nightly adventures of any kind that suggested itself to their lively
minds. A low tavern, still in existence, was the rendezvous of the heir
to the crown and his noble and distinguished associates. This was the
'Salutation,' in Tavistock Court, Covent Garden, a night house for
gardeners and countrymen, and for the sharpers who fleeced both, and was
kept by a certain Mother Butler, who favoured in every way the
adventurous designs of her exalted guests. Here wigs, smock-frocks, and
other disguises were in readiness; and here, at call, was to be found a
ready-made magistrate, whose sole occupation was to deliver the young
Haroun and his companions from the dilemmas which their adventures
naturally brought them into, and which were generally more or less
concerned with the watch. Poor old watch! what happy days, when members
of parliament, noblemen, and future monarchs condescended to break thy
bob-wigged head! and--blush, Z 350, immaculate constable--to toss thee a
guinea to buy plaster with.
In addition to the other disguise, _aliases_ were of course assumed. The
prince went by the name of Blackstock, Greystock was my Lord Surrey, and
Thinstock Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The treatment of women by the
police is traditional. The 'unfortunate'--unhappy creatures!--are their
pet aversion; and once in their clutches, receive no mercy. The
'Charley' of old was quite as brutal as the modern Hercules of the
glazed hat, and the three adventurers showed an amount of zeal worthy of
a nobler cause, in rescuing the drunken Lais from his grasp. On one
occasion they seem to have hit on a 'deserving case;' a slight skirmish
with the watch ended in a rescue, and the erring creature was taken off
to a house of respectability sufficient to protect her. Here she told
her tale, which, however improbable, turned out to be true. It was a
very old, a very simple one--the common history of many a frail, foolish
girl, cursed with beauty, and the prey of a practised seducer. The main
peculiarity lay in the fact of her respectable birth, and his position,
she being the daughter of a solicitor, he the son of a nobleman.
Marriage was promised, of course, as it has been promised a million
times with the same intent, and for the millionth time was not
performed. The seducer took her from her home, kept her quiet for a
time, and when the novelty was gone, abandoned her. The old story went
on; poverty--a child--a mother's love struggling with a sense of
shame--a visit to her father's house at the last moment, as a forlorn
hope. There she had crawled on her knees to one of those relentless
parents on whose heads lie the utter loss of their children's souls. The
false pride, that spoke of the blot on his name, the disgrace of his
house--when a Saviour's example should have bid him forgive and raise
the penitent in her misery from the dust--whispered him to turn her from
his door. He ordered the footman to put her out. The man, a nobleman in
plush, moved by his young mistress's utter misery, would not obey though
it cost him his place, and the harder-hearted father himself thrust his
starving child into the cold street, into the drizzling rain, and
slammed the door upon her cries of agony. The footman slipped out after
her, and five shillings--a large sum for him--found its way from his
kind hand to hers. Now the common ending might have come; now
starvation, the slow, unwilling, recourse to more shame and deeper vice;
then the forced hilarity, the unreal smile, which in so many of these
poor creatures hides a canker at the heart; the gradual
degradation--lower still and lower--oblivion for a moment sought in the
bottle--a life of sin and death ended in a hospital. The will of
Providence turned the frolic of three voluptuaries to good account; the
prince gave his purse-full, Sheridan his one last guinea for her present
needs: the name of the good-hearted Plush was discovered, and he was
taken into Carlton House, where he soon became known as Roberts, the
prince's confidential servant: and Sheridan bestirred himself to rescue
for ever the poor lady, whose beauty still remained as a temptation. He
procured her a situation, where she studied for the stage, on which she
eventually appeared. 'All's well that ends well:' her secret was kept,
till one admirer came honourably forward. To him it was confided, and he
was noble enough to forgive the one false step of youth. She was well
married, and the boy for whom she had suffered so much fell at
Trafalgar, a lieutenant in the navy.
To better men such an adventure would have been a solemn warning; such a
tale, told by the ruined one herself, a sermon, every word of which
would have clung to their memories. What effect, if any, it may have had
on Blackstock and his companions must have been very fleeting.
It is not so very long since the Seven Dials and St. Giles' were haunts
of wickedness and dens of thieves, into which the police scarcely dared
to penetrate. Probably their mysteries would have afforded more
amusement to the artist and the student of character than to the mere
seeker of adventure, but it was still, I remember, in my early days, a
great feat to visit by night one of the noted 'cribs' to which 'the
profession' which fills Newgate was wont to resort. The 'Brown Bear,' in
Broad Street, St. Giles', was one of these pleasant haunts, and thither
the three adventurers determined to go. This style of adventure is out
of date, and no longer amusing. Of course a fight ensued, in which the
prince and his companions showed immense pluck against terrible odds,
and in which, as one reads in the novels of the 'London Journal' or
'Family Herald,' the natural superiority of the well-born of course
displayed itself to great advantage. Surely Bulwer has described such
scenes too graphically in some of his earlier novels to make a minute
description here at all necessary; but the reader who is curious in the
matter may be referred to a work which has recently appeared under the
title of 'Sheridan and his Times,' professing to be written by an
Octogenarian, intimate with the hero. The fray ended with the arrival of
the watch, who rescued Blackstock, Greystock, and Thinstock, and with
Dogberryan stupidity carried them off to a neighbouring lock-up. The
examination which took place was just the occasion for Sheridan's fun to
display itself on, and pretending to turn informer, he succeeded in
bewildering the unfortunate parochial constable, who conducted it, till
the arrival of the magistrate, whose duty was to deliver his friends
from durance vile. The whole scene is well described in the book just
referred to, with, we presume, a certain amount of idealizing; but the
'Octogenarian' had probably heard the story from Sheridan himself, and
the main points must be accepted as correct. The affair ended, as usual,
with a supper at the 'Salutation.'
We must now follow Sheridan in his gradual downfall.
One of the causes of this--as far as money was concerned--was his
extreme indolence and utter negligence. He trusted far too much to his
ready wit and rapid genius. Thus when 'Pizarro' was to appear, day after
day went by, and nothing was done. On the night of representation, only
four acts out of five were written, and even these had not been
rehearsed, the principal performers, Siddons, Charles Kemble and
Barrymore, having only just received their parts. Sheridan was up in the
prompter's room actually writing the fifth act while the first was being
performed, and every now and then appeared in the green-room with a
fresh relay of dialogue, and setting all in good humour by his merry
abuse of his own negligence. In spite of this, 'Pizarro' succeeded. He
seldom wrote except at night, and surrounded by a profusion of lights.
Wine was his great stimulant in composition, as it has been to better
and worse authors. 'If the thought is slow to come,' he would say, 'a
glass of good wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass of good
wine rewards it.' Those glasses of good wine, were, unfortunately, even
more frequent than the good thoughts, many and merry as they were.
His neglect of letters was a standing joke against him. He never took
the trouble to open any that he did not expect, and often left sealed
many that he was most anxious to read. He once appeared with his begging
face at the Bank, humbly asking an advance of twenty pounds. 'Certainly,
sir; would you like any more?--fifty or a hundred?' said the smiling
clerk. Sheridan was overpowered. He _would_ like a hundred. 'Two or
three?' asked the scribe. Sheridan thought he was joking, but was ready
for two or even three--he was always ready for more. But he could not
conceal his surprise. 'Have you not received our letter?' the clerk
asked, perceiving it. Certainly he had received the epistle, which
informed him that his salary as Receiver-General of Cornwall had been
paid in, but he had never opened it.
This neglect of letters once brought him into a troublesome lawsuit
about the theatre. It was necessary to pay certain demands, and he had
applied to the Duke of Bedford to be his security. The duke had
consented, and for a whole year his letter of consent remained unopened.
In the meantime Sheridan had believed that the duke had neglected him,
and allowed the demands to be brought into court.
In the same way he had long before committed himself in the affair with
Captain Matthews. In order to give a public denial of certain reports
circulated in Bath, he had called upon an editor, requesting him to
insert the said reports in his paper in order that he might write him a
letter to refute them. The editor at once complied, the calumny was
printed and published, but Sheridan forgot all about his own refutation,
which was applied for in vain till too late.
Other causes were his extravagance and intemperance. There was an utter
want of even common moderation in everything he did. Whenever his boyish
spirit suggested any freak, whenever a craving of any kind possessed
him, no matter what the consequences here or hereafter, he rushed
heedlessly into the indulgence of it. Perhaps the enemy had never an
easier subject to deal with. Any sin in which there was a show of
present mirth, or easy pleasure, was as easily taken up by Sheridan as
if he had not a single particle of conscience or religious feeling, and
yet we are not at all prepared to say that he lacked either; he had only
deadened both by excessive indulgence of his fancies. The temptation of
wealth and fame had been too much for the poor and obscure young man who
rose to them so suddenly, and, as so often happens, those very talents
which should have been his glory, were, in fact, his ruin.
His extravagance was unbounded. At a time when misfortune lay thick upon
him, and bailiffs were hourly expected, he would invite a large party to
a dinner, which a prince might have given, and to which one prince
sometimes sat down. On one occasion, having no plate left from the
pawnbroker's, he had to prevail on 'my uncle' to lend him some for a
banquet he was to give. The spoons and forks were sent, and with them
two of his men, who, dressed in livery, waited, no doubt with the most
vigilant attention, on the party. Such at that period was the host's
reputation, when he could not even be trusted not to pledge another
man's property. At one time his income was reckoned at £15,000 a year,
when the theatre was prosperous. Of this he is said to have spent not
more than £5,000 on his household, while the balance went to pay for his
former follies, debts, and the interest, lawsuits often arising from
mere carelessness and judgments against the theatre! Probably a great
deal of it was betted away, drank away, thrown away in one way or
another. As for betting, he generally lost all the wagers he made: as he
said himself--'I never made a bet upon my own judgment that I did not
lose; and I never won but one, which I had made against my judgment.'
His bets were generally laid in hundreds; and though he did not gamble,
he could of course run through a good deal of money in this way. He
betted on every possible trifle, but chiefly, it would seem, on
political possibilities; the state of the Funds, the result of an
election, or the downfall of a ministry. Horse-races do not seem to have
possessed any interest for him, and, in fact, he scarcely knew one kind
of horse from another. He was never an adept at field-sports, though
very ambitious of being thought a sportsman. Once, when staying in the
country, he went out with a friend's gamekeeper to shoot pheasants, and
after wasting a vast amount of powder and shot upon the air, he was only
rescued from ignominy by the sagacity of his companion, who, going a
little behind him when a bird rose, brought it down so neatly that
Sheridan, believing he had killed it himself, snatched it up, and rushed
bellowing with glee back to the house to show that he _could_ shoot. In
the same way, he tried his hand at fishing in a wretched little stream
behind the Deanery at Winchester, using, however, a net, as easier to
handle than a rod. Some boys, who had watched his want of success a long
time, at last bought a few pennyworth of pickled herrings, and throwing
them on the stream, allowed them to float down towards the eager
disciple of old Izaak. Sheridan saw them coming, rushed in regardless of
his clothes, cast his net and in great triumph secured them. When he had
landed his prize, however, there were the boys bursting with laughter,
and Piscator saw he was their dupe. 'Ah!' cried he, laughing in concert,
as he looked at his dripping clothes, 'this is a pretty _pickle_
indeed!'
His extravagance was well known to his friends, as well as to his
creditors. Lord Guildford met him one day. 'Well, Sherry, so you've
taken a new house, I hear.'--'Yes, and you'll see now that everything
will go on like clockwork.'--'Ay,' said my lord, with a knowing leer,
'_tick, tick_.' Even his son Tom used to laugh at him for it. 'Tom, if
you marry that girl, I'll cut you off with a shilling,'--'Then you must
borrow it,' replied the ingenuous youth.[8] Tom sometimes disconcerted
his father with his inherited wit--his only inheritance. He pressed
urgently for money on one, as on many an occasion. 'I have none,' was
the reply, as usual; 'there is a pair of pistols up stairs, a horse in
the enable, the night is dark, and Hounslow Heath at hand.'
[8: Another version is that Tom replied: 'You don't happen to have it
about you, sir, do you?']
'I understand what you mean,' replied young Tom; 'but I tried that last
night, and unluckily stopped your treasurer, Peake, who told me you had
been beforehand with him, and robbed him of every sixpence he had in the
world.'
So much for the respect of son to father!
Papa had his revenge on the young wit, when Tom, talking of Parliament,
announced his intention of entering it on an independent basis, ready to
be bought by the highest bidder 'I shall write on my forehead,' said he,
"To let."'
'And under that, Tom, "Unfurnished,"' rejoined Sherry the elder. The
joke is now stale enough.
But Sheridan was more truly witty in putting down a young braggart whom
he met at dinner at a country-house. There are still to be found, like
the bones of dead asses in a field newly ploughed, in some parts of the
country, youths, who are so hopelessly behind their age, and indeed
every age, as to look upon authorship as degrading, all knowledge, save
Latin and Greek, as 'a bore,' and all entertainment but hunting,
shooting, fishing, and badger-drawing, as unworthy of a man. In the last
century these young animals, who unite the modesty of the puppy with the
clear-sightedness of the pig, not to mention the progressiveness of
another quadruped, were more numerous than in the present day, and in
consequence more forward in their remarks. It was one of these charming
youths, who was staying in the same house as Sheridan, and who, quite
unprovoked, began at dinner to talk of 'actors and authors, and those
low sort of people, you know.' Sheridan said nought, but patiently bided
his time. The next day there was a large dinner-party, and Sheridan and
the youth happened to sit opposite to one another in the most
conspicuous part of the table. Young Nimrod was kindly obliging his side
of the table with extraordinary leaps of his hunter, the perfect working
of his new double-barrelled Manton, &c., bringing of course number one
in as the hero in each case. In a moment of silence, Sheridan, with an
air of great politeness, addressed his unhappy victim. 'He had not,' he
said, 'been able to catch the whole of the very interesting account he
had heard Mr. ---- relating.' All eyes were turned upon the two. 'Would
Mr. ---- permit him to ask who it was who made the extraordinary leap he
had mentioned?--'I, sir,' replied the youth with some pride. 'Then who
was it killed the wild duck at that distance?'--'I, sir.' 'Was it your
setter who behaved so well?'--'Yes, mine, sir,' replied the youth,
getting rather red over this examination. 'And who caught the huge
salmon so neatly?'--'I, sir.' And so the questioning went on through a
dozen more items, till the young man, weary of answering 'I, sir,' and
growing redder and redder every moment, would gladly have hid his head
under the table-cloth, in spite of his sporting prowess. But Sheridan
had to give him the _coup de grace_.
'So, sir,' said he, very politely, 'you were the chief _actor_ in every
anecdote, and the _author_ of them all; surely it is impolitic to
despise your own professions.'
Sheridan's intemperance was as great and as incurable as his
extravagance, and we think his mind, if not his body, lived only on
stimulants. He could neither write nor speak without them One day,
before one of his finest speeches in the House, he was seen to enter a
coffee-house, call for a pint of brandy, and swallow it 'neat,' and
almost at one gulp. His friends occasionally interfered. This drinking,
they told him, would destroy the coat of his stomach. 'Then my stomach
must digest in its waistcoat,' laughed Sheridan.
Where are the topers of yore? Jovial I will not call them, for every one
knows that
'Mirth and laughter.'
worked up with a corkscrew, are followed by
'Headaches and hot coppers the day after.'
But where are those Anakim of the bottle, who _could_ floor their two of
port and one of Madeira, though the said two and one floored them in
turn? The race, I believe, has died out. Our heads have got weaker, as
our cellars grew emptier. The arrangement was convenient. The daughters
of Eve have nobly undertaken to atone for the naughty conduct of their
primeval mamma, by reclaiming men, and dragging them from the Hades of
the mahogany to that seventh heaven of muffins and English ballads
prepared for them in the drawing-room.
We are certainly astounded, even to incredulity, when we read of the
deeds of a David or a Samson; but such wonderment can be nothing
compared to that which a generation or two hence will feel, when
sipping, as a great extravagance and unpardonable luxury, two
thimblefuls of 'African Sherry,' the young demirep of the day reads that
three English gentlemen, Sheridan, Richardson, and Ward, sat down one
day to dinner, and before they rose again--if they ever rose, which
seems doubtful--or, at least, were raised, had emptied five bottles of
port, two of Madeira, and one of brandy! Yet this was but one instance
in a thousand; there was nothing extraordinary in it, and it is only
mentioned because the amount drunk is accurately given by the unhappy
owner of the wine, Kelly, the composer, who, unfortunately, or
fortunately, was not present, and did not even imagine that the three
honourable gentlemen were discussing his little store. Yet Sheridan does
not seem to have believed much in his friend's vintages, for he advised
him to alter his brass plate to 'Michael Kelly, Composer of Wine and
Importer of Music.' He made a better joke, when, dining with Lord
Thurlow, he tried in vain to induce him to produce a second bottle of
some extremely choice Constantia from the Cape of Good Hope. 'Ah,' he
muttered to his neighbour, 'pass me that decanter, if you please, for I
must return to Madeira, as I see I cannot _double the Cape_'
But as long as Richard Brinsley was a leader of political and
fashionable circles, as long as he had a position to keep up, an
ambition to satisfy, a labour to complete, his drinking was, if not
moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates. But when a
man's ambition is limited to mere success--when fame and a flash for
himself are all he cares for, and there is no truer, grander motive for
his sustaining the position he has climbed to--when, in short, it is his
own glory, not mankind's good, he has ever striven for--woe, woe, woe
when the hour of success is come! I cannot stop to name and examine
instances, but let me be allowed to refer to that bugbear who is called
up whenever greatness of any kind has to be illustrated--Napoleon the
Great; or let me take any of the lesser Napoleons in lesser grades in
any nation, any age--the men who have had no star but self and
self-glory before them--and let me ask if any one can be named who, if
he has survived the attainment of his ambition, has not gone down the
other side of the hill somewhat faster than he came up it? Then let me
select men whose guiding-star has been the good of their
fellow-creatures, or the glory of God, and watch their peaceful useful
end on that calm summit that they toiled so honestly to reach. The
difference comes home to us. The moral is read only at the end of the
story. Remorse rings it for ever in the ears of the dying--often too
long a-dying--man who has laboured for himself. Peace reads it smilingly
to him whose generous toil for others has brought its own reward.
Sheridan had climbed with the stride of a giant, laughing at rocks, at
precipices, at slippery watercourses. He had spread the wings of genius
to poise himself withal, and gained one peak after another, while
homelier worth was struggling midway, clutching the bramble and clinging
to the ferns. He had, as Byron said in Sheridan's days of decay, done
the best in all he undertook, written the best comedy, best opera, best
farce; spoken the best parody, and made the best speech. Sheridan, when
those words of the young poet were told him, shed tears.