(Vol. iii., p. 276.)
MR. DAWSON TURNER asks for information regarding three writers in the
_Rolliad_, viz.: Tickell, Richardson, and Fitzpatrick. Memoirs of the first
two are given in Chalmers's _Dictionary_; but in Moore's _Life of
Sheridan_, MR. TURNER will find several notices of them, far more
attractive than dry biographical details. They were both intimately
associated with Sheridan; Tickell, indeed, was his brother-in-law. One
would prefer calling them his _friends_, but steady friendship must rest
upon a firmer basis than those gifts of wit, talent, and a keen sense of
the ridiculous, which prevailed so largely amongst this clever trio.
Tickell's production, _Anticipation_, is still remembered from its
cleverness and humour; but when every speaker introduced into its pages has
long been dead, and some of them were little known to fame, the pamphlet is
preserved by a few solely from the celebrity which it once possessed.
His death in 1793 was a most melancholy one. It is described by Professor
Smyth in in his interesting _Memoir of Sheridan_, a book printed some years
ago for distribution among his friends, and which well deserves
publication.
Independent of his contributions to the _Rolliad_, {334} Richardson did
little as an author. His comedy of _The Fugitive_, acted and published in
1792, was well received, and is much praised. Why has this production so
completely disappeared?
General Fitzpatrick was born in 1749, and died in 1815. He was the second
son of John, Earl of Upper Ossory; twice Secretary-at-War; once secretary
to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Portland, but what he
regarded as his highest distinction, and it is recorded on his tomb, was
the friendship of Fox during forty years of their lives.
Some of his speeches on the union with Ireland will be found in the
thirty-fourth volume of the _Parliamentary History_.
His epitaph, by himself, is inscribed on a sarcophagus in the church-yard
at Sunning Hill, in which he describes himself--what his friends admitted
to be truth--a politician without ambition, a writer without vanity.
Which is the true reading in the following lines by Fitzpatrick on Fox? In
my copy the word "course" in the third line is erased, and the word "mind"
is substituted.
"A patriot's even course he steered,
Mid Faction's wildest storms unmoved:
By all who marked his _course_ revered,
By all who knew his heart beloved."
Sheridan says most justly:
"Wit being generally founded upon the manners and characters of its own
day, is crowned in that day, beyond all other exertions of the mind,
with splendid and immediate success. But there is always something that
equalises. In return, more than any other production, it suffers
suddenly and irretrievably from the hand of Time."
Still some publications, from their wit and brilliancy, are sufficiently
buoyant to float down to posterity. The publication in question, the
_Rolliad_, is one; the _Anti-Jacobin_ another. You may not be unwilling, in
your useful pages, to give a list of some of the writers in the latter
publication. My own copy of it is marked from that belonging to one of the
writers, and is as follows:--
Nos. 1. 4. 9. 19. 26, 27--33., by Mr George Ellis.
Nos. 6. and 7., by Messrs. Ellis and Frere.
Nos. 20, 21, 22. 30--36., by Mr. Canning.
No. 10. by M.; No. 13. by C. B.; No. 39. by N.
To the remaining numbers, neither names nor initials are affixed. Can any
of your readers explain the initials, M., C. B., and N., and give us the
authors of the _remaining_ numbers?
In replying to Mr. TURNER'S Queries, I shall attend to the wish expressed
by so old and so valued a friend, and substitute for initials, of which he
disapproves, the name of