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MEMOIRS
OF THE
LIFE OF THE RT. HON.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
BY THOMAS MOORE
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
TO
GEORGE BRYAN, ESQ.,
THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED,
BY
HIS SINCERE AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,
THOMAS MOORE.
PREFACE.
The first four Chapters of this work were written nearly seven years
ago. My task was then suspended during a long absence from England; and
it was only in the course of the last year that I applied myself
seriously to the completion of it.
To my friend, Mr. Charles Sheridan, whose talents and character reflect
honor upon a name, already so distinguished, I am indebted for the chief
part of the materials upon which the following Memoirs of his father are
founded. I have to thank him, not only for this mark of confidence, but
for the delicacy with which, though so deeply interested in the subject
of my task, he has refrained from all interference with the execution of
it:--neither he, nor any other person, beyond the Printing-office,
having ever read a single sentence of the work.
I mention this, in order that the responsibility of any erroneous views
or indiscreet disclosures, with which I shall be thought chargeable in
the course of these pages, may not be extended to others, but rest
solely with myself.
The details of Mr. Sheridan's early life were obligingly communicated to
me by his younger sister, Mrs. Lefanu, to whom, and to her highly gifted
daughter, I offer my best thanks for the assistance which they have
afforded me.
The obligations, of a similar nature, which I owe to the kindness of Mr.
William Linley, Doctor Bain, Mr. Burgess, and others, are acknowledged,
with due gratitude, in my remarks on their respective communications.
CONTENTS TO VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
Birth and Education of Mr. Sheridan.--His First Attempts in Literature.
CHAPTER II.
Duels with Mr. Mathews.--Marriage with Miss Linley
CHAPTER III.
Domestic Circumstances.--Fragments of Essays found among his Papers.--
Comedy of "The Rivals."--Answer to "Taxation no Tyranny."--Farce of "St.
Patrick's Day."
CHAPTER IV.
The Duenna.--Purchase of Drury-Lane Theatre.--The Trip to Scarborough.--
Poetical Correspondence with Mrs. Sheridan
CHAPTER V.
The School for Scandal
CHAPTER VI.
Further Purchase of Theatrical Property.--Monody to the Memory of
Garrick.--Essay on Metre.--The Critic.--Essay on Absentees.--Political
Connections.--"The Englishman."--Elected for Stafford
CHAPTER VII.
Unfinished Plays and Poems
CHAPTER VIII.
His First Speeches in Parliament.--Rockingham Administration.--
Coalition.--India Bill.--Re-election for Stafford
CHAPTER IX.
The Prince of Wales.--Financial Measures.--Mr. Pitt's East India Bill.--
Irish Commercial Propositions.--Plan of the Duke of Richmond.--Sinking
Fund.
CHAPTER X.
Charges against Mr. Hastings.--Commercial Treaty with France.--Debts of
the Prince of Wales.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MR. SHERIDAN.--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS IN LITERATURE.
Richard Brinsley [Footnote: He was christened also by the name of
Butler, after the Earl of Lanesborough.] Sheridan was born in the month
of September, 1751, at No. 12, Dorset Street, Dublin, and baptized in
St. Mary's Church, as appears by the register of the parish, on the
fourth of the following month. His grandfather, Dr. Sheridan, and his
father, Mr. Thomas Sheridan, have attained a celebrity, independent of
that which he has conferred on them, by the friendship and
correspondence with which the former was honored by Swift, and the
competition and even rivalry which the latter so long maintained with
Garrick. His mother, too, was a woman of considerable talents, and
affords one of the few instances that have occurred, of a female
indebted for a husband to her literature; as it was a pamphlet she wrote
concerning the Dublin theatre that first attracted to her the notice of
Mr. Thomas Sheridan. Her affecting novel, Sidney Biddulph, could boast
among its warm panegyrists Mr. Fox and Lord North; and in the Tale of
Nourjahad she has employed the graces of Eastern fiction to inculcate a
grave and important moral,--putting on a fairy disguise, like her own
Mandane, to deceive her readers into a taste for happiness and virtue.
Besides her two plays, The Discovery and The Dupe,--the former of which
Garrick pronounced to be "one of the best comedies he ever read,"--she
wrote a comedy also, called The Trip to Bath, which was never either
acted or published, but which has been supposed by some of those
sagacious persons, who love to look for flaws in the titles of fame, to
have passed, with her other papers, into the possession of her son, and,
after a transforming sleep, like that of the chrysalis, in his hands, to
have taken wing at length in the brilliant form of The Rivals. The
literary labors of her husband were less fanciful, but not, perhaps,
less useful, and are chiefly upon subjects connected with education, to
the study and profession of which he devoted the latter part of his
life. Such dignity, indeed, did his favorite pursuit assume in his own
eyes, that he is represented (on the authority, however, of one who was
himself a schoolmaster) to have declared, that "he would rather see his
two sons at the head of respectable academies, than one of them prime
minister of England, and the other at the head of affairs in Ireland."
At the age of seven years, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was, with his elder
brother, Charles Francis, placed under the tuition of Mr. Samuel Whyte,
of Grafton Street, Dublin,--an amiable and respectable man, who, for
near fifty years after, continued at the head of his profession in that
metropolis. To remember our school-days with gratitude and pleasure, is
a tribute at once to the zeal and gentleness of our master, which none
ever deserved more truly from his pupils than Mr. Whyte, and which the
writer of these pages, who owes to that excellent person all the
instructions in English literature he has ever received, is happy to
take this opportunity of paying. The young Sheridans, however, were
little more than a year under his care--and it may be consoling to
parents who are in the first crisis of impatience, at the sort of
hopeless stupidity which some children exhibit, to know, that the dawn
of Sheridan's intellect was as dull and unpromising as its meridian day
was bright; and that in the year 1759, he who, in less than thirty years
afterwards, held senates enchained by his eloquence and audiences
fascinated by his wit, was, by common consent both of parent and
preceptor, pronounced to be "a most impenetrable dunce."
From Mr. Whyte's school the boys were removed to England, where Mr. and
Mrs. Sheridan had lately gone to reside, and in the year 1762 Richard
was sent to Harrow--Charles being kept at home as a fitter subject for
the instructions of his father, who, by another of those calculations of
poor human foresight, which the deity, called Eventus by the Romans,
takes such wanton pleasure in falsifying, considered his elder son as
destined to be the brighter of the two brother stars. At Harrow, Richard
was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but, at the same time,
engaging boy, who contrived to win the affection, and even admiration of
the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his
frank and genial manners, and by the occasional gleams of superior
intellect, which broke through all the indolence and indifference of his
character.
Harrow, at this time, possessed some peculiar advantages, of which a
youth like Sheridan might have powerfully availed himself. At the head
of the school was Doctor Robert Sumner, a man of fine talents, but,
unfortunately, one of those who have passed away without leaving any
trace behind, except in the admiring recollection of their
contemporaries. His taste is said to have been of a purity almost
perfect, combining what are seldom seen together, that critical judgment
which is alive to the errors of genius, with the warm sensibility that
deeply feels its beauties. At the same period, the distinguished
scholar, Dr. Parr, who, to the massy erudition of a former age, joined
all the free and enlightened intelligence of the present, was one of the
under masters of the school; and both he and Dr. Sumner endeavored, by
every method they could devise, to awaken in Sheridan a consciousness of
those powers which, under all the disadvantages of indolence and
carelessness, it was manifest to them that he possessed. But
remonstrance and encouragement were equally thrown away upon the good-
humored but immovable indifference of their pupil; and though there
exist among Mr. Sheridan's papers some curious proofs of an industry in
study for which few have ever given him credit, they are probably but
the desultory efforts of a later period of his life, to recover the loss
of that first precious time, whose susceptibility of instruction, as
well as of pleasure, never comes again.
One of the most valuable acquisitions he derived from Harrow was that
friendship, which lasted throughout his life, with Dr. Parr,--which
mutual admiration very early began, and the "_idem sentire de re
publica_" of course not a little strengthened.
As this learned and estimable man has, within the last few weeks, left a
void in the world which will not be easily filled up, I feel that it
would be unjust to my readers not to give, in his own words, the
particulars of Sheridan's school-days, with which he had the kindness to
favor me, and to which his name gives an authenticity and interest too
valuable on such a subject to be withheld:
"Hatton, August 3, 1818.
"DEAR SIR,
"With the aid of a scribe I sit down to fulfil my promise about Mr.
Sheridan. There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was
inferior to many of his school-fellows in the ordinary business of a
school, and I do not remember any one instance in which he distinguished
himself by Latin or English composition, in prose or verse. [Footnote:
It will be seen, however, though Dr. Parr was not aware of the
circumstance, that Sheridan did try his talent at English verse before
he left Harrow.] Nathaniel Halhed, one of his school-fellows, wrote well
in Latin and Greek. Richard Archdall, another school-fellow, excelled in
English verse. Richard Sheridan aspired to no rivalry with either of
them. He was at the uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never
reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of
attending the most difficult and the most honorable of school business,
when the Greek plays were taught--and it was the custom at Harrow to
teach these at least every year. He went through his lessons in Horace,
and Virgil, and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the
upper master, Doctor Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two
upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only
slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar.
Knowing him to be a clever fellow, I did not fail to probe and to tease
him. I stated his case with great good-humor to the upper master, who
was one of the best tempered men in the world; and it was agreed between
us, that Richard should be called oftener and worked more severely. The
varlet was not suffered to stand up in his place; but was summoned to
take his station near the master's table, where the voice of no prompter
could reach him; and, in this defenceless condition, he was so harassed,
that he at last gathered up some grammatical rules, and prepared himself
for his lessons. While this tormenting process was inflicted upon him, I
now and then upbraided him. But you will take notice that he did not
incur any corporal punishment for his idleness: his industry was just
sufficient to protect him from disgrace. All the while Sumner and I saw
in him vestiges of a superior intellect. His eye, his countenance, his
general manner, were striking. His answers to any common question were
prompt and acute. We knew the esteem, and even admiration, which,
somehow or other, all his school-fellows felt for him. He was
mischievous enough, but his pranks were accompanied by a sort of
vivacity and cheerfulness, which delighted Sumner and myself. I had much
talk with him about his apple-loft, for the supply of which all the
gardens in the neighborhood were taxed, and some of the lower boys were
employed to furnish it. I threatened, but without asperity, to trace the
depredators, through his associates, up to their leader. He with perfect
good-humor set me at defiance, and I never could bring the charge home
to him. All boys and all masters were pleased with him. I often praised
him as a lad of great talents,--often exhorted him to use them well;
but my exhortations were fruitless. I take for granted that his taste
was silently improved, and that he knew well the little which he did
know. He was removed from school too soon by his father, who was the
intimate friend of Sumner, and whom I often met at his house. Sumner had
a fine voice, fine ear, fine taste, and, therefore, pronunciation was
frequently the favorite subject between him and Tom Sheridan. I was
present at many of their discussions and disputes, and sometimes took a
very active part in them,--but Richard was not present. The father, you
know, was a wrong-headed, whimsical man, and, perhaps, his scanty
circumstances were one of the reasons which prevented him from sending
Richard to the University. He must have been aware, as Sumner and I
were, that Richard's mind was not cast in any ordinary mould. I ought to
have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English
poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency. In
truth, he, as a boy, was quite careless about literary fame. I should
suppose that his father, without any regular system, polished his taste,
and supplied his memory with anecdotes about our best writers in our
Augustan age. The grandfather, you know, lived familiarly with Swift. I
have heard of him, as an excellent scholar. His boys in Ireland once
performed a Greek play, and when Sir William Jones and I were talking
over this event, I determined to make the experiment in England. I
selected some of my best boys, and they performed the Oedipus Tyrannus,
and the Trachinians of Sophocles. I wrote some Greek Iambics to
vindicate myself from the imputation of singularity, and grieved I am
that I did not keep a copy of them. Milton, you may remember, recommends
what I attempted.
"I saw much of Sheridan's father after the death of Sumner, and after my
own removal from Harrow to Stanmer. I respected him,--he really liked
me, and did me some important services,--but I never met him and Richard
together. I often inquired about Richard, and, from the father's
answers, found they were not upon good terms,--but neither he nor I ever
spoke of his son's talents but in terms of the highest praise." In a
subsequent letter Dr. Parr says: "I referred you to a passage in the
Gentleman's Magazine, where I am represented as discovering and
encouraging in Richard Sheridan those intellectual powers which had not
been discovered and encouraged by Sumner. But the statement is
incorrect. We both of us discovered talents, which neither of us could
bring into action while Sheridan was a school-boy. He gave us few
opportunities of praise in the course of his school business, and yet he
was well aware that we thought highly of him, and anxiously wished more
to be done by him than he was disposed to do.
"I once or twice met his mother,--she was quite celestial. Both her
virtues and her genius were highly esteemed by Robert Sumner. I know not
whether Tom Sheridan found Richard tractable in the art of speaking,--
and, upon such a subject, indolence or indifference would have been
resented by the father as crimes quite inexpiable. One of Richard's
sisters now and then visited Harrow, and well do I remember that, in the
house where I lodged, she triumphantly repeated Dryden's Ode upon St.
Cecilia's Day, according to the instruction given to her by her father.
Take a sample:
_None_ but the brave,
None but the _brave_,
None _but_ the brave deserve the fair.
Whatever may have been the zeal or the proficiency of the sister,
naughty Richard, like Gallio, seemed to care naught for these things.
"In the later periods of his life Richard did not cast behind him
classical reading. He spoke copiously and powerfully about Cicero. He
had read, and he had understood, the four orations of Demosthenes, read
and taught in our public schools. He was at home in Virgil and in
Horace. I cannot speak positively about Homer,--but I am very sure that
he read the Iliad now and then; not as a professed scholar would do,
critically, but with all the strong sympathies of a poet reading a poet.
[Footnote: It was not one of the least of the triumphs of Sheridan's
talent to have been able to persuade so acute a scholar as Dr. Parr,
that the extent of his classical acquirements was so great as is here
represented, and to have thus impressed with the idea of his remembering
so much, the person who best knew how little he had learned.] Richard
did not, and could not forget what he once knew, but his path to
knowledge was his own,--his steps were noiseless,--his progress was
scarcely felt by himself,--his movements were rapid but irregular.
"Let me assure you that Richard, when a boy, was by no means vicious.
The sources of his infirmities were a scanty and precarious allowance
from the father, the want of a regular plan for some profession, and,
above all, the act of throwing him upon the town, when he ought to have
been pursuing his studies at the University. He would have done little
among mathematicians at Cambridge;--he would have been a rake, or an
idler, or a trifler, at Dublin;--but I am inclined to think that at
Oxford he would have become an excellent scholar.
"I have now told you all that I know, and it amounts to very little. I
am very solicitous for justice to be done to Robert Sumner. He is one of
the six or seven persons among my own acquaintance whose taste I am
accustomed to consider perfect, and, were he living, his admiration...."
[Footnote: The remainder of the letter relates to other subjects.]
During the greater part of Richard's stay at Harrow his father had been
compelled, by the embarrassment of his affairs, to reside with the
remainder of the family in France, and it was at Blois, in the September
of 1766, that Mrs. Sheridan died--leaving behind her that best kind of
fame, which results from a life of usefulness and purity, and which it
requires not the aid of art or eloquence to blazon. She appears to have
been one of those rare women, who, united to men of more pretensions,
but less real intellect than themselves, meekly conceal this superiority
even from their own hearts, and pass their lives without remonstrance or
murmur, in gently endeavoring to repair those evils which the
indiscretion or vanity of their partners has brought upon them.
As a supplement to the interesting communication of Dr. Parr, I shall
here subjoin an extract from a letter which the eldest sister of
Sheridan, Mrs. E. Lefanu, wrote a few months after his death to Mrs.
Sheridan, in consequence of a wish expressed by the latter that Mrs.
Lefanu would communicate such particulars as she remembered of his early
days. It will show, too, the feeling which his natural good qualities,
in spite of the errors by which they were obscured and weakened, kept
alive to the last, in the hearts of those connected with him, that sort
of retrospective affection, which, when those whom we have loved become
altered, whether in mind or person, brings the recollection of what they
once were, to mingle with and soften our impression of what they are.
After giving an account of the residence of the family in France, she
continues: "We returned to England, when I may say I first became
acquainted with my brother--for faint and imperfect were my
recollections of him, as might be expected from my age. I saw him; and
my childish attachment revived with double force. He was handsome, not
merely in the eyes of a partial sister, but generally allowed to be so.
His cheeks had the glow of health; his eyes,--the finest in the world,--
the brilliancy of genius, and were soft as a tender and affectionate
heart could render them. The same playful fancy, the same sterling and
innoxious wit, that was shown afterwards in his writings, cheered and
delighted the family circle. I admired--I almost adored him. I would
most willingly have sacrificed my life for him, as I, in some measure,
proved to him at Bath, where we resided for some time, and where events
that you must have heard of engaged him in a duel. My father's
displeasure threatened to involve me in the denunciations against him,
for committing what he considered as a crime. Yet I risked everything,
and in the event was made happy by obtaining forgiveness for my
brother.... You may perceive, dear sister, that very little indeed have
I to say on a subject so near your heart, and near mine also. That for
years I lost sight of a brother whom I loved with unabated affection--a
love that neither absence nor neglect could chill--I always consider as
a great misfortune."
On his leaving Harrow, where he continued till near his eighteenth year,
he was brought home by his father, who, with the elder son, Charles, had
lately returned from France, and taken a house in London. Here the two
brothers for some time received private tuition from Mr. Lewis Kerr, an
Irish gentleman, who had formerly practised as a physician, but having,
by loss of health, been obliged to give up his profession, supported
himself by giving lessons in Latin and Mathematics. They attended also
the fencing and riding schools of Mr. Angelo, and received instructions
from their father in English grammar and oratory. Of this advantage,
however, it is probable, only the elder son availed himself, as Richard,
who seems to have been determined to owe all his excellence to nature
alone, was found as impracticable a pupil at home as at school. But,
however inattentive to his studies he may have been at Harrow, it
appears, from one of the letters of his school-fellow, Mr. Halhed, that
in poetry, which is usually the first exercise in which these young
athletae of intellect try their strength, he had already distinguished
himself; and, in conjunction with his friend Halhed, had translated the
seventh Idyl, and many of the lesser poems of Theocritus. This literary
partnership was resumed soon after their departure from Harrow. In the
year 1770, when Halhed was at Oxford, and Sheridan residing with his
father at Bath, they entered into a correspondence, (of which,
unluckily, only Halhed's share remains,) and, with all the hope and
spirit of young adventurers, began and prosecuted a variety of works
together, of which none but their translation of Aristaenetus ever saw
the light.
There is something in the alliance between these boys peculiarly
interesting. Their united ages, as Halhed boasts in one of his letters,
did not amount to thirty-eight. They were both abounding in wit and
spirits, and as sanguine as the consciousness of talent and youth could
make them; both inspired with a taste for pleasure, and thrown upon
their own resources for the means of gratifying it; both carelessly
embarking, without rivalry or reserve, their venture of fame in the same
bottom, and both, as Halhed discovered at last, passionately in love
with the same woman.
It would have given me great pleasure to have been enabled to enliven my
pages with even a few extracts from that portion of their
correspondence, which, as I have just mentioned, has fallen into my
hands. There is in the letters of Mr. Halhed a fresh youthfulness of
style, and an unaffected vivacity of thought, which I question whether
even his witty correspondent could have surpassed. As I do not, however,
feel authorized to lay these letters before the world, I must only avail
myself of the aid which their contents supply towards tracing the
progress of his literary partnership with Sheridan, and throwing light
on a period so full of interest in the life of the latter.
Their first joint production was a farce, or rather play, in three acts,
called "Jupiter," written in imitation of the burletta of Midas, whose
popularity seems to have tempted into its wake a number of these musical
parodies upon heathen fable. The amour of Jupiter with _Major_
Amphitryon's wife, and _Sir Richard_ Ixion's courtship of Juno, who
substitutes _Miss Peggy Nubilis_ in her place, form the subject of
this ludicrous little drama, of which Halhed furnished the burlesque
scenes,--while the form of a rehearsal, into which the whole is thrown,
and which, as an anticipation of "The Critic" is highly curious, was
suggested and managed entirely by Sheridan. The following extracts will
give some idea of the humor of this trifle; and in the character of
Simile the reader will at once discover a sort of dim and shadowy pre-
existence of Puff:--
"_Simile._ Sir, you are very ignorant on the subject,--it is the
method most in vogue.
"_O'Cul._ What! to make the music first, and then make the sense to
it afterwards!
"_Sim._ Just so.
"_Monop._ What Mr. Simile says is very true, gentlemen; and there
is nothing surprising in it, if we consider now the general method of
writing _plays to scenes._
"_O'Cul._ Writing _plays to scenes_!--Oh, you are joking.
"_Monop._ Not I, upon my word. Mr. Simile knows that I have
frequently a complete set of scenes from Italy, and then I have nothing
to do but to get some ingenious hand to write a play to them.
"_Sim._ I am your witness, Sir. Gentlemen, you perceive you know
nothing about these matters.
"_O'Cul._ Why, Mr. Simile, I don't pretend to know much relating to
these affairs, but what I think is this, that in this method, according
to your principles, you must often commit blunders.
"_Sim._ Blunders! to be sure I must, but I always could get myself
out of them again. Why, I'll tell you an instance of it.--You must know
I was once a journeyman sonnet-writer to Signor Squallini. Now, his
method, when seized with the _furor harmonicus_, was constantly to
make me sit by his side, while he was thrumming on his harpsichord, in
order to make extempore verses to whatever air he should beat out to his
liking. I remember, one morning, as he was in this situation, _thrum,
thrum, thrum, (moving his fingers as if beating on the harpsichord,)_
striking out something prodigiously great, as he thought,--'Hah!' said
he,--'hah! Mr. Simile, _thrum, thrum, thrum,_ by gar here is vary
fine,--_thrum, thrum, thrum_, write me some words directly.'--I
durst not interrupt him to ask on what subject, so instantly began to
describe a fine morning.
"'Calm was the land and calm the seas,
And calm the heaven's dome serene,
Hush'd was the gale and hush'd the breeze,
And not a vapor to be seen.'
I sang it to his notes,--'Hah! upon my vord vary pritt,--_thrum,
thrum, thrum,_--stay, stay,--_thrum, thrum,_--Hoa? upon my vord,
here it must be an adagio,--_thrum, thrum,_--oh! let it be an
_Ode to Melancholy.'_
"_Monop._ The Devil!--there you were puzzled sure.
"_Sim._ Not in the least,--I brought in a _cloud_ in the next
stanza, and matters, you see, came about at once.
"_Monop._ An excellent transition.
" _O'Cul._ Vastly ingenious indeed.
"_Sim._ Was it not? hey! it required a little command,--a little
presence of mind,--but I believe we had better proceed.
"_Monop._ The sooner the better,--come, gentlemen, resume your
seats.
"_Sim._ Now for it. Draw up the curtain, and _(looking at his
book)_ enter Sir Richard Ixion,--but stay,--zounds, Sir Richard ought
to overhear Jupiter and his wife quarrelling,--but, never mind,--these
accidents have spoilt the division of my piece.--So enter Sir Richard,
and look as cunning as if you had overheard them. Now for it,
gentlemen,--you can't be too attentive.
"_Enter_ Sir RICHARD IXION _completely dressed, with bag, sword,
&c._
"_Ix._
'Fore George, at logger-heads,--a lucky minute,
'Pon honor, I may make my market in it.
Dem it, my air, address, and mien must touch her,
Now out of sorts with him,--less God than butcher.
O rat the fellow,--where can all his sense lie,
To gallify the lady so immensely?
Ah! _le grand bete qu'il est!_--how rude the bear is!
The world to two-pence he was ne'er at _Paris_.
Perdition stop my vitals,--now or never
I'll niggle snugly into Juno's favor.
Let's see,--(_looking in a glass_) my face,--toll loll--
'twill work upon her.
My person--oh, immense, upon my honor.
My eyes,--oh fie.--the naughty glass it flatters,--
Courage,--Ixion flogs the world to tatters. [_Exit Ixion_.]
"_Sim._ There is a fine gentleman for you,--In the very pink of the
mode, with not a single article about him his own,--his words pilfered
from Magazines, his address from French valets, and his clothes not paid
for.
"_Macd._ But pray, Mr. Simile, how did Ixion get into heaven?
"_Sim._ Why, Sir, what's that to any body?--perhaps by Salmoneus's
Brazen Bridge, or the Giant's Mountain, or the Tower of Babel, or on
Theobald's bull-dogs, or--who the devil cares how?--he is there, and
that's enough."
* * * * *
"_Sim._ Now for a Phoenix of a song.
"_Song by_ JUPITER.
"You dogs, I'm Jupiter Imperial,
King, Emperor, and Pope aetherial,
Master of th' Ordnance of the sky.--
"_Sim._ Z----ds, where's the ordnance? Have you forgot the pistol?
(_to the Orchestra_.)
"_Orchestra._ (_to some one behind the scenes_.) Tom, are not
you prepared?
"_Tom._ (_from behind the scenes_.) Yes, Sir, but I flash'd in
the pan a little out of time, and had I staid to prime, I should have
shot a bar too late.
"_Sim._ Oh then, Jupiter, begin the song again.--We must not lose
our ordnance.
"You dogs, I'm Jupiter Imperial,
King, Emperor, and Pope aetherial,
Master of th' Ordnance of the sky; &c. &c.
[_Here a pistol or cracker is fired from behind the scenes_.]
"_Sim._ This hint I took from Handel.--Well, how do you think we go
on?
"_O'Cul._ With vast spirit,--the plot begins to thicken.
"_Sim._ Thicken! aye,--'twill be as thick as the calf of your leg
presently. Well, now for the real, original, patentee Amphitryon. What,
ho, Amphitryon! Amphitryon!--'tis Simile calls.--Why, where the devil is
he?
"_Enter_ SERVANT.
"_Monop._ Tom, where is Amphitryon?
"_Sim._ Zounds, he's not arrested too, is he?
"_Serv._ No, Sir, but there was but _one black eye_ in the
house, and he is waiting to get it from Jupiter.
"_Sim._ To get a black eye from Jupiter,--oh, this will never do.
Why, when they meet, they ought to match like two beef-eaters."
According to their original plan for the conclusion of this farce, all
things were at last to be compromised between Jupiter and Juno;
Amphitryon was to be comforted in the birth of so mighty a son; Ixion,
for his presumption, instead of being fixed to a _torturing_ wheel,
was to have been fixed to a vagrant monotroche, as knife-grinder, and a
grand chorus of deities (intermixed with "knives, scissors, pen-knives
to grind," set to music as nearly as possible to the natural cry,) would
have concluded the whole.
That habit of dilatoriness, which is too often attendant upon genius,
and which is for ever making it, like the pistol in the scene just
quoted, "shoot a bar too late," was, through life, remarkable in the
character of Mr. Sheridan,--and we have here an early instance of its
influence over him. Though it was in August, 1770, that he received the
sketch of this piece from his friend, and though they both looked
forward most sanguinely to its success, as likely to realize many a
dream of fame and profit, it was not till the month of May in the
subsequent year, as appears by a letter from Mr. Ker to Sheridan, that
the probability of the arrival of the manuscript was announced to Mr.
Foote. "I have dispatched a card, as from H. H., at Owen's Coffee-house,
to Mr. Foote, to inform him that he may expect to see your dramatic
piece about the 25th instant."
Their hopes and fears in this theatrical speculation are very naturally
and livelily expressed throughout Halhed's letters, sometimes with a
degree of humorous pathos, which is interesting as characteristic of
both the writers:--"the thoughts," he says, "of 200_l_. shared
between us are enough to bring the tears into one's eyes." Sometimes, he
sets more moderate limits to their ambition, and hopes that they will,
at least, get the freedom of the play-house by it. But at all times he
chides, with good-humored impatience, the tardiness of his fellow-
laborer in applying to the managers. Fears are expressed that Foote may
have made other engagements,--and that a piece, called "Dido," on the
same mythological plan, which had lately been produced with but little
success, might prove an obstacle to the reception of theirs. At Drury
Lane, too, they had little hopes of a favorable hearing, as Dibdin was
one of the principal butts of their ridicule.
The summer season, however, was suffered to pass away without an effort;
and in October, 1771, we find Mr. Halhed flattering himself with hopes
from a negotiation with Mr. Garrick. It does not appear, however, that
Sheridan ever actually presented this piece to any of the managers; and
indeed it is probable, from the following fragment of a scene found
among his papers, that he soon abandoned the groundwork of Halhed
altogether, and transferred his plan of a rehearsal to some other
subject, of his own invention, and, therefore, more worthy of his wit.
It will be perceived that the puffing author was here intended to be a
Scotchman.
"_M._ Sir, I have read your comedy, and I think it has infinite
merit, but, pray, don't you think it rather grave?
"_S._ Sir, you say true; it _is_ a grave comedy. I follow the
opinion of Longinus, who says comedy ought always to be sentimental.
Sir, I value a sentiment of six lines in my piece no more than a nabob
does a rupee. I hate those dirty, paltry equivocations, which go by the
name of puns, and pieces of wit. No, Sir, it ever was my opinion that
the stage should be a place of rational entertainment; instead of which,
I am very sorry to say, most people go there for their diversion:
accordingly, I have formed my comedy so that it is no laughing, giggling
piece of work. He must be a very light man that shall discompose his
muscles from the beginning to the end.
"_M._ But don't you think it may be too grave?
"_S._ O never fear; and as for hissing, mon, they might as well
hiss the common prayer-book; for there is the viciousness of vice and
the virtuousness of virtue in every third line.
"_M._ I confess there is a great deal of moral in it; but, Sir, I
should imagine if you tried your hand at tragedy--
"_S._ No, mon, there you are out, and I'll relate to you what put
me first on writing a comedy. You must know I had composed a very fine
tragedy about the valiant Bruce. I showed it my Laird of Mackintosh, and
he was a very candid mon, and he said my genius did not lie in tragedy:
I took the hint, and, as soon as I got home, began my comedy."
We have here some of the very thoughts and words that afterwards
contributed to the fortune of Puff; and it is amusing to observe how
long this subject was played with by the current of Sheridan's fancy,
till at last, like "a stone of lustre from the brook," it came forth
with all that smoothness and polish which it wears in his inimitable
farce, The Critic. Thus it is, too, and but little to the glory of what
are called our years of discretion, that the life of the _man_ is
chiefly employed in giving effect to the wishes and plans of the
_boy_.
Another of their projects was a Periodical Miscellany, the idea of which
originated with Sheridan, and whose first embryo movements we trace in a
letter to him from Mr. Lewis Kerr, who undertook, with much good nature,
the negotiation of the young author's literary concerns in London. The
letter is dated 30th of October, 1770: "As to your intended periodical
paper, if it meets with success, there is no doubt of profit accruing,
as I have already engaged a publisher, of established reputation, to
undertake it for the account of the authors. But I am to indemnify him
in case it should not sell, and to advance part of the first expense,
all which I can do without applying to Mr. Ewart."--"I would be glad to
know what stock of papers you have already written, as there ought to be
ten or a dozen at least finished before you print any, in order to have
time to prepare the subsequent numbers, and ensure a continuance of the
work. As to the coffee-houses, you must not depend on their taking it in
at first, except you go on the plan of the Tatler, and give the news of
the week. For the first two or three weeks the expense of advertising
will certainly prevent any profit being made. But when that is over, if
a thousand are sold weekly, you may reckon on receiving L5 clear. One
paper a week will do better than two. Pray say no more as to our
accounts."
The title intended by Sheridan for this paper was "Hernan's Miscellany,"
to which his friend Halhed objected, and suggested, "The Reformer," as a
newer and more significant name. But though Halhed appears to have
sought among his Oxford friends for an auxiliary or two in their weekly
labors, this meditated Miscellany never proceeded beyond the first
number, which was written by Sheridan, and which I have found among his
papers. It is too diffuse and pointless to be given entire; but an
extract or two from it will not be unwelcome to those who love to trace
even the first, feeblest beginnings of genius:
HERNAN'S MISCELLANY.
No. I.
"'I will sit down and write for the good of the people--for (said I to
myself, pulling off my spectacles, and drinking up the remainder of my
sixpen'worth) it cannot be but people must be sick of these same
rascally politics. All last winter nothing but--God defend me! 'tis
tiresome to think of it.' I immediately flung the pamphlet down on the
table, and taking my hat and cane walked out of the coffee-house.
"I kept up as smart a pace as I could all the way home, for I felt
myself full of something, and enjoyed my own thoughts so much, that I
was afraid of digesting them, lest any should escape me. At last I
knocked at my own door.--'So!' said I to the maid who opened it, (for I
never would keep a man; not, but what I could afford it--however, the
reason is not material now,) 'So!' said I with an unusual smile upon my
face, and immediately sent her for a quire of paper and half a hundred
of pens--the only thing I had absolutely determined on in my way from
the coffee-house. I had now got seated in my arm chair,--I am an infirm
old man, and I live on a second floor,--when I began to ruminate on my
project. The first thing that occurred to me (and certainly a very
natural one) was to examine my common-place book. So I went to my desk
and took out my old faithful red-leather companion, who had long
discharged the office of treasurer to all my best hints and memorandums:
but, how was I surprised, when one of the first things that struck my
eyes was the following memorandum, legibly written, and on one of my
best sheets of vellum:--'Mem.--_Oct. 20th, 1769, left the Grecian
after having read ----'s Poems, with a determined resolution to write a
Periodical Paper, in order to reform the vitiated taste of the age; but,
coming home and finding my fire out, and my maid gone abroad, was
obliged to defer the execution of my plan to another opportunity._'
Now though this event had absolutely slipped my memory, I now
recollected it perfectly,--ay, so my fire _was_ out indeed, and my
maid _did_ go abroad sure enough.--'Good Heavens!' said I, 'how
great events depend upon little circumstances!' However, I looked upon
this as a memento for me no longer to trifle away my time and
resolution; and thus I began to reason,--I mean, I _would_ have
reasoned, had I not been interrupted by a noise of some one coming up
stairs. By the alternate thump upon the steps, I soon discovered it must
be my old and intimate friend Rudliche.
* * * * *
"But, to return, in walked Rudliche.--'So, Fred.'--'So, Bob.'--'Were you
at the Grecian to-day?'--'I just stepped in.'--'Well, any news?'--'No,
no, there was no news.' Now, as Bob and I saw one another almost every
day, we seldom abounded in conversation; so, having settled one material
point, he sat in his usual posture, looking at the fire and beating the
dust out of his wooden leg, when I perceived he was going to touch upon
_the_ other subject; but, having by chance cast his eye on my face,
and finding (I suppose) something extraordinary in my countenance, he
immediately dropped all concern for the weather, and putting his hand
into his pocket, (as if he meant to find what he was going to say, under
pretence of feeling for his tobacco-box,) 'Hernan! (he began) why, man,
you look for all the world as if you had been thinking of something.'--
'Yes,' replied I, smiling, (that is, not actually smiling, but with a
conscious something in my face,) 'I have, indeed, been thinking a
little.'--'What, is't a secret?'--'Oh, nothing very material.' Here
ensued a pause, which I employed in considering whether I should reveal
my scheme to Bob; and Bob in trying to disengage his thumb from the
string of his cane, as if he were preparing to take his leave. This
latter action, with the great desire I had of disburdening myself, made
me instantly resolve to lay my whole plan before him. 'Bob,' said I, (he
immediately quitted his thumb,) 'you remarked that I looked as if I had
been thinking of something,--your remark is just, and I'll tell you the
subject of my thought. You know, Bob, that I always had a strong passion
for literature:--you have often seen my collection of books, not very
large indeed, however I believe I have read every volume of it twice
over, (excepting ----'_s Divine Legation of Moses_, and ----'_s
Lives of the most notorious Malefactors_,) and I am now determined to
profit by them.' I concluded with a very significant nod; but, good
heavens! how mortified was I to find both my speech and my nod thrown
away, when Rudliche calmly replied, with the true phlegm of ignorance,
'My dear friend, I think your resolution in regard to your books a very
prudent one; but I do not perfectly conceive your plan as to the
_profit_; for, though your volumes may be very curious, yet you
know they are most of them secondhand.'--I was so vexed with the
fellow's stupidity that I had a great mind to punish him by not
disclosing a syllable more. However, at last my vanity got the better of
my resentment, and I explained to him the whole matter.
* * * * *
"In examining the beginning of the Spectators, &c., I find they are all
written by a society.--Now I profess to write all myself, though I
acknowledge that, on account of a weakness in my eyes, I have got some
understrappers who are to write the poetry, &c.... In order to find the
different merits of these my subalterns, I stipulated with them that
they should let me feed them as I would. This they consented to do, and
it is surprising to think what different effects diet has on the
writers. The same, who after having been fed two days upon artichokes
produced as pretty a copy of verses as ever I saw, on beef was as dull
as ditch-water...."
"It is a characteristic of fools," says some one, "to be always
beginning,"--and this is not the only point in which folly and genius
resemble each other. So chillingly indeed do the difficulties of
execution succeed to the first ardor of conception, that it is only
wonderful there should exist so many finished monuments of genius, or
that men of fancy should not oftener have contented themselves with
those first vague sketches, in the production of which the chief luxury
of intellectual creation lies. Among the many literary works shadowed
out by Sheridan at this time were a Collection of Occasional Poems, and
a volume of Crazy Tales, to the former of which Halhed suggests that
"the old things they did at Harrow out of Theocritus" might, with a
little pruning, form a useful contribution. The loss of the volume of
Crazy Tales is little to be regretted, as from its title we may conclude
it was written in imitation of the clever but licentious productions of
John Hall Stephenson. If the same kind oblivion had closed over the
levities of other young authors, who, in the season of folly and the
passions, have made their pages the transcript of their lives, it would
have been equally fortunate for themselves and the world.
But whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the
translation of Aristaenetus, as I have already stated, was the only
fruit of their literary alliance that ever arrived at sufficient
maturity for publication. In November, 1770, Halhed had completed and
forwarded to Bath his share of the work, and in the following month we
find Sheridan preparing, with the assistance of a Greek grammar, to
complete the task. "The 29th ult., (says Mr. Ker, in a letter to him
from London, dated Dec. 4, 1770,) I was favored with yours, and have
since been hunting for Aristaenetus, whom I found this day, and
therefore send to you, together with a Greek grammar. I might have
dispatched at the same time some numbers of the Dictionary, but not
having got the last two numbers, was not willing to send any without the
whole of what is published, and still less willing to delay
Aristaenetus's journey by waiting for them." The work alluded to here is
the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, to which Sheridan had subscribed,
with the view, no doubt, of informing himself upon subjects of which he
was as yet wholly ignorant, having left school, like most other young
men at his age, as little furnished with the knowledge that is wanted in
the world, as a person would be for the demands of a market, who went
into it with nothing but a few ancient coins in his pocket.
The passion, however, that now began to take possession of his heart was
little favorable to his advancement in any serious studies, and it may
easily be imagined that, in the neighborhood of Miss Linley, the Arts
and Sciences were suffered to sleep quietly on their shelves. Even the
translation of Aristaenetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory
nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but
slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters, that this impatient
ally was already counting upon the _spolia opima_ of the campaign,
before Sheridan had fairly brought his Greek grammar into the field. The
great object of the former was a visit to Bath, and he had set his heart
still more anxiously upon it, after a second meeting with Miss Linley at
Oxford. But the profits expected from their literary undertakings were
the only means to which he looked for the realizing of this dream; and
he accordingly implores his friend, with the most comic piteousness, to
drive the farce on the stage by main force, and to make Aristaenetus
sell whether he will or not. In the November of this year we find them
discussing the propriety of prefixing their names to the work--Sheridan
evidently not disinclined to venture, but Halhed recommending that they
should wait to hear how "Sumner and the wise few of their acquaintance"
would talk of the book, before they risked anything more than their
initials. In answer to Sheridan's inquiries as to the extent of sale
they may expect in Oxford, he confesses that, after three coffee-houses
had bought one a-piece, not two more would be sold.
That poverty is the best nurse of talent has long been a most
humiliating truism; and the fountain of the Muses, bursting from a
barren rock, is but too apt an emblem of the hard source from which much
of the genius of this world has issued. How strongly the young
translators of Aristaenetus were under the influence of this sort of
inspiration appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters, and might
easily, indeed, be concluded of Sheridan, from the very limited
circumstances of his father, who had nothing besides the pension of L200
a year, conferred upon him in consideration of his literary merits, and
the little profits he derived from his lectures in Bath, to support with
decency himself and his family. The prospects of Halhed were much more
golden, but he was far too gay and mercurial to be prudent; and from the
very scanty supplies which his father allowed him, had quite as little
of "le superflu, chose si necessaire," as his friend. But whatever were
his other desires and pursuits, a visit to Bath,--to that place which
contained the two persons he most valued in friendship and in love,--was
the grand object of all his financial speculations; and among other ways
and means that, in the delay of the expected resources from
Aristaenetus, presented themselves, was an exhibition of L20 a year,
which the college had lately given him, and with five pounds of which he
thought he might venture "adire Corinthum."
Though Sheridan had informed his friend that the translation was put to
press some time in March, 1771, it does not appear to have been given
into the hands of Wilkie, the publisher, till the beginning of May, when
Mr. Ker writes thus to Bath: "Your Aristaenetus is in the hands of Mr.
Wilkie, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and to put you out of suspense at
once, will certainly make his appearance about the first of June next,
in the form of a neat volume, price 3s or 3s 6d, as may best suit his
size, &c., which cannot be more nearly determined at present, I have
undertaken the task of correcting for the press.... Some of the Epistles
that I have perused seem to me elegant and poetical; in others I could
not observe equal beauty, and here and there I could wish there was some
little amendment. You will pardon this liberty I take, and set it down
to the account of old-fashioned friendship." Mr. Ker, to judge from his
letters, (which, in addition to their other laudable points, are dated
with a precision truly exemplary,) was a very kind, useful, and sensible
person, and in the sober hue of his intellect exhibited a striking
contrast to the sparkling vivacity of the two sanguine and impatient
young wits, whose affairs he so good naturedly undertook to negotiate.
At length in August, 1771, Aristaenetus made its appearance--contrary
to the advice of the bookseller, and of Mr. Ker, who represented to
Sheridan the unpropitiousness of the season, particularly for a first
experiment in authorship, and advised the postponement of the
publication till October. But the translators were too eager for the
rich harvest of emolument they had promised themselves, and too full of
that pleasing but often fatal delusion--that calenture, under the
influence of which young voyagers to the shores of Fame imagine they
already see her green fields and groves in the treacherous waves around
them--to listen to the suggestions of mere calculating men of business.
The first account they heard of the reception of the work was flattering
enough to prolong awhile this dream of vanity. "It begins (writes Mr.
Ker, in about a fortnight after the publication,) to make some noise,
and is fathered on Mr. Johnson, author of the English Dictionary, &c.
See to-day's Gazetteer. The critics are admirable in discovering a
concealed author by his style, manner, &c."
Their disappointment at the ultimate failure of the book was
proportioned, we may suppose, to the sanguineness of their first
expectations. But the reluctance with which an author yields to the sad
certainty of being unread, is apparent in the eagerness with which
Halhed avails himself of every encouragement for a rally of his hopes.
The Critical Reviewers, it seems, had given the work a tolerable
character, and quoted the first Epistle. [Footnote: In one of the
Reviews I have seen it thus spoken of:--"No such writer as Aristaenetus
ever existed in the classic era; nor did even the unhappy schools, after
the destruction of the Eastern empire, produce such a writer. It was
left to the latter times of monkish imposition to give such trash as
this, on which the translator has ill spent his time. We have been as
idly employed in reading it, and our readers will in proportion lose
their time in perusing this article."] The Weekly Review in the Public
Ledger had also spoken well of it, and cited a specimen. The Oxford
Magazine had transcribed two whole Epistles, without mentioning from
whence they were taken. Every body, he says, seemed to have read the
book, and one of those _hawking booksellers_ who attend the
coffeehouses assured him it was written by Dr. Armstrong, author of the
Oeconomy of Love. On the strength of all this he recommends that another
volume of the Epistles should be published immediately--being of opinion
that the readers of the first volume would be sure to purchase the
second, and that the publication of the second would put it in the heads
of others to buy the first. Under a sentence containing one of these
sanguine anticipations, there is written, in Sheridan's hand, the word
"Quixote!"
They were never, of course, called upon for the second part, and,
whether we consider the merits of the original or of the translation,
the world has but little to regret in the loss. Aristaenetus is one of
those weak, florid sophists, who flourished in the decline and
degradation of ancient literature, and strewed their gaudy flowers of
rhetoric over the dead muse of Greece. He is evidently of a much later
period than Alciphron, to whom he is also very inferior in purity of
diction, variety of subject, and playfulness of irony. But neither of
them ever deserved to be wakened from that sleep, in which the
commentaries of Bergler, De Pauw, and a few more such industrious
scholars have shrouded them.
The translators of Aristaenetus, in rendering his flowery prose into
verse, might have found a precedent and model for their task in Ben
Jonson, whose popular song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," is, as
Mr. Cumberland first remarked, but a piece of fanciful mosaic, collected
out of the love-letters of the sophist Philostratus. But many of the
narrations in Aristaenetus are incapable of being elevated into poetry;
and, unluckily, these familiar parts seem chiefly to have fallen to the
department of Halhed, who was far less gifted than his coadjutor with
that artist-like touch, which polishes away the mark of vulgarity, and
gives an air of elegance even to poverty. As the volume is not in many
hands, the following extract from one of the Epistles may be acceptable
--as well from the singularity of the scene described, as from the
specimen it affords of the merits of the translation:
"Listen--another pleasure I display,
That help'd delightfully the time away.
From distant vales, where bubbles from its source
A crystal rill, they dug a winding course:
See! thro' the grove a narrow lake extends,
Crosses each plot, to each plantation bends;
And while the fount in new meanders glides,
The forest brightens with refreshing tides.
Tow'rds us they taught the new-born stream to flow,
Tow'rds us it crept, irresolute and slow;
Scarce had the infant current crickled by,
When lo! a wondrous fleet attracts our eye;
Laden with draughts might greet a monarch's tongue,
The mimic navigation swam along.
Hasten, ye ship-like goblets, down the vale,
[Footnote: "In the original, this luxurious image is pursued so far
that the very leaf which is represented as the sail of the vessel, is
particularized as of a medicinal nature, capable of preventing any
ill effects the wine might produce."--_Note by the Translator.]
Your freight a flagon, and a leaf your sail;
O may no envious rush thy course impede,
Or floating apple stop thy tide-born speed.
His mildest breath a gentle zephyr gave;
The little vessels trimly stem'd the wave:
Their precious merchandise to land they bore,
And one by one resigned the balmy store.
Stretch but a hand, we boarded them, and quaft
With native luxury the tempered draught.
For where they loaded the nectareous fleet,
The goblet glow'd with too intense a heat;
Cool'd by degrees in these convivial ships,
With nicest taste it met our thirsty lips."
As a scholar, such as Halhed, could hardly have been led into the
mistake, of supposing [Greek: pa Medika phuxa phullon] to mean "a leaf
of a medicinal nature," we may, perhaps, from this circumstance not less
than from the superior workmanship of the verses, attribute the whole of
this Epistle and notes to Sheridan.
There is another Epistle, the 12th, as evidently from the pen of his
friend, the greater part of which is original, and shows, by its
raciness and vigor, what difference there is between "the first
sprightly runnings" of an author's own mind, and his cold, vapid
transfusion of the thoughts of another. From stanza 10th to the end is
all added by the translator, and all spirited--though full of a bold
defying libertinism, as unlike as possible to the effeminate lubricity
of the poor sophist, upon whom, in a grave, treacherous note, the
responsibility of the whole is laid. But by far the most interesting
part of the volume is the last Epistle of the book, "From a Lover
resigning his Mistress to his Friend,"--in which Halhed has contrived to
extract from the unmeaningness of the original a direct allusion to his
own fate; and, forgetting Aristaenetus and his dull personages, thinks
only of himself, and Sheridan, and Miss Linley.
"Thee, then, my friend,--if yet a wretch may claim
A last attention by that once dear name,--
Thee I address:--the cause you must approve;
I yield you--what I cannot cease to love.
Be thine the blissful lot, the nymph be thine:
I yield my love,--sure, friendship may be mine.
Yet must no thought of me torment thy breast;
Forget me, if my griefs disturb thy rest,
Whilst still I'll pray that thou may'st never know
The pangs of baffled love, or feel my woe.
But sure to thee, dear, charming--fatal maid!
(For me thou'st charmed, and me thou hast betray'd,)
This last request I need not recommend--
Forget the lover thou, as he the friend.
Bootless such charge! for ne'er did pity move
A heart that mock'd the suit of humble love.
Yet, in some thoughtful hour--if such can be,
Where love, Timocrates, is join'd with thee--
In some lone pause of joy, when pleasures pall,
And fancy broods o'er joys it can't recall,
Haply a thought of me, (for thou, my friend,
May'st then have taught that stubborn heart to bend,)
A thought of him whose passion was not weak,
May dash one transient blush upon her cheek;
Haply a tear--(for I shall surely then
Be past all power to raise her scorn again--)
Haply, I say, one self-dried tear may fall:--
One tear she'll give, for whom I yielded all!
* * * * *
* * * * *
My life has lost its aim!--that fatal fair
Was all its object, all its hope or care:
She was the goal, to which my course was bent,
Where every wish, where every thought was sent;
A secret influence darted from her eyes,--
Each look, attraction, and herself the prize.
Concentred there, I liv'd for her alone;
To make her glad and to be blest was one.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Adieu, my friend,--nor blame this _sad_ adieu,
Though sorrow guides my pen, it blames not you.
Forget me--'tis my pray'r; nor seek to know
The fate of him whose portion must be woe,
Till the cold earth outstretch her friendly arms,
And Death convince me that he _can_ have charms."
But Halhed's was not the only heart that sighed deeply and hopelessly
for the young Maid of Bath, who appears, indeed, to have spread her
gentle conquests to an extent almost unparalleled in the annals of
beauty. Her personal charms, the exquisiteness of her musical talents,
and the full light of publicity which her profession threw upon both,
naturally attracted round her a crowd of admirers, in whom the sympathy
of a common pursuit soon kindled into rivalry, till she became at length
an object of vanity as well as of love. Her extreme youth, too,--for she
was little more than sixteen when Sheridan first met her,--must have
removed, even from minds the most fastidious and delicate, that
repugnance they might justly have felt to her profession, if she had
lived much longer under its tarnishing influence, or lost, by frequent
exhibitions before the public, that fine gloss of feminine modesty, for
whose absence not all the talents and accomplishments of the whole sex
can atone.
She had been, even at this early age, on the point of marriage with Mr.
Long, an old gentleman of considerable fortune in Wiltshire, who proved
the reality of his attachment to her in a way which few young lovers
would be romantic enough to imitate. On her secretly representing to him
that she never could be happy as his wife, he generously took upon
himself the whole blame of breaking off the alliance, and even
indemnified the father, who was proceeding to bring the transaction into
court, by settling L3000 upon his daughter. Mr. Sheridan, who owed to
this liberal conduct not only the possession of the woman he loved, but
the means of supporting her during the first years of their marriage,
spoke invariably of Mr. Long, who lived to a very advanced age, with all
the kindness and respect which such a disinterested character merited.
It was about the middle of the year 1770 that the Sheridans took up
their residence in King's Mead [Footnote: They also lived, during a part
of their stay at Bath, in New King Street.] Street, Bath, where an
acquaintance commenced between them and Mr. Linley's family, which the
kindred tastes of the young people soon ripened into intimacy. It was
not to be expected,--though parents, in general, are as blind to the
first approach of these dangers as they are rigid and unreasonable after
they have happened,--that such youthful poets and musicians [Footnote:
Dr. Burney, in his Biographical Sketch of Mr. Linley, written for Rees'
Cyclopaedia, calls the Linley family "a nest of nightingales." The only
surviving member of this accomplished family is Mr. William Linley,
whose taste and talent, both in poetry and music, most worthily sustain
the reputation of the name that he bears.]--should come together without
Love very soon making one of the party. Accordingly the two brothers
became deeply enamored of Miss Linley. Her heart, however, was not so
wholly un-preoccupied as to yield at once to the passion which her
destiny had in store for her. One of those transient preferences, which
in early youth are mistaken for love, had already taken lively
possession of her imagination; and to this the following lines, written
at that time by Mr. Sheridan, allude:
TO THE RECORDING ANGEL.
Cherub of Heaven, that from my secret stand
Dost note the follies of each mortal here,
Oh, if Eliza's steps employ thy hand,
Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear.
Nor when she errs, through passion's wild extreme,
Mark then her course, nor heed each trifling wrong;
Nor, when her sad attachment is her theme,
Note down the transports of her erring tongue.
But, when she sighs for sorrows not her own,
Let that dear sigh to Mercy's cause be given;
And bear that tear to her Creator's throne,
Which glistens in the eye upraised to Heaven!
But in love, as in everything else, the power of a mind like Sheridan's
must have made itself felt through all obstacles and difficulties. He
was not long in winning the entire affections of the young "Syren,"
though the number and wealth of his rivals, the ambitious views of her
father, and the temptations to which she herself was hourly exposed,
kept his jealousies and fears perpetually on the watch. He is supposed,
indeed, to have been indebted to self-observation for that portrait of a
wayward and morbidly sensitive lover, which he has drawn so strikingly
in the character of Falkland.
With a mind in this state of feverish wakefulness, it is remarkable that
he should so long have succeeded in concealing his attachment from the
eyes of those most interested in discovering it. Even his brother
Charles was for some time wholly unaware of their rivalry, and went on
securely indulging in a passion which it was hardly possible, with such
opportunities of intercourse, to resist, and which survived long after
Miss Linley's selection of another had extinguished every hope in his
heart, but that of seeing her happy. Halhed, too, who at that period
corresponded constantly with Sheridan, and confided to him the love with
which he also had been inspired by this enchantress, was for a length of
time left in the same darkness upon the subject, and without the
slightest suspicion that the epidemic had reached his friend, whose only
mode of evading the many tender inquiries and messages with which
Halhed's letters abounded, was by referring to answers which had by some
strange fatality miscarried, and which, we may conclude, without much
uncharitableness, had never been written.
Miss Linley went frequently to Oxford, to perform at the oratorios and
concerts; and it may easily be imagined that the ancient allegory of the
Muses throwing chains over Cupid was here reversed, and the quiet shades
of learning not a little disturbed by the splendor of these "angel
visits." The letters of Halhed give a lively idea, not only of his own
intoxication, but of the sort of contagious delirium, like that at
Abdera described by Lucian, with which the young men of Oxford were
affected by this beautiful girl. In describing her singing he quotes
part of a Latin letter which he himself had written to a friend upon
first hearing her; and it is a curious proof of the readiness of
Sheridan, notwithstanding his own fertility, to avail himself of the
thoughts of others, that we find in this extract, word for word, the
same extravagant comparison of the effects of music to the process of
Egyptian embalmment--"extracting the brain through the ears"--which was
afterwards transplanted into the dialogue of the Duenna: "_Mortuum
quondam ante aegypti medici quam pollincirent cerebella de auribus unco
quodam hamo solebant extrahere; sic de meis auribus non cerebrum, sed
cor ipsum exhausit lusciniola, &c., &c._" He mentions, as the rivals
most dreaded by her admirers, Norris, the singer, whose musical talents,
it was thought, recommended him to her, and Mr. Watts, a gentleman
commoner, of very large fortune.
While all hearts and tongues were thus occupied about Miss Linley, it is
not wonderful that rumors of matrimony and elopement should, from time
to time, circulate among her apprehensive admirers; or that the usual
ill-compliment should be paid to her sex of supposing that wealth must
be the winner of the prize. It was at one moment currently reported at
Oxford that she had gone off to Scotland with a young man of L3,000 a
year, and the panic which the intelligence spread is described in one of
these letters to Sheridan, (who, no doubt, shared in it) as producing
"long faces" everywhere. Not only, indeed, among her numerous lovers,
but among all who delighted in her public performances, an alarm would
naturally be felt at the prospect of her becoming private property:
"_Te juga Taygeti, posito te Maenala flebunt
Venatu, maestoque diu lugebere Cyntho.
Delphica quinetiam fratris delubra tacebunt._"
[Footnote: Claudian. De Rapt. Proserp. Lib. ii. v. 244.]
Thee, thee, when hurried from our eyes away,
Laconia's hills shall mourn for many a day--
The Arcadian hunter shall forget his chase,
And turn aside to think upon that face;
While many an hour Apollo's songless shrine
Shall wait in silence for a voice like thine!
But to the honor of her sex, which is, in general, more disinterested
than the other, it was found that neither rank nor wealth had influenced
her heart in its election; and Halhed, who, like others, had estimated
the strength of his rivals by their rent-rolls, discovered at last that
his unpretending friend, Sheridan, (whose advances in courtship and in
knowledge seem to have been equally noiseless and triumphant,) was the
chosen favorite of her, at whose feet so many fortunes lay. Like that
Saint, Cecilia, by whose name she was always called, she had long
welcomed to her soul a secret visitant, [Footnote: "The youth, found in
her chamber, had in his hand two crowns or wreaths, the one of lilies,
the other of roses, which he had brought from Paradise."--_Legend of
St. Cecilia_.] whose gifts were of a higher and more radiant kind
than the mere wealthy and lordly of this world can proffer. A letter,
written by Halhed on the prospect of his departure for India, [Footnote:
The letter is evidently in answer to one which he had just received from
Sheridan, in which Miss Linley had written a few words expressive of her
wishes for his health and happiness. Mr. Halhed sailed for India about
the latter end of this year.] alludes so delicately to this discovery,
and describes the state of his own heart so mournfully, that I must
again, in parting with him and his correspondence, express the strong
regret that I feel at not being able to indulge the reader with a
perusal of these letters. Not only as a record of the first short
flights of Sheridan's genius, but as a picture, from the life, of the
various feelings of youth, its desires and fears, its feverish hopes and
fanciful melancholy, they could not have failed to be read with the
deepest interest.
To this period of Mr. Sheridan's life we are indebted for most of those
elegant love-verses, which are so well known and so often quoted. The
lines "Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone," were addressed to
Miss Linley, after having offended her by one of those lectures upon
decorum of conduct, which jealous lovers so frequently inflict upon
their mistresses,--and the grotto, immortalized by their quarrel, is
supposed to have been in Spring Gardens, then the fashionable place of
resort in Bath.
I have elsewhere remarked that the conceit in the following stanza
resembles a thought in some verses of Angerianus:--
And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may'st preserve
Two lingering drops of the night-fallen dew,
Let them fall on her bosom of snow, and they'll serve
As tears of my sorrow entrusted to you.
_At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor
Dicite non roris sed pluvia haec lacrimae._
Whether Sheridan was likely to have been a reader of Angerianus is, I
think, doubtful--at all events the coincidence is curious.
"Dry be that tear, my gentlest love," is supposed to have been written
at a later period; but it was most probably produced at the time of his
courtship, for he wrote but few love verses after his marriage--like the
nightingale (as a French editor of Bonefonius says, in remarking a
similar circumstance of that poet) "qui developpe le charme de sa voix
tant qu'il vent plaire a sa compagne--sont-ils unis? il se tait, il n'a
plus le besoin de lui plaire." This song having been hitherto printed
incorrectly, I shall give it here, as it is in the copies preserved by
his relations.
Dry be that tear, my gentlest love,
Be hush'd that struggling sigh,
Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove
More fix'd, more true than I.
Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear,
Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear.--
Dry be that tear.
Ask'st thou how long my love will stay,
When all that's new is past;--
How long, ah Delia, can I say
How long my life will last?
Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh,
At least I'll love thee till I die.--
Hush'd be that sigh.
And does that thought affect thee too,
The thought of Sylvio's death,
That he who only breathed for you,
Must yield that faithful breath?
Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear,
Nor let us lose our Heaven here.--
Dry be that tear.
[Footnote: An Elegy by Halhed, transcribed in one of his letters to
Sheridan, begins thus:
"Dry be that tear, be hush'd that struggling sigh."]
There is in the second stanza here a close resemblance to one of the
madrigals of Montreuil, a French poet, to whom Sir J. Moore was indebted
for the point of his well known verses, "If in that breast, so good, so
pure." [Footnote:
The grief that on my quiet preys,
That rends my heart and checks my tongue,
I fear will last me all my days,
And feel it will not last me long.
It is thus in Montreuil:
C'est un mal que j'aurai tout le terns de ma vie
Mais je ne l'aurai pas long-tems.]
Mr. Sheridan, however, knew nothing of French, and neglected every
opportunity of learning it, till, by a very natural process, his
ignorance of the language grew into hatred of it. Besides, we have the
immediate source from which he derived the thought of this stanza, in
one of the essays of Hume, who, being a reader of foreign literature,
most probably found it in Montreuil. [Footnote: Or in an Italian song of
Menage, from which Montreuil, who was accustomed to such thefts, most
probably stole it. The point in the Italian is, as far as I can remember
it, expressed thus:
In van, o Filli, tu chiedi
Se lungamente durera Pardore
* * * * *
Chi lo potrebbe dire?
Incerta, o Filli, e l'ora del morire.]
The passage in Hume (which Sheridan has done little more than versify)
is as follows:--"Why so often ask me, _How long my love shall yet
endure?_ Alas, my Caelia, can I resolve the question? _Do I know
how long my life shall yet endure?"_ [Footnote: The Epicurean]
The pretty lines, "Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue?" were written not
upon Miss Linley, as has been generally stated, but upon Lady Margaret
Fordyce, and form part of a poem which he published in 1771, descriptive
of the principal beauties of Bath, entitled "Clio's Protest, or the
Picture varnished,"--being an answer to some verses by Mr. Miles Peter
Andrews, called "The Bath Picture," in which Lady Margaret was thus
introduced:
"Remark too the dimpling, sweet smile
Lady Marg'ret's fine countenance wears."
The following is the passage in Mr. Sheridan's poem, entire; and the
beauty of the six favorite lines shines out so conspicuously, that we
cannot wonder at their having been so soon detached, like ill-set jems,
from the loose and clumsy workmanship around them.
"But, hark!--did not our bard repeat
The love-born name of M-rg-r-t?--
Attention seizes every ear;
"We pant for the description _here_:
If ever dulness left thy brow,
'_Pindar,_' we say, ''twill leave thee now.'
But O! old Dulness' son anointed
His mother never disappointed!--
And here we all were left to seek
A dimple in F-rd-ce's cheek!
"And could you really discover,
In gazing those sweet beauties over,
No other charm, no winning grace,
Adorning either mind or face,
But one poor _dimple_ to express
The _quintessence_ of _loveliness_?
....Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue?
Mark'd you her eye of sparkling blue?
That eye in liquid circles moving;
That cheek abash'd at Man's approving;
The _one_, Love's arrows darting round;
The _other_, blushing at the wound:
Did she not speak, did she not move,
Now _Pallas_--now the Queen of Love!"
There is little else in this poem worth being extracted, though it
consists of about four hundred lines; except, perhaps, his picture of a
good country housewife, which affords an early specimen of that neat
pointedness of phrase, which gave his humor, both poetic and dramatic,
such a peculiar edge and polish:--
"We see the Dame, in rustic pride,
A bunch of keys to grace her side,
Stalking across the well-swept entry,
To hold her council in the pantry;
Or, with prophetic soul, foretelling
The peas will boil well by the shelling;
Or, bustling in her private closet,
Prepare her lord his morning posset;
And, while the hallowed mixture thickens,
Signing death-warrants for the chickens:
Else, greatly pensive, poring o'er
Accounts her cook had thumbed before;
One eye cast up upon that _great book_,
Yclep'd _The Family Receipt Book_;
By which she's ruled in all her courses,
From stewing figs to drenching horses.
--Then pans and pickling skillets rise,
In dreadful lustre, to our eyes,
With store of sweetmeats, rang'd in order,
And _potted nothings_ on the border;
While salves and caudle-cups between,
With squalling children, close the scene."
We find here, too, the source of one of those familiar lines, which so
many quote without knowing whence they come;--one of those stray
fragments, whose parentage is doubtful, but to which (as the law says of
illegitimate children) "_pater est populus_."
"You write with ease, to show your breeding,
_But easy writing's curst hard reading_."
In the following passage, with more of the tact of a man of the world
than the ardor of a poet, he dismisses the object nearest his heart with
the mere passing gallantry of a compliment:--
"O! should your genius ever rise,
And make you _Laureate_ in the skies,
I'd hold my life, in twenty years,
You'd spoil the _music_ of the _spheres_.
--Nay, should the rapture-breathing Nine
In one celestial concert join,
Their sovereign's power to rehearse,
--Were you to furnish them with verse,
By Jove, I'd fly the heavenly throng,
Though _Phoebus_ play'd and _Linley_ sung."
On the opening of the New Assembly Rooms at Bath, which commenced with a
ridotto, Sept. 30, 1771, he wrote a humorous description of the
entertainment, called "An Epistle from Timothy Screw to his Brother
Henry, Waiter at Almack's," which appeared first in the Bath Chronicle,
and was so eagerly sought after, that Crutwell, the editor, was induced
to publish it in a separate form. The allusions in this trifle have, of
course, lost their zest by time; and a specimen or two of its humor will
be all that is necessary here.
"Two rooms were first opened--the _long_ and the _round_ one,
(These _Hogstyegon_ names only serve to confound one,)
Both splendidly lit with the new chandeliers,
With drops hanging down like the bobs at Peg's ears:
While jewels of _paste_ reflected the rays,
And _Bristol-stone_ diamonds gave strength to the blaze:
So that it was doubtful, to view the bright clusters,
Which sent the most light out, the ear-rings or lustres.
* * * *
Nor less among you was the medley, ye fair!
I believe there were some besides quality there:
Miss _Spiggot_, Miss _Brussels_, Miss _Tape_, and Miss
_Socket_,
Miss _Trinket_, and aunt, with her leathern pocket,
With good Mrs. _Soaker_, who made her old chin go,
For hours, hobnobbing with Mrs. _Syringo_:
Had Tib staid at home, I b'lieve none would have miss'd her,
Or pretty _Peg Runt_, with her tight little sister," &c. &c.