DRURY-LANE THEATRE.--SOCIETY OF "THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE."--MADAME DE
GENLIS.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--WHIG SECEDERS.--SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT.--DEATH
OF TICKELL.
The domestic anxieties of Mr. Sheridan, during this year, left but little
room in his mind for public cares. Accordingly, we find that, after the
month of April, he absented himself from the House of Commons altogether.
In addition to his apprehensions for the safety of Mrs. Sheridan, he had
been for some time harassed by the derangement of his theatrical
property, which was now fast falling into a state of arrear and
involvement, from which it never after entirely recovered.
The Theatre of Drury-Lane having been, in the preceding year, reported by
the surveyors to be unsafe and incapable of repair, it was determined to
erect an entirely new house upon the same site; for the accomplishment of
which purpose a proposal was made, by Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Linley, to
raise the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, by the means of
three hundred debentures, of five hundred pounds each. This part of the
scheme succeeded instantly; and I have now before me a list of the
holders of the 300 shares, appended to the proposal of 1791, at the head
of which the names of the three Trustees, on whom the Theatre was
afterwards vested in the year 1793, stand for the following number of
shares:--Albany Wallis, 20; Hammersley, 50; Richard Ford, 20. But, though
the money was raised without any difficulty, the completion of the new
building was delayed by various negotiations and obstacles, while, in the
mean time, the company were playing, at an enormous expense, first in the
Opera-House, and afterwards at the Haymarket-Theatre, and Mr. Sheridan
and Mr. Linley were paying interest for the first instalment of the loan.
To these and other causes of the increasing embarrassments of Sheridan is
to be added the extravagance of his own style of living, which became
much more careless and profuse after death had deprived him of her, whose
maternal thoughtfulness alone would have been a check upon such
improvident waste. We are enabled to form some idea of his expensive
habits, by finding, from the letters which have just been quoted, that he
was, at the same time, maintaining three establishments,--one at
Wanstead, where his son resided with his tutor; another at Isleworth,
which he still held, (as I learn from letters directed to him there,) in
1793; and the third, his town-house, in Jermyn Street. Rich and ready as
were the resources which the Treasury of the theatre opened to him, and
fertile as was his own invention in devising new schemes of finance, such
mismanaged expenditure would exhaust even _his_ magic wealth, and
the lamp must cease to answer to the rubbing at last.
The tutor, whom he was lucky enough to obtain for his son at this time,
was Mr. William Smythe, a gentleman who has since distinguished himself
by his classical attainments and graceful talent for poetry. Young
Sheridan had previously been under the care of Dr. Parr, with whom he
resided a considerable time at Hatton; and the friendship of this learned
man for the father could not have been more strongly shown than in the
disinterestedness with which he devoted himself to the education of the
son. The following letter from him to Mr. Sheridan, in the May of this
year, proves the kind feeling by which he was actuated towards him:--
"DEAR SIR,
"I hope Tom got home safe, and found you in better spirits. He said
something about drawing on your banker; but I do not understand the
process, and shall not take any step. You will consult your own
convenience about these things; for my connection with you is that of
friendship and personal regard. I feel and remember slights from those I
respect, but acts of kindness I cannot forget; and, though my life has
been passed far more in doing than receiving services, yet I know and I
value the good dispositions of yourself and a few other friends,--men who
are worthy of that name from me.
"If you choose Tom to return, he knows and you know how glad I am always
to see him. If not, pray let him do something, and I will tell you what
he should do.
"Believe me, dear Sir,
"Yours sincerely,
"S. PARR."
In the spring of this year was established the Society of "The Friends of
the People," for the express purpose of obtaining a Parliamentary Reform.
To this Association, which, less for its professed object than for the
republican tendencies of some of its members, was particularly obnoxious
to the loyalists of the day, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and many others of
the leading persons of the Whig party, belonged. Their Address to the
People of England, which was put forth in the month of April, contained
an able and temperate exposition of the grounds upon which they sought
for Reform; and the names of Sheridan, Mackintosh, Whitbread, &c., appear
on the list of the Committee by which this paper was drawn up.
It is a proof of the little zeal which Mr. Fox felt at this period on the
subject of Reform, that he withheld the sanction of his name from a
Society, to which so many of his most intimate political friends
belonged. Some notice was, indeed, taken in the House of this symptom of
backwardness in the cause; and Sheridan, in replying to the insinuation,
said that "they wanted not the signature of his Right Honorable friend to
assure them I of his concurrence. They had his bond in the steadiness of
his political principles and the integrity of his heart." Mr. Fox
himself, however, gave a more definite explanation of the circumstance.
"He might be asked," he said, "why his name was not on the list of the
Society for Reform? His reason was, that though he saw great and enormous
grievances, he did not see the remedy." It is to be doubted, indeed,
whether Mr. Fox ever fully admitted the principle upon which the demand
for a Reform was founded. When he afterward espoused the question so
warmly, it seems to have been merely as one of those weapons caught up in
the heat of a warfare, in which Liberty itself appeared to him too
imminently endangered to admit of the consideration of any abstract
principle, except that summary one of the right of resistance to power
abused. From what has been already said, too, of the language held by
Sheridan on this subject, it may be concluded that, though far more ready
than his friend to inscribe Reform upon the banner of the party, he had
even still less made up his mind as to the practicability or expediency
of the measure. Looking upon it as a question, the agitation of which was
useful to Liberty, and at the same time counting upon the improbability
of its objects being ever accomplished, he adopted at once, as we have
seen, the most speculative of all the plans that had been proposed, and
flattered himself that he thus secured the benefit of the general
principle, without risking the inconvenience of any of the practical
details.
The following extract of a letter from Sheridan to one of his female
correspondents, at this time, will show that he did not quite approve the
policy of Mr. Fox in holding aloof from the Reformers:--
"I am down here with Mrs. Canning and her family, while all my friends
and party are meeting in town, where I have excused myself, to lay their
wise heads together in this crisis. Again I say there is nothing but what
is unpleasant before my mind. I wish to occupy and fill my thoughts with
public matters, and to do justice to the times, they afford materials
enough; but nothing is in prospect to make activity pleasant, or to point
one's efforts against one common enemy, making all that engage in the
attack cordial, social, and united. On the contrary, every day produces
some new schism and absurdity. Windham has signed a nonsensical
association with Lord Mulgrave; and when I left town yesterday, I was
informed that the _Divan_, as the meeting at Debrett's is called,
were furious at an _authentic_ advertisement from the Duke of
Portland against Charles Fox's speech in the Whig Club, which no one
before believed to be genuine, but which they now say Dr. Lawrence
brought from Burlington-House. If this is so, depend on it there will be
a direct breach in what has been called the Whig Party. Charles Fox must
come to the Reformers openly and avowedly; and in a month four-fifths of
the Whig Club will do the same."
The motion for the Abolition of the Slave-trade, brought forward this
year by Mr. Wilberforce, (on whose brows it may be said, with much more
truth than of the Roman General, "_Annexuit Africa lauros_,") was
signalized by one of the most splendid orations that the lofty eloquence
of Mr. Pitt ever poured forth. [Footnote: It was at the conclusion of
this speech that, in contemplating the period when Africa would, he
hoped, participate in those blessings of civilization and knowledge which
were now enjoyed by more fortunate regions, he applied the happy
quotation, rendered still more striking, it is said, by the circumstance
of the rising sun just then shining in through the windows of the House:--
"_Nos ... primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper_."] I mention the Debate,
however, for the mere purpose of remarking, as a singularity, that, often
as this great question was discussed in Parliament, and ample as was the
scope which it afforded for the grander appeals of oratory, Mr. Sheridan
was upon no occasion tempted to utter even a syllabic on the subject,--
except once for a few minutes, in the year 1787, upon some point relating
to the attendance of a witness. The two or three sentences, however, which
he did speak on that occasion were sufficient to prove, (what, as he was
not a West-India proprietor, no one can doubt,) that the sentiments
entertained by him on this interesting topic were, to the full extent,
those which actuated not only his own party, but every real lover of
justice and humanity throughout the world. To use a quotation which he
himself applied to another branch of the question in 1807:--
"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To fan me when I sleep, and tremble when
I wake, for all that human sinews, bought
And sold, have ever earn'd."
The National Convention having lately, in the first paroxysm of their
republican vanity, conferred the honor of Citizenship upon several
distinguished Englishmen, and, among others, upon Mr. Wilberforce and Sir
James Mackintosh, it was intended, as appears by the following letter
from Mr. Stone, (a gentleman subsequently brought into notice by the
trial of his brother for High Treason,) to invest Mr. Fox and Mr.
Sheridan with the same distinction, had not the prudent interference of
Mr. Stone saved them from this very questionable honor.
The following is the letter which this gentleman addressed to Sheridan on
the occasion.
"_Paris, Nov. 18, Year 1, of the French Republic._
"DEAR SIR,
"I have taken a liberty with your name, of which I ought to give you
notice, and offer some apology. The Convention, having lately enlarged
their connections in Europe, are ambitious of adding to the number of
their friends by bestowing some mark of distinction on those who have
stood forth in support of their cause, when its fate hung doubtful. The
French conceive that they owe this obligation very eminently to you and
Mr. Fox; and, to show their gratitude, the Committee appointed to make
the Report has determined to offer to you and Mr. Fox the honor of
Citizenship. Had this honor never been conferred before, had it been
conferred only on worthy members of society, or were you and Mr. Fox only
to be named at this moment, I should not have interfered. But as they
have given the title to obscure and vulgar men and scoundrels, of which
they are now very much ashamed themselves, I have presumed to suppose
that you would think yourself much more honored in the breach than the
observance, and have therefore caused your nomination to be suspended.
But I was influenced in this also by other considerations, of which one
was, that, though the Committee would be more careful in their selection
than the last had been, yet it was probable you would not like to share
the honors with such as would be chosen. But another more important one
that weighed with me was, that this new character would not be a small
embarrassment in the route which you have to take the next Session of
Parliament, when the affairs of France must necessarily be often the
subject of discussion. No one will suspect Mr. Wilberforce of being
seduced, and no one has thought that he did any thing to render him
liable to seduction; as his superstition and devotedness to Mr. Pitt have
kept him perfectly _à l'abri_ from all temptations to err on the
side of liberty, civil or religious. But to you and Mr. Fox the reproach
will constantly be made, and the blockheads and knaves in the House will
always have the means of influencing the opinions of those without, by
opposing with success your English character to your French one; and that
which is only a mark of gratitude for past services will be construed by
malignity into a bribe of some sort for services yet to be rendered. You
may be certain that, in offering the reasons for my conduct, I blush that
I think it necessary to stoop to such prejudices. Of this, however, you
will be the best judge, and I should esteem it a favor if you would
inform me whether I have done right, or whether I shall suffer your names
to stand as they did before my interference. There will be sufficient
time for me to receive your answer, as I have prevailed on the Reporter,
M. Brissot, to delay a few days. I have given him my reasons for wishing
the suspension, to which he has assented. Mr. O'Brien also prompted me to
this deed, and, if I have done wrong, he must take half the punishment.
My address is "Rose, Huissier," under cover of the President of the
National Convention.
"I have the honor to be
"Your most obedient
"And most humble servant,
"J.H. STONE."
It was in the month of October of this year that the romantic adventure
of Madame de Genlis, (in the contrivance of which the practical humor of
Sheridan may, I think, be detected,) occurred on the road between London
and Dartford. This distinguished lady had, at the dose of the year 1791,
with a view of escaping the turbulent scenes then passing in France, come
over with her illustrious pupil, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, and her adopted
daughter, Pamela, [Footnote: Married at Tournay in the month of December,
1792, to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Lord Edward was the only one, among the
numerous suitors of Mrs. Sheridan, to whom she is supposed to have
listened with any thing like a return of feeling; and that there should
be mutual admiration between two such noble specimens of human nature, it
is easy, without injury to either of them, to believe.
Some months before her death, when Sheridan had been describing to her
and Lord Edward a beautiful French girl whom he had lately seen, and
added that she put him strongly in mind of what his own wife had been in
the first bloom of her youth and beauty, Mrs. Sheridan turned to Lord
Edward, and said with a melancholy smile, "I should like you, when I am
dead, to marry that girl." This was Pamela, whom Sheridan had just seen
during his visit of a few hours to Madame de Genlis, at Bury, in Suffolk,
and Whom Lord Edward married in about a year after.] to England, where
she received both from Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, all that attention to
which her high character for talent, as well as the embarrassing nature
of her situation at that moment, claimed for her.
The following letter from her to Mr. Fox I find inclosed in one from the
latter to Mr. Sheridan:--
"SIR,
"You have, by your infinite kindness, given me the right to show you the
utmost confidence. The situation I am in makes me desire to have with me,
during two days, a person perfectly well instructed in the Laws, and very
sure and honest. I desire such a person that I could offer to him all the
money he would have for this trouble. But there is not a moment to be
lost on the occasion. If you could send me directly this person, you
would render me the most important service. To calm the most cruel
agitation of a sensible and grateful soul shall be your reward.--Oh could
I see you but a minute!--I am uneasy, sick, unhappy; surrounded by the
most dreadful snares of the fraud and wickedness; I am intrusted with the
most interesting and sacred charge!--All these are my claims to hope your
advices, protection and assistance. My friends are absent in that moment;
there is only two names in which I could place my confidence and my
hopes, Pardon this bad language. As Hypolite I may say,
"'Songez que je vous parle une langue étrangère,'
but the feelings it expresses cannot be strangers to your heart.
"Sans avoir l'avantage d'être connue de Monsieur Fox, je prens la liberté
de le supplier de comuniquer cette lettre à Mr. Sheridan, et si ce
dernier n'est pas à Londres, j'ose espérer de Monsieur Fox la même bonté
que j'attendois de Mr. Shéridan dans l'embarras où je me trouve. Je
m'adresse aux deux personnes de l'Angleterre que j'admire le plus, et je
serois doublement heureuse d'être tirée de cette perplexité et de leur en
avoir l'obligation. Je serai peut être à Londres incessament. Je
désirerois vivement les y trouver; mais en attendant je souhaite avec
ardeur avoir ici le plus promptement possible l'homme de loi, ou
seulement en êtat de donner de bons conseils que je demande. Je
renouvelle toutes mes excuses de tant d'importunités."
It was on her departure for France in the present year that the
celebrated adventure to which I have alluded, occurred; and as it is not
often that the post boys between London and Dartford are promoted into
agents of mystery or romance, I shall give the entire narrative of the
event in the lady's own words,--premising, (what Mr. Sheridan, no doubt
discovered,) that her imagination had been for some time on the watch for
such incidents, as she mentions, in another place, her terrors at the
idea of "crossing the desert plains of Newmarket without an escort."
"We left London," says Madame de Genlis, "on our return to France the
20th of October, 1792, and a circumstance occurred to us so
extraordinary, that I ought not, I feel, to pass it over in silence. I
shall merely, however, relate the fact, without any attempt to explain
it, or without adding to my recital any of those reflections which the
impartial reader will easily supply. We set out at ten o'clock in the
morning in two carriages, one with six horses, and the other, in which
were our maids, with four. I had, two months before, sent off four of my
servants to Paris, so that we had with us only one French servant, and a
footman, whom we had hired to attend us as far as Dover. When we were
about a quarter of a league from London, the French servant, who had
never made the journey from Dover to London but once before, thought he
perceived that we were not in the right road, and on his making the
remark to me, I perceived it also. The postillions, on being questioned,
said that they had only wished to avoid a small hill, and that they would
soon return into the high road again. After an interval of three quarters
of an hour, seeing that we still continued our way through a country that
was entirely new to me, I again interrogated both the footman and the
postillions, and they repeated their assurance that we should soon regain
the usual road.
"Notwithstanding this, however, we still pursued our course with extreme
rapidity, in the same unknown route; and as I had remarked that the
post-boys and footman always answered me in a strange sort of laconic
manner, and appeared as if they were afraid to stop, my companions and I
began to look at each other with a mixture of surprise and uneasiness. We
renewed our inquiries, and at last they answered that it was indeed true
they had lost their way, but that they had wished to conceal it from us
till they had found the cross-road to Dartford (our first stage,) and
that now, having been for an hour and a half in that road, we had but two
miles to go before we should reach Dartford. It appeared to us very
strange that people should lose their way between London and Dover, but
the assurance that we were only half a league from Dartford dispelled the
sort of vague fear that had for a moment agitated us. At last, after
nearly an hour had elapsed, seeing that we still were not arrived at the
end of the stage, our uneasiness increased to a degree which amounted
even to terror. It was with much difficulty that I made the post-boys
stop opposite a small village which lay to our left; in spite of my
shouts they still went on, till at last the French servant, (for the
other did not interfere,) compelled them to stop. I then sent to the
village to ask how far we were from Dartford, and my surprise may be
guessed when I received for answer that we were now 22 miles, (more than
seven leagues,) distant from that place. Concealing my suspicions, I took
a guide in the village, and declared that it was my wish to return to
London, as I found I was now at a less distance from that city than from
Dartford. The post-boys made much resistance to my desire, and even
behaved with an extreme degree of insolence, but our French servant,
backed by the guide, compelled them to obey.
"As we returned at a very slow pace, owing to the sulkiness of the
postboys and the fatigue of the horses, we did not reach London before
nightfall, when I immediately drove to Mr. Sheridan's house. He was
extremely surprised to see me returned, and on my relating to him our
adventure, agreed with us that it could not have been the result of mere
chance. He then sent for a Justice of the Peace to examine the post-boys,
who were detained till his arrival under the pretence of calculating
their account; but in the meantime, the hired footman disappeared and
never returned. The post-boys being examined by the Justice according to
the legal form, and in the presence of witnesses, gave their answers in a
very confused way, but confessed that an unknown gentleman had come in
the morning to their masters, and carrying them from thence to a
public-house, had, by giving them something to drink, persuaded them to
take the road by which we had gone. The examination was continued for a
long time, but no further confession could be drawn from them. Mr.
Sheridan told me, that there was sufficient proof on which to ground an
action against these men, but that it would be a tedious process, and
cost a great deal of money. The post-boys were therefore dismissed, and
we did not pursue the inquiry any further. As Mr. Sheridan saw the terror
I was in at the very idea of again venturing on the road to Dover, he
promised to accompany us thither himself, but added that, having some
indispensable business on his hands, he could not go for some days. He
took us then to Isleworth, a country-house which he had near Richmond, on
the banks of the Thames, and as he was not able to dispatch his business
so quickly as he expected, we remained for a month in that hospitable
retreat, which both gratitude and friendship rendered so agreeable to us."
It is impossible to read this narrative, with the recollection, at the
same time, in our minds of the boyish propensity of Sheridan to what are
called practical jokes, without strongly suspecting that he was himself
the contriver of the whole adventure. The ready attendance of the
Justice,--the "unknown gentleman" deposed to by the post-boys,--the
disappearance of the laquais, and the advice given by Sheridan that the
affair should be pursued no further,--all strongly savor of dramatic
contrivance, and must have afforded a scene not a little trying to the
gravity of him who took the trouble of getting it up. With respect to his
motive, the agreeable month at his country-house sufficiently explains
it; nor could his conscience have felt much scruples about an imposture,
which, so far from being attended with any disagreeable consequences,
furnished the lady with an incident of romance, of which she was but too
happy to avail herself, and procured for him the presence of such a
distinguished party, to grace and enliven the festivities of Isleworth.
[Footnote: In the Memoirs of Madame Genlis, lately published, she
supplies a still more interesting key to his motives for such a
contrivance. It appears, from the new recollections of this lady, that
"he was passionately in love with Pamela," and that, before her departure
from England, the following scene took place--"Two days before we set
out, Mr. Sheridan made, in my presence, his dedication of love to Pamela,
who was affected by his agreeable manner and high character, and accepted
the offer of his hand with pleasure. In consequence of this, it was
settled that he was to marry her on our return from France, which was
expected to take place in a fortnight." I suspect this to be but a
continuation of the Romance of Dartford.]
At the end of the month, (adds Madame de Genlis,)
"Mr. Sheridan having finished his business, we set off together for
Dover, himself, his son, and an English friend of his, Mr. Reid, with
whom I was but a few days acquainted. It was now near the end of the
month of November, 1792. The wind being adverse, detained us for five
days at Dover, during all which time Mr. Sheridan remained with us. At
last the wind grew less unfavorable, but still blew so violently that
nobody would advise me to embark. I resolved, however, to venture, and
Mr. Sheridan attended us into the very packet-boat, where I received his
farewell with a feeling of sadness which I cannot express. He would have
crossed with us, but that some indispensable duty, at that moment,
required his presence in England. He, however, left us Mr. Reid, who had
the goodness to accompany us to Paris."
In 1793 war was declared between England and France. Though hostilities
might, for a short time longer, have been avoided, by a more
accommodating readiness in listening to the overtures of France, and a
less stately tone on the part of the English negotiator, there could
hardly have existed in dispassionate minds any hope of averting the war
entirely, or even of postponing it for any considerable period. Indeed,
however rational at first might have been the expectation, that France,
if left to pass through the ferment of her own Revolution, would have
either settled at last into a less dangerous form of power, or exhausted
herself into a state of harmlessness during the process, this hope had
been for some time frustrated by the crusade proclaimed against her
liberties by the confederated Princes of Europe. The conference at
Pilnitz and the Manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick had taught the French
people what they were to expect, if conquered, and had given to that
inundation of energy, under which the Republic herself was sinking, a
vent and direction outwards that transferred all the ruin to her enemies.
In the wild career of aggression and lawlessness, of conquest without,
and anarchy within, which naturally followed such an outbreak of a whole
maddened people, it would have been difficult for England, by any
management whatever, to keep herself uninvolved in the general
combustion,--even had her own population been much less heartily
disposed than they were then, and ever have been, to strike in with the
great discords of the world.
That Mr. Pitt himself was slow and reluctant to yield to the necessity of
hostile measures against France, appears from the whole course of his
financial policy, down to the very close of the session of 1792. The
confidence, indeed, with which he looked forward to a long continuance of
peace, in the midst of events, that were audibly the first mutterings of
the earthquake, seemed but little indicative of that philosophic
sagacity, which enables a statesman to see the rudiments of the Future in
the Present. [Footnote: From the following words in his Speech on the
communication from France in 1800, he appears, himself, to have been
aware of his want of foresight at the commencement of the war:--
"Besides this, the reduction of our Peace Establishment in the year 1791,
and continued to the subsequent year, is a fact, from which the inference
is indisputable; a fact, which, I am afraid, shows not only that we were
not waiting for the occasion of war, but that, in our partiality for a
pacific system, we had indulged ourselves in a fond and credulous
security, which wisdom and discretion would not have dictated."] "It is
not unreasonable," said he on the 21st of February, 1792, "to expect that
the peace which we now enjoy should continue at least fifteen years,
since at no period of the British history, whether we consider the
internal situation of this kingdom or its relation to foreign powers, has
the prospect of war been farther removed than at present."
In pursuance of this feeling of security, he, in the course of the
session of 1791-2, repealed taxes to the amount of 200,000_l_. a
year, made considerable reductions in the naval and military
establishments, and allowed the Hessian Subsidy to expire, without any
movement towards its renewal. He likewise showed his perfect confidence
in the tranquillity of the country, by breaking off a negotiation into
which he had entered with the holders of the four per cents, for the
reduction of their stock to three per cent.--saying, in answer to their
demand of a larger bonus than he thought proper to give, "Then we will
put off the reduction of this stock till next year." The truth is, Mr.
Pitt was proud of his financial system;--the abolition of taxes and the
Reduction of the National Debt were the two great results to which he
looked as a proof of its perfection; and while a war, he knew, would
produce the very reverse of the one, it would leave little more than the
name and semblance of the other.
The alarm for the safety of their establishments, which at this time
pervaded the great mass of the people of England, earned the proof of its
own needlessness in the wide extent to which it spread, and the very
small minority that was thereby left to be the object of apprehension.
That in this minority, (which was, with few exceptions, confined to the
lower classes,) the elements of sedition and insurrection were actively
at work, cannot be denied. There was not a corner of Europe where the
same ingredients were not brought into ferment; for the French Revolution
had not only the violence, but the pervading influence of the Simoom, and
while it destroyed where it immediately passed, made itself felt every
where. But, surrounded and watched as were the few disaffected in
England, by all the rank, property and power of the country,--animated at
that moment by a more than usual portion of loyalty,--the dangers from
sedition, as yet, were by no means either so deep or extensive, as that a
strict and vigilant exercise of the laws already in being, would not have
been abundantly adequate to all the purposes of their suppression.
The admiration, indeed, with which the first dawn of the Revolution was
hailed had considerably abated. The excesses into which the new Republic
broke loose had alienated the worship of most of its higher class of
votaries, and in some, as in Mr. Windham, had converted enthusiastic
admiration into horror;--so that, though a strong sympathy with the
general cause of the Revolution was still felt among the few Whigs that
remained, the profession of its wild, republican theories was chiefly
confined to two classes of persons, who coincide more frequently than
they themselves imagine,--the speculative and the ignorant.
The Minister, however, gave way to a panic which, there is every reason
to believe, he did not himself participate, and in going out of the
precincts of the Constitution for new and arbitrary powers, established a
series of fatal precedents, of which alarmed Authority will be always but
too ready to avail itself. By these stretches of power he produced--what
was far more dangerous than all the ravings of club politicians--that
vehement reaction of feeling on the part of Mr. Fox and his followers,
which increased with the increasing rigor of the government, and
sometimes led them to the brink of such modes and principles of
opposition, as aggressions, so wanton, upon liberty alone could have
either provoked or justified.
The great promoters of the alarm were Mr. Burke, and those other Whig
Seceders, who had for some time taken part with the administration
against their former friends, and, as is usual with such proselytes,
outran those whom they joined, on every point upon which they before most
differed from them. To justify their defection, the dangers upon which
they grounded it, were exaggerated; and the eagerness with which they
called for restrictions upon the liberty of the subject was but too
worthy of deserters not only from their post but from their principles.
One striking difference between these new pupils of Toryism and their
master was with respect to the ultimate object of the war.--Mr. Pitt
being of opinion that security against the power of France, without any
interference whatever with her internal affairs, was the sole aim to
which hostilities should be directed; while nothing less than the
restoration of the Bourbons to the power which they possessed before the
assembling of the Etats Genereaux could satisfy Mr. Burke and his fellow
converts to the cause of Thrones and Hierarchies. The effect of this
diversity of objects upon the conduct of the war--particularly after Mr.
Pitt had added to "Security for the future," the suspicious supplement of
"Indemnity for the past"--was no less fatal to the success of operations
abroad than to the unity of councils at home. So separate, indeed, were
the views of the two parties considered, that the unfortunate expedition,
in aid of the Vendean insurgents in 1795, was known to be peculiarly the
measure of the _Burke_ part of the cabinet, and to have been
undertaken on the sole responsibility of their ministerial organ, Mr.
Windham.
It must be owned, too, that the obect of the Alarmists in the war,
however grossly inconsistent with their former principles, had the merit
of being far more definite than that of Mr. Pitt; and, had it been singly
and consistently pursued from the first, with all the vigor and
concentration of means so strenuously recommended by Mr. Burke, might
have justified its quixotism in the end by a more speedy and less ruinous
success. As it was, however, the divisions, jealousies and alarms which
Mr. Pitt's views towards a future dismemberment of France excited not
only among the Continental powers, but among the French themselves,
completely defeated every hope and plan for either concert without or co
operation within. At the same time, the distraction of the efforts of
England from the heart of French power to its remote extremities, in what
Mr. Windham called "a war upon sugar Islands," was a waste of means as
unstatesmanlike as it was calamitous, and fully entitled Mr. Pitt to the
satire on his policy, conveyed in the remark of a certain distinguished
lady, who said to him, upon hearing of some new acquisition in the West
Indies, "I protest, Mr. Pitt, if you go on thus, you will soon be master
of every island in the world except just those two little ones, England
and Ireland." [Footnote: Mr. Sheridan quoted this anecdote in one of his
speeches in 1794.]
That such was the light in which Mr. Sheridan himself viewed the mode of
carrying on the war recommended by the Alarmists, in comparison with that
which Mr. Pitt in general adopted, appears from the following passage in
his speech upon Spanish affairs in the year 1808:--
"There was hardly a person, except his Right Honorable Friend near him,
(Mr. Windham,) and Mr. Burke, who since the Revolution of France had
formed adequate notions of the necessary steps to be taken. The various
governments which this country had seen during that period were always
employed in filching for a sugar-island, or some other object of
comparatively trifling moment, while the main and principal purpose was
lost and forgotten,"
Whatever were the failures of Mr. Pitt abroad, at home his ascendancy was
fixed and indisputable; and, among all the triumphs of power which he
enjoyed during his career, the tribute now paid to him by the Whig
Aristocracy, in taking shelter under his ministry from the dangers of
Revolution, could not have been the least gratifying to his haughty
spirit. The India Bill had ranged on his side the King and the People,
and the Revolution now brought to his banner the flower of the Nobility
of both parties. His own estimate of rank may be fairly collected both
from the indifference which he showed to its honors himself, and from the
depreciating profusion with which he lavished them upon others. It may be
doubted whether his respect for Aristocracy was much increased, by the
readiness which he now saw in some of his high-born opponents, to
volunteer for safety into his already powerful ranks, without even
pausing to try the experiment, whether safety might not have been
reconcilable with principle in their own. It is certain that, without the
accession of so much weight and influence, he never could have ventured
upon the violations of the Constitution that followed--nor would the
Opposition, accordingly, have been driven by these excesses of power into
that reactive violence which was the natural consequence of an effort to
resist them. The prudent apprehensions, therefore, of these Noble Whigs
would have been much more usefully as well as honorably employed, in
mingling with, and moderating the proceedings of the friends of Liberty,
than in ministering fresh fuel to the zeal and vindictiveness of her
enemies. [Footnote: The case against these Noble Seceders is thus
spiritedly stated by Lord Moira:--
"I cannot ever sit in a cabinet with the Duke of Portland. He appears to
me to have done more injury to the Constitution and to the estimation of
the higher ranks in this country than any man on the political stage. By
his union with Mr. Pitt he has given it to be understood by the people,
that either all the constitutional charges which he and his friends for
so many years urged against Mr. Put were groundless, or that, being
solid, there was no difficulty in waving them when a convenient partition
of powers and emoluments was proposed. In either case the people must
infer that the constitutional principle which can be so played with is
unimportant, and that parliamentary professions are no security."
--_Letter from the Earl of Moira to Colonel M'Mahon, in 1797.
Parliamentary History_.]
It may be added, too, that in allowing themselves to be persuaded by
Burke, that the extinction of the ancient Noblesse of France portended
necessarily any danger to the English Aristocracy, these Noble persons
did injustice to the strength of their own order, and to the
characteristics by which it is proudly distinguished from every other
race of Nobility in Europe. Placed, as a sort of break-water, between the
People and the Throne, in a state of double responsibility to liberty on
one side, and authority on the other, the Aristocracy of England hold a
station which is dignified by its own great duties, and of which the
titles transmitted by their ancestors form the least important ornament.
Unlike the Nobility of other countries, where the rank and privileges of
the father are multiplied through his offspring, and equally elevate them
all above the level of the community, the very highest English Nobleman
must consent to be the father but of commoners. Thus, connected with the
class below him by private as well as public sympathies, he gives his
children to the People as hostages for the sincerity of his zeal in their
cause--while on the other hand, the People, in return for these pledges
of the Aristocracy, sends a portion of its own elements aloft into that
higher region, to mingle with its glories and assert their claim to a
share in its power. By this mutual transfusion an equilibrium is
preserved, like that which similar processes maintain in the natural
world, and while a healthy, popular feeling circulates through the
Aristocracy, a sense of their own station in the scale elevates the
People.
To tremble for the safety of a Nobility so constituted, without much
stronger grounds for alarm than appear to have existed in 1793, was an
injustice not only to that class itself, but the whole nation. The world
has never yet afforded an example, where this artificial distinction
between mankind has been turned to such beneficial account; and as no
monarchy can exist without such an order, so, in any other shape than
this, such an order is a burden and a nuisance. In England, so happy a
conformation of her Aristocracy is one of those fortuitous results which
time and circumstances have brought out in the long-tried experiment of
her Constitution; and, while there is no chance of its being ever again
attained in the Old World, there is but little, probability of its being
attempted in the New,--where the youthful nations now springing into
life, will, if they are wise, make the most of the free career before
them, and unencumbered with the costly trappings of feudalism, adopt,
like their northern neighbors, that form of government, whose simplicity
and cheapness are the best guarantees for its efficacy and purity.
In judging of the policy of Mr. Pitt, during the Revolutionary war, his
partisans, we know, laud it as having been the means of salvation to
England, while his opponents assert that it was only prevented by chance
from being her ruin--and though the event gives an appearance of triumph
to the former opinion, it by no means removes or even weakens the grounds
of the latter. During the first nine years of his administration, Mr.
Pitt was, in every respect, an able and most useful minister, and, "while
the sea was calm, showed mastership in floating." But the great events
that happened afterwards took him by surprise. When he came to look
abroad from his cabinet into the storm that was brewing through Europe,
the clear and enlarged view of the higher order of statesman was wanting.
Instead of elevating himself above the influence of the agitation and
alarm that prevailed, he gave way to it with the crowd of ordinary minds,
and even took counsel from the panic of others. The consequence was a
series of measures, violent at home and inefficient abroad--far short of
the mark where vigor was wanting, and beyond it, as often, where vigor
was mischievous.
When we are told to regard his policy as the salvation of the
country--when, (to use a figure of Mr. Dundas,) a _claim of salvage_
is made for him--it may be allowed us to consider a little the nature of
the measures by which this alleged salvation was achieved. If entering
into a great war without either consistency of plan, or preparation of
means, and with a total ignorance of the financial resources of the enemy
[Footnote: Into his erroneous calculations upon this point he is
supposed to have been led by Sir Francis D'Ivernois.]--if allowing one
part of the Cabinet to flatter the French Royalists, with the hope of
seeing the Bourbons restored to undiminished power, while the other part
acted, whenever an opportunity offered, upon the plan of dismembering
France for the aggrandizement of Austria, and thus, at once, alienated
Prussia at the very moment of subsidizing him, and lost the confidence of
all the Royalist party in France, [Footnote: Among other instances, the
Abbé Maury is reported to have said at Rome in a large company of his
countrymen--"Still we have one remedy--let us not allow France to be
divided--we have seen the partition of Poland we must all turn Jacobins
to preserve our country."] except the few who were ruined by English
assistance at Quiberon--if going to war in 1793 for the right of the
Dutch to a river, and so managing it that in 1794 the Dutch lost their
whole Seven Provinces--if lavishing more money upon failures than the
successes of a century had cost, and supporting this profusion by schemes
of finance, either hollow and delusive, like the Sinking Fund, or
desperately regardless of the future, like the paper issues--if driving
Ireland into rebellion by the perfidious recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, and
reducing England to two of the most, fearful trials, that a nation,
depending upon Credit and a navy, could encounter, the stoppage of her
Bank and a mutiny in her fleet--if, finally, floundering on from effort
to effort against France, and then dying upon the ruins of the last
Coalition he could muster against her--if all this betokens a wise and
able minister, then is Mr. Pitt most amply entitled to that name;--then
are the lessons of wisdom to be read, like Hebrew, backward, and waste
and rashness and systematic failure to be held the only true means of
saving a country.
Had even success, by one of those anomalous accidents, which sometimes
baffle the best founded calculations of wisdom, been the immediate result
of this long monotony of error, it could not, except with those to whom
the event is every thing--"_Eventus, stultorum magister_"
[Footnote: A saying of the wise Fabius.]--reflect back merit upon the
means by which it was achieved, or, by a retrospective miracle, convert
that into wisdom, which chance had only saved from the worst consequences
of folly. Just as well might we be called upon to pronounce Alchemy a
wise art, because a perseverance in its failures and reveries had led by
accident to the discoveries of Chemistry. But even this sanction of
good-luck was wanting to the unredeemed mistakes of Mr. Pitt. During the
eight years that intervened between his death and the termination of the
contest, the adoption of a far wiser policy was forced upon his more
tractable pupils; and the only share that his measures can claim in the
successful issue of the war, is that of having produced the grievance
that was then abated--of having raised up the power opposed to him to the
portentous and dizzy height, from which it then fell by the giddiness of
its own elevation, [Footnote:
--"_summisque negatum
Stare din_."
LUCAN.] and by the reaction, not of the Princes, but the People of Europe
against its yoke.
What would have been the course of affairs, both foreign and domestic,
had Mr. Fox--as was, at one time, not improbable--been the Minister
during this period, must be left to that superhuman knowledge, which the
schoolmen call "_media scientia_," and which consists in knowing all
that would have happened, had events been otherwise than they have been.
It is probable that some of the results would not have been so different
as the respective principles of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox might naturally lead
us, on the first thought, to assert. If left to himself, there is little
doubt that the latter, from the simple and fearless magnanimity of his
nature, would have consulted for the public safety with that moderation
which true courage inspires; and that, even had it been necessary to
suspend the Constitution for a season, he would have known how to veil
the statue of Liberty, [Footnote: "_Il y a des cas ou il faut mettre
pour un moment un voile sur la Liberté, comme l'on cache les statues des
dieux_."--MONTESQUIEU, liv. xii. chap. 20.] without leaving like his
rival, such marks of mutilation on its limbs. But it is to be recollected
that he would have had to encounter, in his own ranks, the very same
patrician alarm, which could even to Mr. Pitt give an increase of
momentum against liberty, and which the possession of power would have
rendered but more sensitive and arbitrary. Accustomed, too, as he had
long been, to yield to the influence of Burke, it would have required
more firmness than habitually belonged to Mr. Fox, to withstand the
persevering impetuosity of such a counsellor, or keep the balance of his
mind unshaken by those stupendous powers, which, like the horses of the
Sun breaking out of the ecliptic, carried every thing they seized upon,
so splendidly astray:--
"_quaque impetus egit,
Hac sine lege ruunt, altoque sub aethere fixis
Incursant stellis, rapiuntque per avia currum_."
Where'er the impulse drives, they burst away
In lawless grandeur;--break into the array
Of the fix'd stars, and bound and blaze along
Their devious course, magnificently wrong!
Having hazarded these general observations, upon the views and conduct of
the respective parties of England, during the Crusade now begun against
the French people, I shall content myself with briefly and cursorily
noticing the chief questions upon which Mr. Sheridan distinguished
himself, in the course of the parliamentary campaigns that followed. The
sort of _guerilla_ warfare, which he and the rest of the small band
attached to Mr. Fox carried on, during this period, against the invaders
of the Constitution, is interesting rather by its general character than
its detail; for in these, as usual, the episodes of party personality are
found to encroach disproportionately on the main design, and the grandeur
of the cause, as viewed at a distance, becomes diminished to our
imaginations by too near an approach. Englishmen, however, will long look
back to that crisis with interest; and the names of Fox, of Sheridan, and
of Grey will be affectionately remembered, when that sort of false
elevation, which party-feeling now gives to the reputations of some who
were opposed to them, shall have subsided to its due level, or been
succeeded by oblivion. They who act against the general sympathies of
mankind, however they may be artificially buoyed up for the moment, have
the current against them in the long run of fame; while the reputation of
those, whose talents have been employed upon the popular and generous
side of human feelings, receives, through all time, an accelerating
impulse from the countless hearts that go with it in its course. Lord
Chatham, even now, supersedes his son in fame, and will leave him at an
immeasurable distance with posterity.
Of the events of the private life of Mr. Sheridan, during this stormy
part of his political career, there remain but few memorials among his
papers. As an illustration, however, of his love of betting--the only
sort of gambling in which he ever indulged--the following curious list
of his wagers for the year is not unamusing:--
_"25th May, 1793._--Mr. Sheridan bets Gen. Fitzpatrick one hundred
guineas to fifty guineas, that within two years from this date some
measure is adopted in Parliament which shall be (_bonâ fide_)
considered as the adoption of a Parliamentary Reform.
"_29th January, 1793._--Mr. S. bets Mr. Boothby Clopton five hundred
guineas, that there is a Reform in the Representation of the people of
England within three years from the date hereof.
"_29th January, 1793_.--Mr. S. bets Mr. Hardy one hundred guineas to
fifty guineas, that Mr. W. Windham does not represent Norwich at the next
general election.
"_29th January, 1793._--Mr. S. bets Gen. Fitzpatrick fifty guineas,
that a corps of British troops are sent to Holland within two months of
the date hereof.
"_18th March, 1793._--Mr. S. bets Lord Titchfield two hundred
guineas, that the D. of Portland is at the head of an Administration on
or before the 18th of March, 1796; Mr. Fox to decide whether any place
the Duke may then fill shall _bonâ fide_ come within the meaning of
this bet.
"_25th March, 1793_.--Mr. S. bets Mr. Hardy one hundred guineas,
that the three per cent. consols are as high this day twelvemonth as at
the date hereof.
"Mr. S. bets Gen. Tarleton one hundred guineas to fifty guineas, that Mr.
Pitt is first Lord of the Treasury on the 28th of May, 1795.--Mr. S. bets
Mr. St. A. St. John fifteen guineas to five guineas, ditto.--Mr. S. bets
Lord Sefton one hundred and forty guineas to forty guineas, ditto.
_"19th March, 1793_.--Lord Titchfield and Lord W. Russell bet Mr. S.
three hundred guineas to two hundred guineas, that Mr. Pitt is first Lord
of the Treasury on the 19th of March, 1795.
"_18th March, 1793_.--Lord Titchfield bets Mr. S. twenty-five
guineas to fifty guineas, that Mr. W. Windham represents Norwich at the
next general election."
As a sort of moral supplement to this strange list, and one of those
insights into character and conduct which it is the duty of a biographer
to give, I shall subjoin a letter, connected evidently with one of the
above speculations:--
"SIR,
"I am very sorry that I have been so circumstanced as to have been
obliged to disappoint you respecting the payment of the five hundred
guineas: when I gave the draughts on Lord * * I had every reason to be
assured he would accept them, as * * had also. I enclose you, as you will
see by his desire, the letter in which he excuses his not being able to
pay me this part of a larger sum he owes me, and I cannot refuse him any
time he requires, however inconvenient to me. I also enclose you two
draughts accepted by a gentleman from whom the money will be due to me,
and on whose punctuality I can rely. I extremely regret that I cannot at
this juncture command the money.
"At the same time that I regret your being put to any inconvenience by
this delay, I cannot help adverting to the circumstance which perhaps
misled me into the expectation that you would not unwillingly allow me
any reasonable time I might want for the payment of this bet. The
circumstance I mean, however discreditable the plea, is the total
inebriety of some of the party, particularly of myself, when I made this
preposterous bet. I doubt not you will remember having yourself observed
on this circumstance to a common friend the next day, with an intimation
that you should not object to being off; and for my part, when I was
informed that I had made such a bet and for such a sum,--the first, such
folly on the face of it on my part, and the latter so out of my
practice,--I certainly should have proposed the cancelling it, but that,
from the intimation imparted to me, I hoped the proposition might come
from you.
"I hope I need not for a moment beg you not to imagine that I am now
alluding to these circumstances as the slightest invalidation of your
due. So much the contrary, that I most perfectly admit that from your not
having heard any thing further from me on the subject, and especially
after I might have heard that if I desired it the bet might be off, you
had every reason to conclude that I was satisfied with the wager, and
whether made in wine or not, was desirous of abiding by it. And this was
further confirmed by my receiving soon after from you 100_l_, on
another bet won by me.
"Having, I think, put this point very fairly, I again repeat that my only
motive for alluding to the matter was, as some explanation of my seeming
dilatoriness, which certainly did in part arise from always conceiving
that, whenever I should state what was my real wish the day after the bet
was made, you would be the more disposed to allow a little time;--the
same statement admitting, as it must, the bet to be as clearly and as
fairly won as possible; in short, as if I had insisted on it myself the
next morning.
"I have said more perhaps on the subject than can be necessary; but I
should regret to appear negligent to an application for a just claim.
"I have the honor to be,
"Sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"_Hertford St. Feb. 26._
"R. B. SHERIDAN."
Of the public transactions of Sheridan at this time, his speeches are the
best record. To them, therefore, I shall henceforward principally refer
my readers,--premising, that though the reports of his latter speeches
are somewhat better, in general, than those of his earlier displays, they
still do great injustice to his powers, and exhibit little more than the
mere _Torso_ of his eloquence, curtailed of all those accessories
that lent motion and beauty to its form. The attempts to give the
terseness of his wit particularly fail, and are a strong illustration of
what he himself once said to Lord * *. That Nobleman, who among his many
excellent qualities does not include a very lively sense of humor, having
exclaimed, upon hearing some good anecdote from Sheridan, "I'll go and
tell that to our friend * *." Sheridan called him back instantly and
said, with much gravity, "For God's sake, don't, my dear * *: a joke is
no laughing matter in your mouth."
It is, indeed, singular, that all the eminent English orators--with the
exception of Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham--should have been so little
anxious for the correct transmission of their eloquence to posterity. Had
not Cicero taken more care of even his extemporaneous effusions, we
should have lost that masterly burst of the moment, to which the clemency
of Caesar towards Marcellus gave birth. The beautiful fragments we have
of Lord Chatham are rather traditional than recorded;--there are but two,
I believe, of the speeches of Mr. Pitt corrected by himself, those on the
Budget of 1792, and on the Union with Ireland;--Mr. Fox committed to
writing but one of his, namely, the tribute to the memory of the Duke of
Bedford;--and the only speech of Mr. Sheridan, that is known with
certainty to have passed under his own revision, was that which he made
at the opening of the following session, (1794,) in answer to Lord
Mornington.
In the course of the present year he took frequent opportunities of
expressing his disgust at that spirit of ferocity which had so deeply
disgraced the cause of the Revolution. So earnest was his interest in the
fate of the Royal Family of France, that, as appears from one of his
speeches, he drew up a paper on the subject, and transmitted it to the
republican rulers;--with the view, no doubt, of conveying to them the
feelings of the English Opposition, and endeavoring to avert, by the
influence of his own name and that of Mr. Fox, the catastrophe that
awaited those Royal victims of liberty. Of this interesting document I
cannot discover any traces.
In one of his answers to Burke on the subject of the French Revolution,
adverting to the charge of Deism and Atheism brought against the
republicans, he says,
"As an argument to the feelings and passions of men, the Honorable Member
had great advantages in dwelling on this topic; because it was a subject
which those who disliked everything that had the air of cant and
profession on the one hand, or of indifference on the other, found it
awkward to meddle with. Establishments, tests, and matters of that
nature, were proper objects of political discussion in that House, but
not general charges of Atheism and Deism, as pressed upon their
consideration by the Honorable Gentleman. Thus far, however, he would
say, and it was an opinion he had never changed or concealed, that,
although no man can command his conviction, he had ever considered a
deliberate disposition to make proselytes in infidelity as an
unaccountable depravity. Whoever attempted to pluck the belief or the
prejudice on this subject, style it which he would, from the bosom of one
man, woman, or child, committed a brutal outrage, the motive for which he
had never been able to trace or conceive."
I quote these words as creditable to the feeling and good sense of
Sheridan. Whatever may be thought of particular faiths and sects, a
belief in a life beyond this world is the only thing that pierces through
the walls of our prison-house, and lets hope shine in upon a scene, that
would be otherwise bewildered and desolate. The proselytism of the
Atheist is, indeed, a dismal mission. That believers, who have each the
same heaven in prospect, should invite us to join them on their
respective ways to it, is at least a benevolent officiousness,--but that
he, who has no prospect or hope himself, should seek for companionship in
his road to annihilation, can only be explained by that tendency in human
creatures to count upon each other in their despair, as well as their
hope.
In the speech upon his own motion relative to the existence of seditious
practices in the country, there is some lively ridicule, upon the panic
then prevalent. For instance:--
"The alarm had been brought forward in great pomp and form on Saturday
morning. At night all the mail-coaches were stopped; the Duke of Richmond
stationed himself, among other curiosities, at the Tower; a great
municipal officer, too, had made a discovery exceedingly beneficial to
the people of this country. He meant the Lord Mayor of London, who had
found out that there was at the King's Arms at Cornhill a Debating
Society, where principles of the most dangerous tendency were propagated;
where people went to buy treason at sixpence a head; where it was
retailed to them by the glimmering of an inch of candle; and five
minutes, to be measured by the glass, were allowed to each traitor to
perform his part in overturning the State."
It was in the same speech that he gave the well-known and happy turn to
the motto of the Sun newspaper, which was at that time known to be the
organ of the Alarmists. "There was one paper," he remarked, "in
particular, said to be the property of members of that House, and
published and conducted under their immediate direction, which had for
its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, when it might, with
much more propriety, have assumed the whole--
"Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat? Ille etiam cacos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella."
Among the subjects that occupied the greatest share of his attention
during this Session, was the Memorial of Lord Auckland to the
States-General,--which document he himself brought under the notice of
Parliament as deserving of severe reprobation for the violent and
vindictive tone which it assumed towards the Commissioners of the
National Convention. It was upon one of the discussions connected with
this subject that a dispute, as to the correct translation of the word
"_malheureux_" was maintained with much earnestness between him and
Lord Melville--two persons, the least qualified, perhaps, of any in the
House, to volunteer as either interpreters or pronouncers of the French
language. According to Sheridan, "_ces malheureux_" was to be
translated "these wretches," while Lord Melville contended, to the no
small amusement of the House, that "_mollyroo_" (as he pronounced
it,) meant no more than "these unfortunate gentlemen."
In the November of this year Mr. Sheridan lost by a kind of death which
must have deepened the feeling of the loss, the most intimate of all his
companions, Tickell. If congeniality of dispositions and pursuits were
always a strengthener of affection, the friendship between Tickell and
Sheridan ought to have been of the most cordial kind; for they resembled
each other in almost every particular--in their wit, their wants, their
talent, and their thoughtlessness. It is but too true, however, that
friendship in general gains far less by such a community of pursuit than
it loses by the competition that naturally springs out of it; and that
two wits or two beauties form the last sort of alliance, in which we
ought to look for specimens of sincere and cordial friendship. The
intercourse between Tickell and Sheridan was not free from such
collisions of vanity. They seem to have lived, indeed, in a state of
alternate repulsion and attraction; and, unable to do without the
excitement of each other's vivacity, seldom parted without trials of
temper as well as of wit. Being both, too, observers of character, and
each finding in the other rich materials for observation, their love of
ridicule could not withstand such a temptation, and they freely
criticised each other to common friends, who, as is usually the case,
agreed with both. Still, however, there was a whim and sprightliness even
about their mischief, which made it seem rather an exercise of ingenuity
than an indulgence of ill nature; and if they had not carried on this
intellectual warfare, neither would have liked the other half so well.
The two principal productions of Tickell, the "Wreath of Fashion" and
"Anticipation," were both upon temporary subjects, and have accordingly
passed into oblivion. There are, however, some graceful touches of
pleasantry in the poem; and the pamphlet, (which procured for him not
only fame but a place in the Stamp-office,) contains passages of which
the application and the humor have not yet grown stale. As Sheridan is
the hero of the Wreath of Fashion, it is but right to quote the verses
that relate to him; and I do it with the more pleasure, because they also
contain a well-merited tribute to Mrs. Sheridan. After a description of
the various poets of the day that deposit their offerings in Lady
Millar's "Vase of Sentiment," the author thus proceeds:--
"At Fashion's shrine behold a gentler bard
Gaze on the mystic vase with fond regard--
But see, Thalia checks the doubtful thought,
'Canst thou, (she cries,) with sense, with genius fraught,
Canst thou to Fashion's tyranny submit,
Secure in native, independent wit?
Or yield to Sentiment's insipid rule,
By Taste, by Fancy, chac'd through Scandal's school?
Ah no--be Sheridan's the comic page,
Or let me fly with Garrick from the stage.
Haste then, my friend, (for let me boast that name,)
Haste to the opening path of genuine fame;
Or, if thy muse a gentler theme pursue,
Ah, 'tis to love and thy Eliza due!
For, sure, the sweetest lay she well may claim,
Whose soul breathes harmony o'er all her frame;
While wedded love, with ray serenely clear,
Beams from her eye, as from its proper sphere."
In the year 1781, Tickell brought out at Drury-Lane an opera called "The
Carnival of Venice," on which there is the following remark in Mrs.
Crouch's Memoirs:--"Many songs in this piece so perfectly resemble in
poetic beauty those which adorn The Duenna, that they declare themselves
to be the offspring of the same muse." I know not how far this conjecture
may be founded, but there are four pretty lines which I remember in this
opera, and which, it may be asserted without hesitation, Sheridan never
wrote. He had no feeling for natural scenery, [Footnote: In corroboration
of this remark, I have been allowed to quote the following passage of a
letter written by a very eminent person, whose name all lovers of the
Picturesque associate with their best enjoyment of its beauties:--
"At one time I saw a good deal of Sheridan--he and his first wife passed
some time here, and he is an instance that a taste for poetry and for
scenery are not always united. Had this house been in the midst of
Hounslow Heath, he could not have taken less interest in all around it:
his delight was in shooting, all and every day, and my game-keeper said
that of all the gentlemen he had ever been out with he never knew so bad
a shot."] nor is there a trace of such a sentiment discoverable through
his poetry. The following, as well as I can recollect, are the lines:--
"And while the moon shines on the stream,
And as soft music breathes around,
The feathering oar returns the gleam,
And dips in concert to the sound."
I have already given a humorous Dedication of the Rivals, written by
Tickell on the margin of a copy of that play in my possession. I shall
now add another piece of still more happy humor, with which he has
filled, in very neat hand-writing, the three or four first pages of the
same copy.
"The Rivals, a Comedy--one of the best in the English language--written
as long ago as the reign of George the Third. The author's name was
Sheridan--he is mentioned by the historians of that age as a man of
uncommon abilities, very little improved by cultivation. His confidence
in the resources of his own genius and his aversion to any sort of labor
were so great that he could not be prevailed upon to learn either to read
or write. He was, for a short time, Manager of one the play-houses, and
conceived the extraordinary and almost incredible project of composing a
play extempore, which he was to recite in the Green-room to the actors,
who were immediately to come on the stage and perform it. The players
refusing to undertake their parts at so short a notice, and with so
little preparation, he threw up the management in disgust.
"He was a member of the last Parliaments that were summoned in England,
and signalized himself on many occasions by his wit and eloquence, though
he seldom came to the House till the debate was nearly concluded, and
never spoke, unless he was drunk. He lived on a footing of great intimacy
with the famous Fox, who is said to have concerted with him the audacious
attempt which he made, about the year 1783, to seize the whole property
of the East India Company, amounting at that time to above
12,000,000_l_. sterling, and then to declare himself Lord Protector
of the realm by the title of Carlo Khan. This desperate scheme actually
received the consent of the lower House of Parliament, the majority of
whom were bribed by Fox, or intimidated by his and Sheridan's threats and
violence: and it is generally believed that the Revolution would have
taken place, if the Lords of the King's Bedchamber had not in a body
surrounded the throne and shown the most determined resolution not to
abandon their posts but with their lives. The usurpation being defeated,
Parliament was dissolved and loaded with infamy. Sheridan was one of the
few members of it who were re-elected:--the Burgesses of Stafford, whom
he had kept in a constant state of intoxication for near three weeks,
chose him again to represent them, which he was well qualified to do.
"Fox's Whig party being very much reduced, or rather almost annihilated,
he and the rest of the conspirators remained quiet for some time; till,
in the year 1788, the French, in conjunction with Tippoo Sultan, having
suddenly seized and divided between themselves the whole of the British
possessions in India, the East India Company broke, and a national
bankruptcy was apprehended. During this confusion Fox and his partisans
assembled in large bodies, and made a violent attack in Parliament on
Pitt, the King's first minister:--Sheridan supported and seconded him.
Parliament seemed disposed to inquire into the cause of the calamity: the
nation was almost in a state of actual rebellion; and it is impossible
for us, at the distance of three hundred years, to form any judgment what
dreadful consequences might have followed, if the King, by the advice of
the Lords of the Bedchamber, had not dissolved the Parliament, and taken
the administration of affairs into his own hands, and those of a few
confidential servants, at the head of whom he was pleased to place one
Mr. Atkinson, a merchant, who had acquired a handsome fortune in the
Jamaica trade, and passed universally for a man of unblemished integrity.
His Majesty having now no farther occasion for Pitt, and being desirous
of rewarding him for his past services, and, at the same time, finding an
adequate employment for his great talents, caused him to enter into holy
orders, and presented him with the Deanery of Windsor; where he became an
excellent preacher, and published several volumes of sermons, all of
which are now lost.
"To return to Sheridan:--on the abrogation of Parliaments, he entered
into a closer connection than ever with Fox and a few others of lesser
note, forming together as desperate and profligate a gang as ever
disgraced a civilized country. They were guilty of every species of
enormity, and went so far as even to commit robberies on the highway,
with a degree of audacity that could be equalled only by the ingenuity
with which they escaped conviction. Sheridan, not satisfied with eluding,
determined to mock the justice of his country, and composed a Masque
called 'The Foresters,' containing a circumstantial account of some of
the robberies he had committed, and a good deal of sarcasm on the
pusillanimity of those whom he had robbed, and the inefficacy of the
penal laws of the kingdom. This piece was acted at Drury-Lane Theatre
with great applause, to the astonishment of all sober persons, and the
scandal of the nation. His Majesty, who had long wished to curb the
licentiousness of the press and the theatres, thought this a good
opportunity. He ordered the performers to be enlisted into the army, the
play-house to be shut up, and all theatrical exhibitions to be forbid on
pain of death, Drury-Lane play-house was soon after converted into a
barrack for soldiers, which it has continued to be ever since. Sheridan
was arrested, and, it was imagined, would have suffered the rack, if he
had not escaped from his guard by a stratagem, and gone over to Ireland
in a balloon with which his friend Fox furnished him. Immediately on his
arrival in Ireland, he put himself at the head of a party of the most
violent Reformers, commanded a regiment of Volunteers at the siege of
Dublin in 1791, and was supposed to be the person who planned the scheme
for tarring and feathering Mr. Jenkinson, the Lord Lieutenant, and
forcing him in that condition to sign the capitulation of the Castle. The
persons who were to execute this strange enterprise had actually got into
the Lord Lieutenant's apartment at midnight, and would probably have
succeeded in their project, if Sheridan, who was intoxicated with
whiskey, a strong liquor much in vogue with the Volunteers, had not
attempted to force open the door of Mrs. ----'s bed-chamber, and so given
the alarm to the garrison, who instantly flew to arms, seized Sheridan
and every one of his party, and confined them in the castle-dungeon.
Sheridan was ordered for execution the next day, but had no sooner got
his legs and arms at liberty, than he began capering, jumping, dancing,
and making all sorts of antics, to the utter amazement of the spectators.
When the chaplain endeavored, by serious advice and admonition, to bring
him to a proper sense of his dreadful situation, he grinned, made faces
at him, tried to tickle him, and played a thousand other pranks with such
astonishing drollery, that the gravest countenances became cheerful, and
the saddest hearts glad. The soldiers who attended at the gallows were so
delighted with his merriment, which they deemed magnanimity, that the
sheriffs began to apprehend a rescue, and ordered the hangman instantly
to do his duty. He went off in a loud horse-laugh, and cast a look
towards the Castle, accompanied with a gesture expressive of no great
respect.
"Thus ended the life of this singular and unhappy man--a melancholy
instance of the calamities that attend the misapplication of great and
splendid ability. He was married to a very beautiful and amiable woman,
for whom he is said to have entertained an unalterable affection. He had
one son, a boy of the most promising hopes, whom he would never suffer to
be instructed in the first rudiments of literature. He amused himself,
however, with teaching the boy to draw portraits with his toes, in which
he soon became so astonishing a proficient that he seldom failed to take
a most exact likeness of every person who sat to him.
"There are a few more plays by the same author, all of them excellent.
"For further information concerning this strange man, vide 'Macpherson's
Moral History,' Art. '_Drunkenness_.'"