected from a person who came prepared to take the first
plausible opportunity of a rupture. He declared that "henceforth, his
Honorable Friend and he were separated in politics,"--complained that his
arguments had been cruelly misrepresented, and that "the Honorable
Gentleman had thought proper to charge him with being the advocate of
despotism." Having endeavored to defend himself from such an imputation,
he concluded by saying,--
"Was that a fair and candid mode of treating his arguments? or was it
what he ought to have expected _in the moment of departed
friendship?_ On the contrary, was it not evident that the Honorable
Gentleman had made a sacrifice of his friendship, for the sake of
catching some momentary popularity? If the fact were such, even greatly
as he should continue to admire the Honorable Gentleman's talents, he
must tell him that his argument was chiefly an argument _ad
invidiam_, and all the applause for which he could hope from clubs was
scarcely worth the sacrifice which he had chosen to make for so
insignificant an acquisition."
I have given the circumstances of this Debate somewhat in detail, not
only on account of its own interest and of the share which Mr. Sheridan
took in it, but from its being the first scene of that great political
schism, which in the following year assumed a still more serious aspect,
and by which the policy of Mr. Pitt at length acquired a predominance,
not speedily to be forgotten in the annals of this country.
Mr. Sheridan was much blamed for the unseasonable stimulant which, it was
thought, his speech on this occasion had administered to the temper of
Burke; nor can it be doubted that he had thereby, in some degree,
accelerated the public burst of that feeling which had so long been
treasured up against himself But, whether hastened or delayed, such a
breach was ultimately inevitable; the divergence of the parties once
begun, it was in vain to think of restoring their parallelism. That some
of their friends, however, had more sanguine hopes appears from an effort
which was made, within two days after the occurrence of this remarkable
scene, to effect a reconciliation between Burke and Sheridan. The
interview that took place on that occasion is thus described by Mr.
Dennis O'Brien, one of the persons chiefly instrumental in the
arrangements for it:--
"It appeared to the author of this pamphlet [Footnote: Entitled "Utrum
Horum."] that the difference between these two great men would be a great
evil to the country and to their own party. Full of this persuasion he
brought them both together the second night after the original contest in
the House of Commons; and carried them to Burlington House to Mr. Fox and
the Duke of Portland, according to a previous arrangement. This
interview, which can never be forgotten by those who were present, lasted
from ten o'clock at night until three in the morning, and afforded a very
remarkable display of the extraordinary talents of the parties."
It will easily be believed that to the success of this conciliatory
effort the temper on one side would be a greater obstacle than even the
hate on both. Mr. Sheridan, as if anxious to repel from himself the
suspicion of having contributed to its failure, took an opportunity,
during his speech upon the Tobacco Act, in the month of April following,
to express himself in the most friendly terms of Mr. Burke, as "one, for
whose talents and personal virtue he had the highest esteem, veneration,
and regard, and with whom he might be allowed to differ in opinion upon
the subject of France, persuaded, as he was, that they never could differ
in principle." Of this and some other compliments of a similar nature,
Mr. Burke did not deign to take the slightest notice--partly, from an
implacable feeling towards him who offered them, and partly, perhaps,
from a suspicion that they were intended rather for the ears of the
public than his own, and that, while this tendency to conciliation
appeared on the surface, the under-current of feeling and influence set
all the other way.
Among the measures which engaged the attention of Mr. Sheridan during
this session, the principal was a motion of his own for the repeal of the
Excise Duties on Tobacco, which appears to have called forth a more than
usual portion of his oratory,--his speeches on the subject occupying
nearly forty pages. It is upon topics of this unpromising kind, and from
the very effort, perhaps, to dignity and enliven them, that the peculiar
characteristics of an orator are sometimes most racily brought out. To
the Cider Tax we are indebted for one of the grandest bursts of the
constitutional spirit and eloquence of Lord Chatham; and, in these
orations of Sheridan upon Tobacco, we find examples of the two extreme
varieties of his dramatic talent--both of the broad, natural humor of his
farce, and the pointed, artificial wit of his comedy. For instance, in
representing, as one of the abuses that might arise from the
discretionary power of remitting fines to manufacturers, the danger that
those only should feel the indulgence, who were found to be supporters of
the existing administration, [Footnote: A case of this kind formed the
subject of a spirited Speech of Mr. Windham, in 1792. See his Speeches,
vol. i. p. 207.] he says:--
"Were a man whose stock had increased or diminished beyond the standard
table in the Act, to attend the Commissioners and assure them that the
weather alone had caused the increase or decrease of the article, and
that no fraud whatever had been used on the occasion, the Commissioners
might say to him, 'Sir, you need not give yourself so much trouble to
prove your innocence;--we see honesty in your orange cape.' But should a
person of quite a different side in politics attend for the same purpose,
the Commissioners might say, 'Sir, you are not to be believed; we see
fraud in your blue and buff, and it is impossible that you should not be
a smuggler."
Again, in stating the case between the manufacturers and the Minister,
the former of whom objected to the Bill altogether, while the latter
determined to preserve its principle and only alter its form, he says:--
"The manufacturers ask the Right Honorable Gentleman, if he will consent
to give up the principle? The Right Honorable Gentleman answers, 'No; the
principle must not be abandoned, but do you inform me how I shall alter
the Bill.' This the manufacturers refused; and they wisely refused it in
his opinion; for, what was it but the Minister's saying, 'I have a yoke
to put about your necks,--do you help me in fitting it on--only assist
me with your knowledge of the subject, and I'll fit you with the
prettiest pair of fetters that ever were seen in the world.'"
As a specimen of his quaint and far-sought witticisms, the following
passage in the same speech may vie with Trip's "Post-Obit on the blue and
silver, &c."--Having described the effects of the weather in increasing
or decreasing the weight of the stock, beyond the exact standard
established in the Act, he adds,
"The Commissioners, before they could, in justice, levy such fines, ought
to ascertain that the weather is always in that precise state of heat or
cold which the Act supposed it would be. They ought to make Christmas
give security for frost, take a bond for hot weather from August, and
oblige damps and fogs to take out permits."
It was in one of these speeches on the Tobacco Act, that he adverted with
considerable warmth to a rumor, which, he complained, had been
maliciously circulated, of a misunderstanding between himself and the
Duke of Portland, in consequence (as the Report expresses it) of "a
certain opposition affirmed to have been made by this Noble Duke, to some
views or expectations which he (Mr. Sheridan) was said to have
entertained." After declaring that "there was not in these rumors one
grain of truth," he added that--
"He would not venture to state to the Committee the opinion that the
Noble Duke was pleased to entertain of him, lest he should be accused of
vanity in publishing what he might deem highly flattering. All that he
would assert on this occasion was, that if he had it in his power to make
the man whose good opinion he should most highly prize think flatteringly
of him, he would have that man think of him precisely as the Noble Duke
did, and then his wish on that subject would be most amply gratified."
As it is certain, that the feelings which Burke entertained towards
Sheridan were now in some degree shared by all those who afterwards
seceded from the party, this boast of the high opinion of the Duke of
Portland must be taken with what, in Heraldry, is called
_Abatement_--that is, a certain degree of diminution of the
emblazonry.
Among the papers of Mr. Sheridan, I find a letter addressed to him this
year by one of his most distinguished friends, relative to the motions
that had lately been brought forward for the relief of the Dissenters.
The writer, whose alarm for the interest of the Church had somewhat
disturbed his sense of liberality and justice, endeavors to impress upon
Mr. Sheridan, and through him upon Mr. Fox, how undeserving the
Dissenters were, as a political body, of the recent exertions on their
behalf, and how ungratefully they had more than once requited the
services which the Whigs had rendered them. For this latter charge there
was but too much foundation in truth, however ungenerous might be the
deduction which the writer would draw from it. It is, no doubt, natural
that large bodies of men, impatiently suffering under the ban of
disqualification, should avail themselves, without much regard to persons
or party, of every aid they can muster for their cause, and should (to
use the words of an old Earl of Pembroke) "lean on both sides of the
stairs to get up." But, it is equally natural that the occasional
desertion and ingratitude, of which, in pursuit of this selfish policy,
they are but too likely to be guilty towards their best friends, should,
if not wholly indispose the latter to their service, at least
considerably moderate their zeal in a cause, where all parties alike seem
to be considered but as instruments, and where neither personal
predilections nor principle are regarded in the choice of means. To the
great credit, however, of the Whig party, it must be said, that, though
often set aside and even disowned by their clients, they have rarely
suffered their high duty, as advocates, to be relaxed or interrupted by
such momentary suspensions of confidence. In this respect, the cause of
Ireland has more than once been a trial of their constancy. Even Lord
North was able, by his reluctant concessions, to supersede them for a
time in the favor of my too believing countrymen,--whose despair of
finding justice at any hands has often led them thus to carry their
confidence to market, and to place it in the hands of the first plausible
bidder. The many vicissitudes of popularity which their own illustrious
Whig, Grattan, had to encounter, would have wearied out the ardor of any
less magnanimous champion. But high minds are as little affected by such
unworthy returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which the
earth throws up between herself and his light.
With respect to the Dissenters, they had deserted Mr. Fox in his great
struggle with the Crown in 1784, and laid their interest and hopes at the
feet of the new idol of the day. Notwithstanding this, we find him, in
the year 1787, warmly maintaining, and in opposition to his rival, the
cause of the very persons who had contributed to make that rival
triumphant,--and showing just so much remembrance of their late defection
as served to render this sacrifice of personal to public feelings more
signal. "He was determined," he said, "to let them know that, though they
could upon some occasions lose sight of their principles of liberty, he
would not upon any occasion lose sight of his principles of toleration."
In the present session, too, notwithstanding that the great organ of the
Dissenters, Dr. Price, had lately in a sermon, published with a view to
the Test, made a pointed attack on the morals of Mr. Fox and his friends,
this generous advocate of religious liberty not the less promptly acceded
to the request of the body, that he would himself bring the motion for
their relief before the House.
On the 12th of June the Parliament was dissolved,--and Mr. Sheridan again
succeeded in being elected for Stafford. The following letters, however,
addressed to him by Mrs. Sheridan during the election, will prove that
they were not without some apprehensions of a different result. The
letters are still more interesting, as showing how warmly alive to each
other's feelings the hearts of both husband wife could remain, after the
long lapse of near twenty years, and after trials more fatal to love than
even time itself.
"This letter will find you, my dear Dick. I hope, encircled with honors
at Stafford. I take it for granted you entered it triumphantly on Sunday,
--but I am very impatient to hear the particulars, and of the utter
discomfiture of S---- and his followers. I received your note from
Birmingham this morning, and am happy to find that you and my dear cub
were well, so far on your journey. You could not be happier than I should
be in the proposed alteration for Tom, but we will talk more of this when
we meet. I sent you Cartwright yesterday, and to-day I pack you off Perry
with the soldiers. I was obliged to give them four guineas for their
expenses. I send you, likewise, by Perry, the note from Mrs. Crewe, to
enable you to speak of your qualification if you should be called upon.
So I think I have executed all your commissions, Sir; and if you want any
of these doubtful votes which I mentioned to you, you will have time
enough to send for them, for I would not let them go till I hear they can
be of any use.
"And, now for my journal, Sir, which I suppose you expect. Saturday, I
was at home all day busy for you,--kept Mrs. Reid to dinner,--went to the
Opera,--afterwards to Mrs. St. John's, where I lost my money sadly,
Sir,--eat strawberries and cream for supper,--sat between Lord Salisbury
and Mr. Meynell, (hope you approve of that, Sir,)--overheard Lord
Salisbury advise Miss Boyle by no means to subscribe to Taylor's Opera,
as O'Reilly's would certainly have the patent,--confess I did not come
home till past two. Sunday, called on Lady Julia,--father and Mr. Reid to
dinner,--in the evening at Lady Hampden's,--lost my money again, Sir,
and came home by one o'clock. 'Tis now near one o'clock,--my father is
established in my boudoir, and, when I have finished this, I am going
with him to hear Abbé Vogler play on the Stafford organ. I have promised
to dine with Mrs. Crewe, who is to have a female party only,--no
objection to that, I suppose. Sir? Whatever the party do, I shall do of
course,--I suppose it will end in Mrs. Hobart's. Mr. James told me on
Saturday, and I find it is the report of the day, that Bond Hopkins has
gone to Stafford. I am sorry to tell you there is an opposition at York,
Mr. Montague opposes Sir Willam Milner. Mr. Beckford has given up at
Dover, and Lord ** is so provoked at it, that he has given up too, though
they say they were both sure. St. Ives is gone for want of a candidate.
Mr. Barham is beat at Stockbridge. Charles Lenox has offered for Surry,
and they say Lord Egremont might drive him to the deuce, if he would set
any body up against him. You know, I suppose, Mr. Crewe has likewise an
opponent. I am sorry to tell you all this bad news, and, to complete it,
Mr. Adam is sick in bed, and there is nobody to do any good left in town.
"I am more than ever convinced we must look to other resources for wealth
and independence, and consider politics merely as an amusement,--and in
that light 'tis best to be in Opposition, which I am afraid we are likely
to be for some years again.
"I see the rumors of war still continue--Stocks continue to fall--is that
good or bad for the Ministers? The little boys are come home to me
to-day. I could not help showing in my answer to Mr. T's letter, that I
was hurt at his conduct,--so I have got another flummery letter, and the
boys, who (as he is pretty sure) will be the best peace-makers. God bless
you, my dear Dick. I am very well, I assure you; pray don't neglect to
write to your ever affectionate
"E. S."
"MY DEAREST DICK,
"_Wednesday_.
"I am full of anxiety and fright about you.--I cannot but think your
letters are very alarming. Deuce take the Corporation! is it impossible
to make them resign their pretensions, and make peace with the Burgesses?
I have sent Thomas after Mr. Cocker. I suppose you have sent for the
out-votes; but, if they are not good, what a terrible expense will that
be!--however, they are ready. I saw Mr. Cocker yesterday,--he collected
them together last night, and gave them a treat,--so they are in high
good humor. I inclose you a letter which B. left here last night,--I
could not resist opening it. Every thing seems going wrong. I think. I
thought he was not to do anything in your absence.--It strikes me the bad
business he mentions was entirely owing to his own stupidity, and want of
a little patience,--is it of much consequence? I don't hear that the
report is true of Basilico's arrival;--a messenger came to the Spanish
embassy, which gave rise to this tale, I believe.
"If you were not so worried, I should scold you for the conclusion of
your letter of to-day. Might not I as well accuse you of coldness, for
not filling your letter with professions, at a time when your head must
be full of business? I think of nothing all day long, but how to do good,
some how or other, for you. I have given you a regular Journal of my
time, and all to please you,--so don't, dear Dick, lay so much stress on
words. I should use them oftener, perhaps, but I feel as if it would look
like deceit. You know me well enough, to be sure that I can never do what
I'm bid, Sir,--but, pray, don't think I meant to send you a cold letter,
for indeed nothing was ever farther from my heart.
"You will see Mr. Horne Tooke's advertisement to-day in the papers;--what
do you think of that to complete the thing? Bishop Dixon has just called
from the hustings:--he says the late Recorder. Adair, proposed Charles
with a good speech, and great applause,--Captain Berkeley, Lord Hood,
with a bad speech, not much applauded; and then Horne Tooke came forward,
and, in the most impudent speech that ever was heard, proposed
himself,--abused both the candidates, and said he should have been
ashamed to have sat and heard such ill-deserved praises given him. But he
told the crowd that, since so many of these fine virtues and
qualifications had never yet done them the least good, they might as well
now choose a candidate without them. He said, however, that if they were
sincere in their professions of standing alone, he was sure of coming in,
for they must all give him their second votes. There was an amazing deal
of laughing and noise in the course of his speech. Charles Fox attempted
to answer him, and so did Lord Hood,--but they would hear neither, and
they are now polling away.
"Do, my dearest love, if you have possibly time, write me a few more
particulars, for your letters are very unsatisfactory, and I am full of
anxiety. Make Richardson write,--what has he better to do? God bless
thee, my dear, dear Dick,--would it were over and all well! I am afraid,
at any rate, it will be ruinous work.
"Ever your true and affectionate
"E. S.
"_Near five_. I am just come from the hustings;--the state of the
poll when I left it was, Fox, 260; Hood, 75; Home Tooke, 17! But he still
persists in his determination of polling a man an hour for the whole
time--I saw Mr. Wilkes go up to vote for Tooke and Hood, amidst the
hisses and groans of a multitude,"
"My poor Dick, how you are worried! This is the day.--you will easily
guess how anxious I shall be; but you seem pretty sanguine yourself,
which is my only comfort, for Richardson's letter is rather croaking. You
have never said a word of little Monkton:--has he any chance, or none? I
ask questions without considering that, before you receive this, every
thing will be decided--I hope triumphantly for you. What a sad set of
venal rascals your favorites the Blacks must be, to turn so suddenly from
their professions and promises! I am half sorry you have any thing more
to do with them, and more than ever regret you did not stand for
Westminster with Charles, instead of Lord John;--in that case you would
have come in now, and we should not have been persecuted by this Horne
Tooke. However, it is the dullest contested election that ever was
seen--no canvassing, no houses open, no cockades. But I heard that a
report prevails now, that Horne Tooke polling so few the two or three
first days is an artful trick to put the others off their guard, and that
he means to pour in his votes on the last days, when it will be too late
for them to repair their neglect. But I don't think it possible, either,
for such a fellow to beat Charles in Westminster.
"I have just had a note from Reid--he is at Canterbury:--the state of the
poll there, Thursday night, was as follows:--Gipps, 220; Lord * *, 211;
Sir T. Honeywood, 216; Mr. Warton, 163. We have got two members for
Wendover, and two at Ailsbury. Mr. Barham is beat at Stockbridge. Mr.
Tierney says he shall be beat, owing to Bate Dudley's manoeuvres, and the
Dissenters having all forsaken him,--a set of ungrateful wretches. E.
Fawkener has just sent me a state of the poll at Northampton, as it stood
yesterday, when they adjourned to dinner:--Lord Compton, 160; Bouverie,
98; Colonel Manners, 72. They are in hopes Mr. Manners will give up, this
is all my news, Sir.
"We had a very pleasant musical party last night at Lord Erskine's, where
I supped. I am asked to dine to-day with Lady Palmerston, at Sheen; but I
can't go, unless Mrs. Crewe will carry me, as the coach is gone to have
its new lining. I have sent to ask her, for 'tis a fine day, and I should
like it very well. God thee bless, my dear Dick.
"Yours ever, true and affectionate,
"E.S.
"Duke of Portland has just left me:--he is full of anxiety about you:--
this is the second time he has called to inquire."
Having secured his own election, Mr. Sheridan now hastened to lend his
aid, where such a lively reinforcement was much wanted, on the hustings
at Westminster. The contest here was protracted to the 2d of July; and it
required no little exercise both of wit and temper to encounter the cool
personalities of Tooke, who had not forgotten the severe remarks of
Sheridan upon his pamphlet the preceding year, and who, in addition to
his strong powers of sarcasm, had all those advantages which, in such a
contest, contempt for the courtesies and compromises of party warfare
gives. Among other sallies of his splenetic humor it is related, that Mr.
Fox having, upon one occasion, retired from the hustings, and left to
Sheridan the task of addressing the multitude, Tooke remarked, that such
was always the practice of quack-doctors, who, whenever they quit the
stage themselves, make it a rule to leave their merry-andrews behind.
[Footnote: Tooke, it is said, upon coming one Monday morning to the
hustings, was thus addressed by a pietism of his opponent, not of a very
reputable character--"Well, Mr. Tooke, you will have all the blackguards
with you to day"--"I am delighted to hear it, Sir," (said Tooke, bowing,)
"and from such good authority."]
The French Revolution still continued, by its comet-like course, to
dazzle, alarm, and disturb all Europe. Mr. Burke had published his
celebrated "Reflections" in the month of November, 1790; and never did
any work, with the exception, perhaps, of the Eikon Basilike, produce
such a rapid, deep, and general sensation. The Eikon was the book of a
King, and this might, in another sense, be called the Book of Kings. Not
only in England, but throughout all Europe,--in every part of which
monarchy was now trembling for its existence,--this lofty appeal to
loyalty was heard and welcomed. Its effect upon the already tottering
Whig party was like that of "the Voice," in the ruins of Rome,
"disparting towers." The whole fabric of the old Rockingham confederacy
shook to its base. Even some, who afterwards recovered their equilibrium,
at first yielded to the eloquence of this extraordinary book,--which,
like the aera of chivalry, whose loss it deplores, mixes a grandeur with
error, and throws a charm round political superstition, that will long
render its pages a sort of region of Royal romance, to which fancy will
have recourse for illusions that have lost their last hold on reason.
The undisguised freedom with which Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan expressed
every where their opinions of this work and its principles had, of
course, no small influence on the temper of the author, and, while it
confirmed him in his hatred and jealousy of the one, prepared him for the
breach which he meditated with the other. This breach was now, indeed,
daily expected, as a natural sequel to the rupture with Mr. Sheridan in
the last session; but, by various accidents and interpositions, the
crisis was delayed till the 6th of May, when the recommitment of the
Quebec Bill,--a question upon which both orators had already taken
occasion to unfold their views of the French Revolution,--furnished Burke
with an opportunity, of which he impetuously took advantage, to sever the
tie between himself and Mr. Fox forever.
This scene, so singular in a public assembly, where the natural
affections are but seldom called out, and where, though bursts of temper
like that of Burke are common, such tears as those shed by Mr. Fox are
rare phenomena,--has been so often described in various publications,
that it would be superfluous to enter into the details of it here. The
following are the solemn and stern words in which sentence of death was
pronounced upon a friendship, that had now lasted for more than the
fourth part of a century. "It certainly," said Mr. Burke, "was
indiscretion at any period, but especially at his time of life, to
provoke enemies, or to give his friends occasion to desert him; yet, if
his firm and steady adherence to the British Constitution placed him in
such a dilemma, he would risk all, and, as public duty and public
prudence taught him, with his last words exclaim, 'Fly from the French
Constitution.'" [Mr. Fox here whispered, that "there was no loss of
friendship."] Mr. Burke said, "Yes, there _was_ a loss of
friendship;--he knew the price of his conduct;--he had done his duty at
the price of his friend; their friendship was at an end."
In rising to reply to the speech of Burke, Mr. Fox was so affected as to
be for some moments unable to speak:--he wept, it is said, even to
sobbing; and persons who were in the gallery at the time declare, that,
while he spoke, there was hardly a dry eye around them.
Had it been possible for two natures so incapable of disguise--the one
from simplicity and frankness, the other from ungovernable temper,--to
have continued in relations of amity, notwithstanding their disagreement
upon a question which was at that moment setting the world in arms, both
themselves and the country would have been the better for such a
compromise between them. Their long habits of mutual deference would have
mingled with and moderated the discussion of their present differences;
--the tendency to one common centre to which their minds had been
accustomed, would have prevented them from flying so very widely asunder;
and both might have been thus saved from those extremes of principle,
which Mr. Burke always, and Mr. Fox sometimes, had recourse to in
defending their respective opinions, and which, by lighting, as it were,
the torch at both ends, but hastened a conflagration in which Liberty
herself might have been the sufferer. But it was evident that such a
compromise would have been wholly impossible. Even granting that Mr.
Burke did not welcome the schism as a relief, neither the temper of the
men nor the spirit of the times, which converted opinions at once into
passions, would have admitted of such a peaceable counterbalance of
principles, nor suffered them long to slumber in that hollow truce, which
Tacitus has described,--"_manente in speciem amicitia_" Mr.
Sheridan saw this from the first; and, in hazarding that vehement speech,
by which he provoked the rupture between himself and Burke, neither his
judgment nor his temper were so much off their guard as they who blamed
that speech seemed inclined to infer. But, perceiving that a separation
was in the end inevitable, he thought it safer, perhaps, as well as
manlier, to encounter the extremity at once, than by any temporizing
delay, or too complaisant suppression of opinion, to involve both himself
and Mr. Fox in the suspicion of either sharing or countenancing that
spirit of defection, which, he saw, was fast spreading among the rest of
their associates.
It is indeed said, and with every appearance of truth, that Mr. Sheridan
had felt offended by the censures which some of his political friends had
pronounced upon the indiscretion (as it was called) of his speech in the
last year, and that, having, in consequence, withdrawn from them the aid
of his powerful talents during a great part of the present session, he
but returned to his post under the express condition, that he should be
allowed to take the earliest opportunity of repeating, fully and
explicitly, the same avowal of his sentiments.
The following letter from Dr. Parr to Mrs. Sheridan, written immediately
after the scene between Burke and Sheridan in the preceding year, is
curious:--
"DEAR MADAM,
"I am most fixedly and most indignantly on the side of Mr. Sheridan and
Mr. Fox against Mr. Burke. It is not merely French politics that produced
this dispute;--they might have been settled privately. No, no,--there is
jealousy lurking underneath;--jealousy of Mr. Sheridan's eloquence;
--jealousy of his popularity;--jealousy of his influence with Mr.
Fox;--jealousy, perhaps, of his connection with the Prince.
"Mr. Sheridan was, I think, not too warm; or, at least, I should have
myself been warmer. Why, Burke accused Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan of acts
leading to rebellion,--and he made Mr. Fox a dupe, and Mr. Sheridan a
traitor! I think _this_,--and I am sure, yes, positively sure, that
nothing else will allay the ferment of men's minds. Mr. Sheridan ought,
publicly in Parliament, to demand proof, or a retractation, of this
horrible charge. Pitt's words never did the party half the hurt;--and,
just on the eve of an election, it is worse. As to private bickerings, or
private concessions and reconciliations, they are all nothing. In public
all must be again taken up; for, if drowned, the Public will say, and
Pitt will insinuate, that the charge is well founded, and that they dare
not provoke an inquiry.
"I know Burke is not addicted to giving up,--and so much the worse for
him and his party. As to Mr. Fox's yielding, well had it been for all,
all, all the party, if Mr. Fox had, now and then, stood out against Mr.
Burke. The ferment and alarm are universal, and something must be done;
for it is a conflagration in which they must perish, unless it be
stopped. All the papers are with Burke,--even the Foxite papers, which I
have seen. I know his violence, and temper, and obstinacy of opinion,
and--but I will not speak out, for, though I think him the greatest man
upon the earth, yet, in politics I think him,--what he has been found, to
the sorrow of those who act with him. He is uncorrupt, I know; but his
passions are quite headstrong; [Footnote: It was well said, (I believe,
by Mr. Fox,) that it was lucky both for Burke and Windham that they took
the Royal side on the subject of the French Revolution, as they would
have got hanged on the other.] and age, and disappointment, and the sight
of other men rising into fame and consequence, sour him. Pray tell me
when they are reconciled,--though, as I said, it is nothing to the
purpose without a public explanation.
"I am, dear Madam,
"Yours truly,
"S. PARR."
Another letter, communicated to me as having been written about this
period to Sheridan by a Gentleman, then abroad, who was well acquainted
with the whole party, contains allusions to the breach, which make its
introduction here not irrelevant:--
"I wish very much to have some account of the state of things with you
that I can rely on. I wish to know how all my old companions and
fellow-laborers do; if the club yet exists; if you, and Richardson, and
Lord John, and Ellis, and Lawrence, and Fitzpatrick, &c., meet, and joke,
and write, as of old. What is become of Becket's, and the
supper-parties,--the _noctes coenaeque_? Poor Burgoyne! I am sure
you all mourned him as I did, particularly Richardson:--pray remember me
affectionately to Richardson. It is a shame for you all, and I will say
ungrateful in many of you, to have so totally forgotten me, and to leave
me in ignorance of every thing public and private in which I am
interested. The only creature who writes to me is the Duke of Portland;
but in the great and weighty occupations that engross his mind, you can
easily conceive that the little details of our Society cannot enter into
His Grace's correspondence. I have indeed carried on a pretty regular
correspondence with young Burke. But that is now at an end. _He_ is
so wrapt up in the importance of his present pursuits, that it is too
great an honor for me to continue to correspond with him. His father I
ever must venerate and ever love; yet I never could admire, even in him,
what his son has inherited from him, a tenacity of opinion and a violence
of _principle_, that makes him lose his friendships in his politics,
and quarrel with every one who differs from him. Bitterly have I lamented
that greatest of these quarrels, and, indeed, the only important one; nor
can I conceive it to have been less afflicting to my private feelings
than fatal to the party. The worst of it to me was, that I was obliged to
condemn the man I loved, and that all the warmth of my affection, and the
zeal of my partiality, could not suggest a single excuse to vindicate him
either to the world or to myself, from the crime (for such it was) of
giving such a triumph to the common enemy. He failed, too, in what I most
loved him for,--his heart. There it was that _Mr. Fox principally rose
above him_; nor, amiable as he ever has been, did he ever appear half
so amiable as on that trying occasion."
The topic upon which Sheridan most distinguished himself during this
Session was the meditated interference of England in the war between
Russia and the Porte,--one of the few measures of Mr. Pitt on which the
sense of the nation was opposed to him. So unpopular, indeed, was the
Armament, proposed to be raised for this object, and so rapidly did the
majority of the Minister diminish during the discussion of it, that there
appeared for some time a probability that the Whig party would be called
into power,--an event which, happening at this critical juncture, might,
by altering the policy of England, have changed the destinies of all
Europe.
The circumstance to which at present this Russian question owes its chief
hold upon English memories is the charge, arising out of it, brought
against Mr. Fox of having sent Mr. Adair as his representative to
Petersburg, for the purpose of frustrating the objects for which the
King's ministers were then actually negotiating. This accusation, though
more than once obliquely intimated during the discussions upon the
Russian Armament in 1791, first met the public eye, in any tangible form,
among those celebrated Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Fox, which
were drawn up by Burke's practised hand [Footnote: This was the third
time that his talent for impeaching was exercised, as he acknowledged
having drawn up, during the administration of Lord North, seven distinct
Articles of Impeachment against that nobleman, which, however, the advice
of Lord Rockingham induced him to relinquish] in 1793, and found their
way surreptitiously into print in 1797. The angry and vindictive tone of
this paper was but little calculated to inspire confidence in its
statements, and the charge again died away, unsupported and unrefuted,
till the appearance of the Memoirs of Mr. Pitt by the Bishop of
Winchester; when, upon the authority of documents said to be found among
the papers of Mr. Pitt, but not produced, the accusation was
revived,--the Right Reverend biographer calling in aid of his own view of
the transaction the charitable opinion of the Turks, who, he complacently
assures us, "expressed great surprise that Mr. Fox had not lost his head
for such conduct." Notwithstanding, however, this _Concordat_
between the Right Reverend Prelate and the Turks, something more is still
wanting to give validity to so serious an accusation. Until the
production of the alleged proofs (which Mr. Adair has confidently
demanded) shall have put the public in possession of more recondite
materials for judging, they must regard as satisfactory and conclusive
the refutation of the whole charge, both as regards himself and his
illustrious friend, which Mr. Adair has laid before the world; and for
the truth of which not only his own high character, but the character of
the ministries of both parties, who have since employed him in missions
of the first trust and importance, seem to offer the strongest and most
convincing pledges.
The Empress of Russia, in testimony of her admiration of the eloquence of
Mr. Fox on this occasion, sent an order to England, through her
ambassador, for a bust of that statesman, which it was her intention, she
said, to place between those of Demosthenes and Cicero. The following is
a literal copy of Her Imperial Majesty's note on the subject: [Footnote:
Found among Mr. Sheridan's papers, with these words, in his own
hand-writing, annexed:--"N. B. Fox would have lost it, if I had not made
him look for it, and taken a copy."]--
"Ecrivés au Cte. Worenzof qu'il me fasse avoir en marbre blanc le Buste
resemblant de Charle Fox. Je veut le mettre sur ma Colonade entre eux de
Demosthene et Ciceron.
"Il a delivré par son eloquence sa Patrie et la Russie d'une guerre a la
quelle il n'y avoit ni justice ni raisons."
Another subject that engaged much of the attention of Mr. Sheridan this
year was his own motion relative to the constitution of the Royal Scotch
Boroughs. He had been, singularly enough, selected, in the year 1787, by
the Burgesses of Scotland, in preference to so many others possessing
more personal knowledge of that country, to present to the House the
Petition of the Convention of Delegates, for a Reform of the internal
government of the Royal Boroughs. How fully satisfied they were with his
exertions in their cause may be judged by the following extract from the
Minutes of Convention, dated 11th August, 1791:--
"Mr. Mills of Perth, after a suitable introductory speech, moved a vote
of thanks to Mr. Sheridan, in the following words:--
"The Delegates of the Burgesses of Scotland, associated for the purpose
of Reform, taking into their most serious consideration the important
services rendered to their cause by the manly and prudent exertions of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq., the genuine and fixed attachment to it
which the whole tenor of his conduct has evinced, and the admirable
moderation he has all along displayed,
"Resolved unanimously, That the most sincere thanks of this meeting be
given to the said Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq., for his steady,
honorable, and judicious conduct in bringing the question relative to the
violated rights of the Scottish Boroughs to its present important and
favorable crisis; and the Burgesses with firm confidence hope that, from
his attachment to the cause, which he has shown to be deeply rooted in
principle, he will persevere to exert his distinguished, abilities, till
the objects of it are obtained, with that inflexible firmness, and
constitutional moderation, which have appeared so conspicuous and
exemplary throughout the whole of his conduct, as to be highly deserving
of the imitation of all good citizens.
"JOHN EWEN, Secretary."
From a private letter written this year by one of the Scottish Delegates
to a friend of Mr. Sheridan, (a copy of which letter I have found among
the papers of the latter,) it appears that the disturbing effects of Mr.
Burke's book had already shown themselves so strongly among the Whig
party as to fill the writer with apprehensions of their defection, even
on the safe and moderate question of Scotch Reform. He mentions one
distinguished member of the party, who afterwards stood conspicuously in
the very van of the Opposition, but who at that moment, if the authority
of the letter may be depended upon, was, like others, under the spell of
the great Alarmist, and yielding rapidly to the influence of that
anti-revolutionary terror, which, like the Panic dignified by the
ancients with the name of one of their Gods, will be long associated in
the memories of Englishmen with the mighty name and genius of Burke. A
consultation was, however, held among this portion of the party, with
respect to the prudence of lending their assistance to the measure of
Scotch Reform; and Sir James Mackintosh, as I have heard him say, was in
company with Sheridan, when Dr. Lawrence came direct from the meeting, to
inform him that they had agreed to support his motion.
The state of the Scotch Representation is one of those cases where a
dread of the ulterior objects of Reform induces many persons to oppose
its first steps, however beneficial and reasonable they may deem them,
rather than risk a further application of the principle, or open a breach
by which a bolder spirit of innovation may enter. As it is, there is no
such thing as popular election in Scotland. We cannot, indeed, more
clearly form to ourselves a notion of the manner in which so important a
portion of the British empire is represented, than by supposing the Lords
of the Manor throughout England to be invested with the power of electing
her representatives,--the manorial rights, too, being, in a much greater
number of instances than at present, held independently of the land from
which they derive their claim, and thus the natural connection between
property and the right of election being, in most cases, wholly
separated. Such would be, as nearly as possible, a parallel to the system
of representation now existing in Scotland;--a system, which it is the
understood duty of all present and future Lord Advocates to defend, and
which neither the lively assaults of a Sheridan nor the sounder reasoning
and industry of an Abercrombie have yet been able to shake.
The following extract from another of the many letters of Dr. Parr to
Sheridan shows still further the feeling entertained towards Burke, even
by some of those who most violently differed with him:--
"During the recess of Parliament I hope you will read the mighty work of
my friend and your friend, and Mr. Fox's friend, Mackintosh: there is
some obscurity and there are many Scotticisms in it; yet I do pronounce
it the work of a most masculine and comprehensive mind. The arrangement
is far more methodical than Mr. Burke's, the sentiments are more
patriotic, the reasoning is more profound, and even the imagery in some
places is scarcely less splendid. I think Mackintosh a better
philosopher, and a better citizen, and I know him to be a far better
scholar and a far better man, than Payne; in whose book there are great
irradiations of genius, but none of the glowing and generous warmth which
virtue inspires; that warmth which is often kindled in the bosom of
Mackintosh, and which pervades almost every page of Mr. Burke's
book--though I confess, and with sorrow I confess, that the holy flame
was quite extinguished in his odious altercation with you and Mr. Fox."
A letter from the Prince of Wales to Sheridan this year furnishes a new
proof of the confidence reposed in him by His Royal Highness. A question
of much delicacy and importance having arisen between that Illustrious
Personage and the Duke of York, of a nature, as it appears, too urgent to
wait for a reference to Mr. Fox, Sheridan had alone the honor of advising
His Royal Highness in the correspondence that took place between him and
his Royal Brother on that occasion. Though the letter affords no
immediate clue to the subject of these communications, there is little
doubt that they referred to a very important and embarrassing question,
which is known to have been put by the Duke of York to the Heir-Apparent,
previously to his own marriage this year;--a question which involved
considerations connected with the Succession to the Crown, and which the
Prince, with the recollection of what occurred on the same subject in
1787, could only get rid of by an evasive answer.