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Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 01

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Title: Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 01

Author: Thomas Moore


        
Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6741]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF THE RT. HON. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN — VOLUME 01 ***




Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




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.




CHAPTER II.

DUELS WITH MR. MATHEWS.--MARRIAGE WITH MISS LINLEY.


Towards the close of the year 1771, the elder Mr. Sheridan went to
Dublin, to perform at the theatre of that city,--leaving his young and
lively family at Bath, with nothing but their hearts and imaginations to
direct them.

The following letters, which passed between him and his son Richard
during his absence, though possessing little other interest than that of
having been written at such a period, will not, perhaps, be unwelcome to
the reader:--

"Dublin, Dec. 7th, 1771.

"MY DEAR RICHARD,

"How could you be so wrong-headed as to commence cold bathing at such a
season of the year, and I suppose without any preparation too? You have
paid sufficiently for your folly, but I hope the ill effects of it have
been long since over. You and your brother are fond of quacking, a most
dangerous disposition with regard to health. Let slight things pass away
themselves; in a case that requires assistance do nothing without
advice. Mr. Crook is a very able man in his way. Should a physician be
at any time wanting, apply to Dr. Nesbitt, and tell him at leaving Bath
I recommended you all to his care. This indeed I intended to have
mentioned to him, but it slipped my memory. I forgot Mr. Crook's bill,
too, but desire I may have the amount by the next letter. Pray what is
the meaning of my hearing so seldom from Bath? Six weeks here, and but
two letters! You were very tardy; what are your sisters about? I shall
not easily forgive any future omissions. I suppose Charles received my
answer to his, and the 20_l_ from Whately. I shall order another to
be sent at Christmas for the rent and other necessaries. I have not time
at present to enter upon the subject of English authors, &c. but shall
write to you upon that head when I get a little leisure. Nothing can be
conceived in a more deplorable state than the stage of Dublin. I found
two miserable companies opposing and starving each other. I chose the
least bad of them; and, wretched as they are, it has had no effect on my
nights, numbers having been turned away every time I played, and the
receipts have been larger than when I had Barry, his wife, and Mrs.
Fitz-Henry to play with me. However, I shall not be able to continue it
long, as there is no possibility of getting up a sufficient number of
plays with such poor materials. I purpose to have done the week after
next, and apply vigorously to the material point which brought me over.
I find all ranks and parties very zealous for forwarding my scheme, and
have reason to believe it will be carried in parliament after the
recess, without opposition. It was in vain to have attempted it before,
for never was party violence [Footnote: The money-bill, brought forward
this year under Lord Townsend's administration, encountered violent
opposition, and was finally rejected.] carried to such a height as in
this sessions; the House seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at
night. From these contests, the desire of improving in the article of
elocution is become very general. There are no less than five persons of
rank and fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils. Remember me
to all friends, particularly to our good landlord and landlady. I am,
with love and blessing to you all,

"Your affectionate father,

"THOMAS SHERIDAN.

"P. S.--Tell your sisters I shall send the poplins as soon as I can get
an opportunity."

"DEAR FATHER,

"We have been for some time in hopes of receiving a letter, that we
might know that you had acquitted us of neglect in writing. At the same
time we imagine that the time is not far when writing will be
unnecessary; and we cannot help wishing to know the posture of the
affairs, which, as you have not talked of returning, seem probable to
detain you longer than you intended. I am perpetually asked when Mr.
Sheridan is to have his patent for the theatre, which all the Irish here
take for granted, and I often receive a great deal of information from
them on the subject. Yet I cannot help being vexed when I see in the
Dublin papers such bustling accounts of the proceedings of your House of
Commons, as I remember it was your argument against attempting any thing
from parliamentary authority in England. However, the folks here regret
you, as one that is to be fixed in another kingdom, and will scarcely
believe that you will ever visit Bath at all; and we are often asked if
we have not received the letter which is to call us over.

"I could scarcely have conceived that the winter was so near departing,
were I not now writing after dinner by daylight. Indeed the first
winter-season is not yet over at Bath. They have balls, concerts, &c. at
the rooms, from the old subscription still, and the spring ones are
immediately to succeed them. They are likewise going to perform
oratorios here. Mr. Linley and his whole family, down to the seven year
olds, are to support one set at the new rooms, and a band of singers
from London another at the old. Our weather here, or the effects of it,
have been so uninviting to all kinds of birds, that there has not been
the smallest excuse to take a gun into the fields this winter;--a point
more to the regret of Charles than myself.

"We are all now in dolefuls for the Princess Dowager; but as there was
no necessity for our being dressed or weeping mourners, we were easily
provided. Our acquaintances stand pretty much the same as when you left
us,--only that I think in general we are less intimate, by which I
believe you will not think us great losers. Indeed, excepting Mr.
Wyndham, I have not met with one person with whom I would wish to be
intimate; though there was a Mr. Lutterel, (brother to the Colonel,)--
who was some months ago introduced to me by an old Harrow acquaintance,
--who made me many professions at parting, and wanted me vastly to name
some way in which he could be useful to me; but the relying on
_acquaintances_, or _seeking_ of friendships, is a fault which
I think I shall always have prudence to avoid.

"Lissy begins to be tormented again with the tooth-ache;--otherwise, we
are all well.

"I am, Sir, your sincerely dutiful and affectionate son,

"Friday, Feb. 29.

"R. B. SHERIDAN.

"I beg you will not judge of my attention to the improvement of my hand-
writing by this letter, as I am out of the way of a better pen."

Charles Sheridan, now one-and-twenty, the oldest and gravest of the
party, finding his passion for Miss Linley increase every day, and
conscious of the imprudence of yielding to it any further, wisely
determined to fly from the struggle altogether. Having taken a solemn
farewell of her in a letter, which his youngest sister delivered, he
withdrew to a farm-house about seven or eight miles from Bath, little
suspecting that he left his brother in full possession of that heart, of
which he thus reluctantly and hopelessly raised the siege. Nor would
this secret perhaps have been discovered for some time, had not another
lover, of a less legitimate kind than either, by the alarming
importunity of his courtship, made an explanation on all sides
necessary.

Captain Mathews, a married man and intimate with Miss Linley's family,
presuming upon the innocent familiarity which her youth and his own
station permitted between them, had for some time not only rendered her
remarkable by his indiscreet attentions in public, but had even
persecuted her in private with those unlawful addresses and proposals,
which a timid female will sometimes rather endure, than encounter that
share of the shame, which may be reflected upon herself by their
disclosure. To the threat of self-destruction, often tried with effect
in these cases, he is said to have added the still more unmanly menace
of ruining, at least, her reputation, if he could not undermine her
virtue. Terrified by his perseverance, and dreading the consequences of
her father's temper, if this violation of his confidence and hospitality
were exposed to him, she at length confided her distresses to Richard
Sheridan; who, having consulted with his sister, and, for the first
time, disclosed to her the state of his heart with respect to Miss
Linley, lost no time in expostulating with Mathews, upon the cruelty,
libertinism, and fruitlessness of his pursuit. Such a remonstrance,
however, was but little calculated to conciliate the forbearance of this
professed man of gallantry, who, it appears by the following allusion to
him under the name of Lothario, in a poem written by Sheridan at the
time, still counted upon the possibility of gaining his object, or, at
least, blighting the fruit which he could not reach:--

  Nor spare the flirting _Cassoc'd rogue_,
  Nor ancient Cullin's polish'd brogue;
  Nor gay _Lothario's_ nobler name,
  That _Nimrod_ to all female fame.

In consequence of this persecution, and an increasing dislike to her
profession, which made her shrink more and more from the gaze of the
many, in proportion as she became devoted to the love of one, she
adopted, early in 1772, the romantic resolution of flying secretly to
France and taking refuge in a convent,--intending, at the same time, to
indemnify her father, to whom she was bound till the age of 21, by the
surrender to him of part of the sum which Mr. Long had settled upon her.
Sheridan, who, it is probable, had been the chief adviser of her flight,
was, of course, not slow in offering to be the partner of it. His
sister, whom he seems to have persuaded that his conduct in this affair
arose solely from a wish to serve Miss Linley, as a friend, without any
design or desire to take advantage of her elopement, as a lover, not
only assisted them with money out of her little fund for house-expenses,
but gave them letters of introduction to a family with whom she had been
acquainted at St. Quentin. On the evening appointed for their
departure,--while Mr. Linley, his eldest son, and Miss Maria Linley,
were engaged at a concert, from which the young Cecilia herself had
been, on a plea of illness, excused,--she was conveyed by Sheridan in a
sedan-chair from her father's house in the Crescent, to a post-chaise
which waited for them on the London road, and in which she found a woman
whom her lover had hired, as a sort of protecting Minerva, to accompany
them in their flight.

It will be recollected that Sheridan was at this time little more than
twenty, and his companion just entering her eighteenth year. On their
arrival in London, with an adroitness which was, at least, very
dramatic, he introduced her to an old friend of his family, (Mr. Ewart,
a respectable brandy-merchant in the city,) as a rich heiress who had
consented to elope with him to the Continent;--in consequence of which
the old gentleman, with many commendations of his wisdom for having
given up the imprudent pursuit of Miss Linley, not only accommodated the
fugitives with a passage on board a ship, which he had ready to sail
from the port of London to Dunkirk, but gave them letters of
recommendation to his correspondents at that place, who with the same
zeal and dispatch facilitated their journey to Lisle.

On their leaving Dunkirk, as was natural to expect, the chivalrous and
disinterested protector degenerated into a mere selfish lover. It was
represented by him, with arguments which seemed to appeal to prudence as
well as feeling, that, after the step which they had taken, she could
not possibly appear in England again but as his wife. He was therefore,
he said, resolved not to deposit her in a convent till she had
consented, by the ceremony of a marriage, to confirm to him that right
of protecting her, which he had now but temporarily assumed. It did not,
we may suppose, require much eloquence to convince her heart of the
truth of this reasoning; and, accordingly, at a little village, not far
from Calais, they were married about the latter end of March, 1772, by a
priest well known for his services on such occasions.

They thence immediately proceeded to Lisle, where Miss Linley, as she
must still be called, giving up her intention of going on to St.
Quentin, procured an apartment in a convent, with the determination of
remaining there, till Sheridan should have the means of supporting her
as his acknowledged wife. A letter which he wrote to his brother from
this place, dated April 15, though it throws but little additional light
on the narrative, is too interesting an illustration of it to be omitted
here:

"Dear brother,

"Most probably you will have thought me very inexcusable for not having
writ to you. You will be surprised, too, to be told that, except your
letter just after we arrived, we have never received one line from Bath.
We suppose for certain that there are letters somewhere, in which case
we shall have sent to every place almost but the right, whither, I hope,
I have now sent also. You will soon see me in England. Everything on our
side has at last succeeded. Miss L--- is now fixing in a convent, where
she has been entered some time. This has been a much more difficult
point than you could have imagined, and we have, I find, been extremely
fortunate. She has been ill, but is now recovered; this, too, has
delayed me. We would have wrote, but have been kept in the most
tormenting expectation, from day to day, of receiving your letters; but
as everything is now so happily settled here, I will delay no longer
giving you that information, though probably I shall set out for England
without knowing a syllable of what has happened with you. All is well, I
hope; and I hope, too, that though you may have been ignorant, for some
time, of our proceedings, _you_ never could have been uneasy lest
anything should tempt me to depart, even in a thought, from the honor
and consistency which engaged me at first. I wrote to M--- [Footnote:
Mathews] above a week ago, which, I think, was necessary and right. I
hope he has acted the one proper part which was left him; and, to speak
from my _feelings_, I cannot but say that I shall be very happy to
find no further disagreeable consequence pursuing him; for, as Brutus
says of Caesar, &c.--if I delay one moment longer, I lose the post.

"I have writ now, too, to Mr. Adams, and should apologize to you for
having writ to him first, and lost my time for you. Love to my sisters,
Miss L--- to all.

"Ever, Charles, your affect. Brother,

"R. B. SHERIDAN.

"I need not tell you that we altered quite our route."

The illness of Miss Linley, to which he alludes, and which had been
occasioned by fatigue and agitation of mind, came on some days after her
retirement to the convent; but an English physician, Dr. Dolman, of
York, who happened to be resident at Lisle at the time, was called in to
attend her; and in order that she might be more directly under his care,
he and Mrs. Dolman invited her to their house, where she was found by
Mr. Linley, on his arrival in pursuit of her. After a few words of
private explanation from Sheridan, which had the effect of reconciling
him to his truant daughter, Mr. Linley insisted upon her returning with
him immediately to England, in order to fulfil some engagements which he
had entered into on her account; and a promise being given that, as soon
as these engagements were accomplished, she should be allowed to resume
her plan of retirement at Lisle, the whole party set off amicably
together for England.

On the first discovery of the elopement, the landlord of the house in
which the Sheridans resided had, from a feeling of pity for the
situation of the young ladies,--now left without the protection of
either father or brother,--gone off, at break of day, to the retreat of
Charles Sheridan, and informed him of the event which had just occurred.
Poor Charles, wholly ignorant till then of his brother's attachment to
Miss Linley, felt all that a man may be supposed to feel, who had but
too much reason to think himself betrayed, as well as disappointed. He
hastened to Bath, where he found a still more furious lover, Mr.
Mathews, inquiring at the house every particular of the affair, and
almost avowing, in the impotence of his rage, the unprincipled design
which this summary step had frustrated. In the course of their
conversation, Charles Sheridan let fall some unguarded expressions of
anger against his brother, which this gentleman, who seems to have been
eminently qualified for a certain line of characters indispensable in
all romances, treasured up in his memory, and, as it will appear,
afterwards availed himself of them. For the four or five weeks during
which the young couple were absent, he never ceased to haunt the
Sheridan family, with inquiries, rumors, and other disturbing
visitations; and, at length, urged on by the restlessness of revenge,
inserted the following violent advertisement in the Bath Chronicle:

"Wednesday, April 8th, 1772.

"Mr. Richard S--- having attempted, in a letter left behind him for that
purpose, to account for his scandalous method of running away from this
place, by insinuations derogating from _my_ character, and that of
a young lady, innocent as far as relates to _me_, or _my_
knowledge; since which he has neither taken any notice of letters, or
even informed his own family of the place where he has hid himself; I
can no longer think he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and
therefore shall trouble myself no further about him than, in this public
method, to post him as a L---, and a treacherous S---.

"And as I am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries
concerned in the propagation of this infamous lie, if any of them,
unprotected by _age_, _infirmities_, or profession, will dare
to acknowledge the part they have acted, and affirm _to_ what they
have said _of_ me, they may depend on receiving the proper reward
of their villany, in the most public manner. The world will be candid
enough to judge properly (I make no doubt) of any private abuse on this
subject for the future; as nobody can defend himself from an accusation
he is ignorant of.

"Thomas Mathews."

On a remonstrance from Miss Sheridan upon this outrageous proceeding, he
did not hesitate to assert that her brother Charles was privy to it;--a
charge which the latter with indignation repelled, and was only
prevented by the sudden departure of Mathews to London from calling him
to a more serious account for the falsehood.

At this period the party from the Continent arrived; and as a detail of
the circumstances which immediately followed has been found in Mr.
Sheridan's own hand-writing,--drawn up hastily, it appears, at the
Parade Coffee-house, Bath, the evening before his second duel with Mr.
Mathews,--it would be little better than profanation to communicate them
in any other words.

"It has ever been esteemed impertinent to appeal to the public in
concerns entirely private; but there now and then occurs a
_private_ incident which, by being explained, may be productive of
_public_ advantage. This consideration, and the precedent of a
public appeal in the same affair, are my only apologies for the
following lines:--

"Mr. T. Mathews thought himself essentially injured by Mr. E. Sheridan's
having co-operated in the virtuous efforts of a young lady to escape the
snares of vice and dissimulation. He wrote several most abusive threats
to Mr. S., then in France. He labored, with a cruel industry, to vilify
his character in England. He publicly posted him as a scoundrel and a
liar. Mr. S. answered him from France (hurried and surprised), that he
would never sleep in England till he had thanked him as he deserved.

"Mr. S. arrived in London at 9 o'clock at night. At 10 he is informed,
by Mr. S. Ewart, that Mr. M. is in town. Mr. S. had sat up at
Canterbury, to keep his idle promise to Mr. M.--He resolved to call on
him that night, as, in case he had not found him in town, he had called
on Mr. Ewart to accompany him to Bath, being bound by Mr. Linley not to
let anything pass between him and Mr. M. till he had arrived thither.
Mr. S. came to Mr. Cochlin's, in Crutched Friars, (where Mr. M. was
lodged,) about half after twelve. The key of Mr. C.'s door was lost; Mr.
S. was denied admittance. By two o'clock he got in. Mr. M. had been
previously down to the door, and told Mr. S. he should be admitted, and
had retired to bed again. He dressed, complained of the cold, endeavored
to get heat into him, called Mr. S. his _dear friend_, and forced
him to--_sit down_.

"Mr. S. had been informed that Mr. M. had sworn his death;--that Mr. M.
had, in numberless companies, produced bills on France, whither he meant
to retire on the completion of his revenge. Mr. M. had warned Mr. Ewart
to advise his friend not even to come in his way without a sword, as he
could not answer for the consequence.

"Mr. M. had left two letters for Mr. S., in which he declares he is to
be met with at any hour, and begs Mr. S. will not _'deprive himself of
so much sleep, or stand on any ceremony'_. Mr. S. called on him at
the hour mentioned. Mr. S. was admitted with the difficulty mentioned.
Mr. S. declares that, on Mr. M.'s perceiving that he came to answer then
to his challenge, he does not remember ever to have seen a _man_
behave so perfectly dastardly. Mr. M. detained Mr. S. till seven o'clock
the next morning. He (Mr. M.) said he never meant to quarrel with Mr. S.
He convinced Mr. S. that his enmity ought to be directed solely against
his brother and another gentleman at Bath. Mr. S. went to Bath...."
[Footnote: The remainder of this paper is omitted, as only briefly
referring to circumstances which will be found more minutely detailed in
another document.]

On his arrival in Bath, (whither he travelled with Miss Linley and her
father,) Sheridan lost not a moment in ascertaining the falsehood of the
charge against his brother. While Charles, however, indignantly denied
the flagitious conduct imputed to him by Mathews, he expressed his
opinion of the step which Sheridan and Miss Linley had taken, in terms
of considerable warmth, which were overheard by some of the family. As
soon as the young ladies had retired to bed, the two brothers, without
any announcement of their intention, set off post together for London,
Sheridan having previously written the following letter to Mr. Wade, the
Master of the Ceremonies.

"SIR,

"I ought to apologize to you for troubling you again on a subject which
should concern so few.

"I find Mr. Mathews's behavior to have been such that I cannot be
satisfied with his _concession_, as a _consequence_ of an
_explanation_ from me. I called on Mr. Mathews last Wednesday night
at Mr. Cochlin's, without the smallest expectation of coming to any
_verbal_ explanation with him. A proposal of a _pacific_
meeting the next day was the consequence, which ended in those
advertisements and the letter to you. As for Mr. Mathews's honor or
_spirit_ in this whole affair, I shall only add that a few hours
may possibly give some proof of the latter; while, in my own
justification, I affirm that it was far from being my fault that this
point now remains to be determined.

"On discovering Mr. Mathews's _benevolent_ interposition in my own
family, I have counter-ordered the advertisements that were agreed on,
as I think even an _explanation_ would now misbecome me; an
agreement to them was the effect more of mere _charity_ than
_judgment_. As I find it necessary to make _all_ my sentiments
as public as possible, your declaring this will greatly oblige

"G Your very humble Servant,

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

"Sat. 12 o'Clock, May 2d, 1772.

"To William Wade, Esq."

On the following day (Sunday), when the young gentlemen did not appear,
the alarm of their sisters was not a little increased, by hearing that
high words had been exchanged the evening before, and that it was feared
a duel between the brothers would be the consequence. Though unable to
credit this dreadful surmise, yet full of the various apprehensions
which such mystery was calculated to inspire, they had instant recourse
to Miss Linley, the fair _Helen_ of all this strife, as the person
most likely to be acquainted with their brother Richard's designs, and
to relieve them from the suspense under which they labored. She,
however, was as ignorant of the transaction as themselves, and their
mutual distress being heightened by sympathy, a scene of tears and
fainting-fits ensued, of which no less remarkable a person than Doctor
Priestley, who lodged in Mr. Linley's house at the time, happened to be
a witness.

On the arrival of the brothers in town, Richard Sheridan instantly
called Mathews out. His second on the occasion was Mr. Ewart, and the
particulars of the duel are thus stated by himself, in a letter which he
addressed to Captain Knight, the second of Mathews, soon after the
subsequent duel in Bath.

"Sir,

"On the evening preceding my last meeting with Mr. Mathews, Mr. Barnett
[Footnote: The friend of Mathews in the second duel.] produced a paper
to me, written by Mr. Mathews, containing an account of our former
meetings in London. As I had before frequently heard of Mr. Mathews's
relation of that affair, without interesting myself much in
contradicting it, I should certainly have treated this in the same
manner, had it not been seemingly authenticated by Mr. Knight's name
being subscribed to it. My asserting that the paper contains much
misrepresentation, equivocation, and falsity, might make it appear
strange that I should apply to you in this manner for information on the
subject: but, as it likewise contradicts what I have been told were Mr.
Knight's sentiments and assertions on that affair, I think I owe it to
his credit, as well as my own justification, first, to be satisfied from
himself whether he really subscribed and will support the truth of the
account shown by Mr. Mathews. Give me leave previously to relate what
_I_ have affirmed to have been a real state of our meeting in
London, and which I am now ready to support on my honor, or my oath, as
the best account I can give of Mr. Mathews's relation is, that it is
almost directly opposite to mine.

"Mr. Ewart accompanied me to Hyde Park, about six in the evening, where
we met you and Mr. Mathews, and we walked together to the ring.--Mr.
Mathews refusing to make any other acknowledgment than he had done, I
observed that we were come to the ground: Mr. Mathews objected to the
spot, and appealed to you.--We proceeded to the back of a building on
the other side of the ring, the ground was there perfectly level. I
called on him and drew my sword (he having previously declined pistols).
Mr. Ewart observed a sentinel on the other side of the building; we
advanced to another part of the park. I stopped again at a seemingly
convenient place: Mr. Mathews objected to the observation of some people
at a great distance, and proposed to retire to the Hercules' Pillars
till the park should be clear: we did so. In a little time we returned.
--I again drew my sword; Mr. Mathews again objected to the observation of
a person who seemed to watch us. Mr. Ewart observed that the chance was
equal, and engaged that no one should stop him, should it be necessary
for him to retire to the gate, where we had a chaise and four, which was
equally at his service. Mr. Mathews declared that he would not engage
while any one was within sight, and proposed to defer it till next
morning. I turned to you and said that 'this was trifling work,' that I
could not admit of any delay, and engaged to remove the gentleman (who
proved to be an officer, and who, on my going up to him, and assuring
him that any interposition would be ill-timed, politely retired). Mr.
Mathews, in the mean time, had returned towards the gate: Mr. Ewart and
I called to you, and followed. We returned to the Hercules' Pillars, and
went from thence, by agreement, to the Bedford Coffee House, where, the
master being alarmed, you came and conducted us to Mr. Mathews at the
Castle Tavern, Henrietta Street. Mr. Ewart took lights up in his hand,
and almost immediately on our entering the room we engaged. I struck Mr.
Mathews's point so much out of the line, that I stepped up and caught
hold of his wrist, or the hilt of his sword, while the point of mine was
at his breast. You ran in and caught hold of my arm, exclaiming,
_'don't kill him.'_ I struggled to disengage my arm, and said his
sword was in my power. Mr. Mathews called out twice or thrice, _'I beg
my life.'_--We were parted. You immediately said, _'there, he has
begged his life, and now there is an end of it;'_ and, on Mr. Ewart
saying that, when his sword was in my power, as I attempted no more you
should not have interfered, you replied that you _were wrong_, but
that you had _done it hastily, and to prevent mischief_--or words
to that effect. Mr. Mathews then hinted that I was rather _obliged to
your interposition_ for the advantage; you declared that
'_before_ you did so, both the swords were in Mr. Sheridan's
power.' Mr. Mathews still seemed resolved to give it another turn, and
observed that _he had never quitted his sword_.--Provoked at this,
I then swore (with too much heat, perhaps) that he should either give up
his sword and I would break it, or go to his guard again. He refused--
but, on my persisting, either gave it into my hand, or flung it on the
table, or the ground (_which_ I will not absolutely affirm). I
broke it, and flung the hilt to the other end of the room. He exclaimed
at this. I took a mourning sword from Mr. Ewart, and presenting him with
mine, gave my honor that what had passed should never be mentioned by
me, and he might now right himself again. He replied that he _'would
never draw a sword against the man who had given him his life;'_--
but, on his still exclaiming against the indignity of breaking his sword
(which he had brought upon himself), Mr. Ewart offered him the pistols,
and some altercation passed between them. Mr. Mathews said, that he
_could never show his face if it were known how his sword was broke--
that such a thing had never been done--that it cancelled all
obligations, &c. &c._ You seemed to think it was wrong, and we both
proposed, that if he never misrepresented the affair, it should not be
mentioned by us. This was settled. I then asked Mr. Mathews, whether (as
he had expressed himself sensible of, and shocked at the injustice and
indignity he had done me in his advertisement) it did not occur to him
that he owed me another satisfaction; and that, as it was now in his
power to do it without discredit, I supposed he would not hesitate. This
he absolutely refused, unless conditionally; I insisted on it, and said
I would not leave the room till it was settled. After much altercation,
and with much ill-grace, he gave the apology, which afterwards appeared.
We parted, and I returned immediately to Bath. I, there, to Colonel
Gould, Captain Wade, Mr. Creaser, and others, mentioned the affair to
Mr. Mathews's credit--said that chance having given me the advantage,
Mr. Mathews had consented to that apology, and mentioned nothing of the
sword. Mr. Mathews came down, and in two days I found the whole affair
had been stated in a different light, and insinuations given out to the
same purpose as in the paper, which has occasioned this trouble. I had
_undoubted authority_ that these accounts proceeded from Mr.
Mathews, and likewise that Mr. Knight had never had any share in them. I
then thought I no longer owed Mr. Mathews the compliment to conceal any
circumstance, and I related the affair to several gentlemen exactly as
above.

"Now, sir, as I have put down nothing in this account but upon the most
assured recollection, and as Mr. Mathews's paper either directly or
equivocally contradicts almost every article of it, and as your name is
subscribed to that paper, I flatter myself that I have a right to expect
your answer to the following questions:--First,

"Is there any falsity or misrepresentation in what I have advanced
above?

"With regard to Mr. Mathews's paper--did I, in the Park, seem in the
smallest article inclined to enter into conversation with Mr. Mathews?--
He insinuates that I did.

"Did Mr. Mathews not _beg his life_?--He affirms he did not.

"Did I break his sword _without warning_?--He affirms I did it
without warning, on his laying it on the table.

"Did I not offer him mine?--He omits it.

"Did Mr. Mathews give me the apology, as a point of generosity, _on my
desisting to demand it_?--He affirms he did.

"I shall now give my reasons for doubting your having authenticated this
paper.

"1. Because I think it full of falsehood and misrepresentation, and Mr.
Knight has the character of a man of truth and honor.

"2. When you were at Bath, I was informed that you had never expressed
any such sentiments.

"3. I have been told that, in Wales, Mr. Mathews never _told his
story_ in the presence of Mr. Knight, who had never there insinuated
any thing to my disadvantage.

"4. The paper shown me by Mr. Barnett contains (if my memory does not
deceive me) three separate sheets of writing paper. Mr. Knight's
evidence is annexed to the last, which contains chiefly a copy of our
_first_ proposed advertisements, which Mr. Mathews had, in Mr.
Knight's presence, agreed should be destroyed as totally void; and which
(in a letter to Colonel Gould, by whom I had insisted on it) he declared
upon his honor he knew nothing about, nor should ever make the least use
of.

"These, sir, are my reasons for applying to yourself, in preference to
any appeal to Mr. Ewart, my second on that occasion, which is what I
would wish to avoid. As for Mr. Mathews's assertions, I shall never be
concerned at them. I have ever avoided any verbal altercation with that
gentleman, and he has now secured himself from any other.

"I am your very humble servant,

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

It was not till Tuesday morning that the young ladies at Bath were
relieved from their suspense by the return of the two brothers, who
entered evidently much fatigued, not having been in bed since they left
home, and produced the apology of Mr. Mathews, which was instantly sent
to Crutwell for insertion. It was in the following terms:--

"Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's
disadvantage were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I
retract what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and
particularly beg his pardon for my advertisement in the Bath Chronicle.

"THOMAS MATHEWS." [Footnote: This appeared in the Bath Chronicle of May
7th. In another part of the same paper there is the following paragraph:
"We can with authority contradict the account in the London Evening Post
of last night, of a duel between Mr. M--t--ws and Mr. S--r--n, as to
the time and event of their meeting, Mr. S. having been at his place on
Saturday, and both these gentlemen being here at present."]

With the odor of this transaction fresh about him, Mr. Mathews retired
to his estate in Wales, and, as he might have expected, found himself
universally shunned. An apology may be, according to circumstances,
either the noblest effort of manliness or the last resource of fear, and
it was evident, from the reception which this gentleman experienced
every where, that the former, at least, was not the class to which his
late retraction had been referred. In this crisis of his character, a
Mr. Barnett, who had but lately come to reside in his neighborhood,
observing with pain the mortifications to which he was exposed, and
perhaps thinking them, in some degree, unmerited, took upon him to urge
earnestly the necessity of a second meeting with Sheridan, as the only
means of removing the stigma left by the first; and, with a degree of
Irish friendliness, not forgotten in the portrait of Sir Lucius
O'Trigger, offered himself to be the bearer of the challenge. The
desperation of persons, in Mr. Mathews's circumstances, is in general
much more formidable than the most acknowledged valor; and we may easily
believe that it was with no ordinary eagerness he accepted the proposal
of his new ally, and proceeded with him, full of vengeance, to Bath.

The elder Mr. Sheridan, who had but just returned from Ireland, and had
been with some little difficulty induced to forgive his son for the wild
achievements he had been engaged in during his absence, was at this time
in London, making arrangements for the departure of his favorite,
Charles, who, through the interest of Mr. Wheatley, an old friend of the
family, had been appointed Secretary to the Embassy in Sweden. Miss
Linley--wife and no wife,--obliged to conceal from the world what her
heart would have been most proud to avow, was also absent from Bath,
being engaged at the Oxford music-meeting. The letter containing the
preliminaries of the challenge was delivered by Mr. Barnett, with rather
unnecessary cruelty, into the hands of Miss Sheridan, under the pretext,
however, that it was a note of invitation for her brother, and on the
following morning, before it was quite daylight, the parties met at
Kingsdown--Mr. Mathews, attended by his neighbor Mr. Barnett, and
Sheridan by a gentleman of the name of Paumier, nearly as young as
himself, and but little qualified for a trust of such importance and
delicacy.

The account of the duel, which I shall here subjoin, was drawn up some
months after, by the second of Mr. Mathews, and deposited in the hands
of Captain Wade, the master of the ceremonies. Though somewhat partially
colored, and (according to Mr. Sheridan's remarks upon it, which shall
be noticed presently) incorrect in some particulars, it is, upon the
whole, perhaps as accurate a statement as could be expected, and
received, as appears by the following letter from Mr. Brereton, (another
of Mr. Sheridan's intimate friends,) all the sanction that Captain
Paumier's concurrence in the truth of its most material facts could
furnish.

"DEAR SIR,

"In consequence of some reports spread to the disadvantage of Mr.
Mathews, it seems he obtained from Mr. Barnett an impartial relation of
the last affair with Mr. Sheridan, directed to you. This account Mr.
Paumier has seen, and I, at Mr. Mathews's desire, inquired from him if
he thought it true and impartial: he says it differs, in a few
immaterial circumstances only, from his opinion, and has given me
authority to declare this to you.

"I am, dear Sir,

"Your most humble and obedient servant,

"(Signed) WILLIAM BRERETON.

"Bath, Oct. 24, 1772."

_Copy of a Paper left by Mr. Barnett in the hands of Captain William
Wade, Master of the Ceremonies at Bath._

"On quitting our chaises at the top of Kingsdown, I entered into a
conversation with Captain Paumier, relative to some preliminaries I
thought ought to be settled in an affair which was likely to end very
seriously;--particularly the method of using their pistols, which Mr.
Mathews had repeatedly signified his desire to use prior to swords, from
a conviction that Mr. Sheridan would run in on him, and an
ungentlemanlike scuffle probably be the consequence. This, however, was
refused by Mr. Sheridan, declaring he had no pistols: Captain Paumier
replied he had a brace (which I know were loaded).--By my advice, Mr.
Mathews's were not loaded, as I imagined it was always customary to load
on the field, which I mentioned to Captain Paumier at the White-Hart,
before we went out, and desired he would draw his pistols. He replied,
as they were already loaded, and they going on a public road at that
time of the morning, he might as well let them remain so, till we got to
the place appointed; when he would on his honor draw them, which I am
convinced he would have done had there been time; but Mr. Sheridan
immediately drew his sword, and, in a vaunting manner, desired Mr.
Mathews to draw (their ground was very uneven, and near the post-
chaises).--Mr. Mathews drew; Mr. Sheridan advanced on him at first; Mr.
Mathews in turn advanced fast on Mr. Sheridan; upon which he retreated,
till he very suddenly ran in upon Mr. Mathews, laying himself
exceedingly open, and endeavoring to get hold of Mr. Mathews's sword;
Mr. Mathews received him on his point, and, I believe, disengaged his
sword from Mr. Sheridan's body, and gave him another wound; which, I
suppose, must have been either against one of his ribs, or his breast-
bone, as his sword broke, which I imagine happened from the resistance
it met with from one of those parts; but whether it was broke by that,
or on the closing, I cannot aver.

"Mr. Mathews, I think, on finding his sword broke, laid hold of Mr.
Sheridan's sword-arm, and tripped up his heels: they both fell; Mr.
Mathews was uppermost, with the hilt of his sword in his hand, having
about six or seven inches of the blade to it, with which I saw him give
Mr. Sheridan, as I imagined, a skin-wound or two in the neck; for it
could be no more,--the remaining part of the sword being broad and
blunt; he also beat him in the face either with his fist or the hilt of
his sword. Upon this I turned from them, and asked Captain Paumier if we
should not take them up; but I cannot say whether he heard me or not, as
there was a good deal of noise; however, he made no reply. I again
turned to the combatants, who were much in the same situation: I found
Mr. Sheridan's sword was bent, and he slipped his hand up the small part
of it, and gave Mr. Mathews a slight wound in the left part of his
belly: I that instant turned again to Captain Paumier, and proposed
again our taking them up. He in the same moment called out, 'Oh! he is
killed, he is killed!'--I as quick as possible turned again, and found
Mr. Mathews had recovered the point of his sword, that was before on the
ground, with which he had wounded Mr. Sheridan in the belly: I saw him
drawing the point out of the wound. By this time Mr. Sheridan's sword
was broke, which he told us.--Captain Paumier called out to him, 'My
dear Sheridan, beg your life, and I will be yours for ever.' I also
desired him to ask his life: he replied, 'No, by God, I won't.' I then
told Captain Paumier it would not do to wait for those punctilios (or
words to that effect), and desired he would assist me in taking them up.
Mr. Mathews most readily acquiesced first, desiring me to see Mr.
Sheridan was disarmed. I desired him to give me the tuck, which he
readily did, as did Mr. Sheridan the broken part of his sword to Captain
Paumier. Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Mathews both got up; the former was helped
into one of the chaises, and drove off for Bath, and Mr. Mathews made
the best of his way for London.

"The whole of this narrative I declare, on the word and honor of a
gentleman, to be exactly true; and that Mr. Mathews discovered as much
genuine, cool, and intrepid resolution as man could do.

"I think I may be allowed to be an impartial relater of facts, as my
motive for accompanying Mr. Mathews was no personal friendship, (not
having any previous intimacy, or being barely acquainted with him,) but
from a great desire of clearing up so ambiguous an affair, without
prejudice to either party,--which a stranger was judged the most proper
to do,--particularly as Mr. Mathews had been blamed before for taking a
relation with him on a similar occasion.

"(Signed) WILLIAM BARNETT.

"October, 1772." [Footnote: The following account is given as an
"Extract of a Letter from Bath," in the St. James's Chronicle, July 4:
"Young Sheridan and Captain Mathews of this town, who lately had a
rencontre in a tavern in London, upon account of the maid of Bath, Miss
Linley, have had another this morning upon Kingsdown, about four miles
hence. Sheridan is much wounded, but whether mortally or not is yet
uncertain. Both their swords breaking upon the first lunge, they threw
each other down, and with the broken pieces hacked at each other,
rolling upon the ground, the seconds standing by, quiet spectators.
Mathews is but slightly wounded, and is since gone off." The Bath
Chronicle, on the day after the duel, (July 2d,) gives the particulars
thus: "This morning, about three o'clock, a second duel was fought with
swords, between Captain Mathews and Mr. R. Sheridan, on Kingsdown, near
this city, in consequence of their former dispute respecting an amiable
young lady, which Mr. M. considered as improperly adjusted; Mr. S.
having, since their first rencontre, declared his sentiments respecting
Mr. M. in a manner that the former thought required satisfaction. Mr.
Sheridan received three or four wounds in his breast and sides, and now
lies very ill. Mr. M. was only slightly wounded, and left this city soon
after the affair was over."]

The comments which Mr. Sheridan thought it necessary to make upon this
narrative have been found in an unfinished state among his papers; and
though they do not, as far as they go, disprove anything material in its
statements, (except, perhaps, with respect to the nature of the wounds
which he received,) yet, as containing some curious touches of
character, and as a document which he himself thought worth preserving,
it is here inserted.

"To William Barnett, Esq.

"Sir,

"It has always appeared to me so impertinent for individuals to appeal
to the public on transactions merely private, that I own the most
apparent necessity does not prevent my entering into such a dispute
without an awkward consciousness of its impropriety. Indeed, I am not
without some apprehension, that I may have no right to plead your having
led the way in my excuse; as it appears not improbable that some ill-
wisher to you, Sir, and the cause you have been engaged in, betrayed you
first into this _exact narrative,_ and then exposed it to the
public eye, under pretence of vindicating your friend. However, as it is
the opinion of some of my friends, that I ought not to suffer these
papers to pass wholly unnoticed, I shall make a few observations on them
with that moderation which becomes one who is highly conscious of the
impropriety of staking his single assertion against the apparent
testimony of three. This, I say, would be an impropriety, as I am
supposed to write to those who are not acquainted with the parties. I
had some time ago a copy of these papers from Captain Wade, who informed
me that they were lodged in his hands, to be made public only by
judicial authority. I wrote to you, Sir, on the subject, to have from
yourself an avowal that the account was yours; but as I received no
answer, I have reason to compliment you with the supposition that you
are not the author of it. However, as the name _William Barnett_ is
subscribed to it, you must accept my apologies for making use of that as
the ostensible signature of the writer--Mr. Paumier likewise (the
gentleman who went out with me on that occasion in the character of a
second) having assented to everything material in it, I shall suppose
the whole account likewise to be his; and as there are some
circumstances which could come from no one but Mr. Mathews, I shall
(without meaning to take from its authority) suppose it to be Mr.
Mathews's also.

"As it is highly indifferent to me whether the account I am to observe
on be considered as accurately true or not, and I believe it is of very
little consequence to any one else, I shall make those observations just
in the same manner as I conceive any indifferent person of common sense,
who should think it worth his while to peruse the matter with any degree
of attention. In this light, the _truth_ of the articles which are
asserted under Mr. Barnett's name is what I have no business to meddle
with; but if it should appear that this _accurate narrative_
frequently contradicts itself as well as all probability, and that there
are some positive facts against it, which do not depend upon any one's
assertion, I must repeat that I shall either compliment Mr. Barnett's
judgment, in supposing it not his, or his humanity in proving the
_narrative_ to partake of that confusion and uncertainty, which his
well-wishers will plead to have possessed him in the transaction. On
this account, what I shall say on the subject need be no further
addressed to you; and, indeed, it is idle, in my opinion, to address
even the publisher of a newspaper on a point that can concern so few,
and ought to have been forgotten by them. This you must take as my
excuse for having neglected the matter so long.

"The first point in Mr. Barnett's narrative that is of the least
consequence to take notice of, is, where Mr. M. is represented as having
repeatedly signified his desire to use pistols prior to swords, from a
conviction that Mr. Sheridan would run in upon him, and an
ungentlemanlike scuffle probably be the consequence. This is one of
those articles which evidently must be given to Mr. Mathews: for, as Mr.
B.'s part is simply to relate a matter of fact, of which he was an eye-
witness, he is by no means to answer for Mr. Mathews's _private
convictions_. As this insinuation bears an obscure allusion to a past
transaction of Mr. M.'s, I doubt not but he will be surprised at my
indifference in not taking the trouble even to explain it. However, I
cannot forbear to observe here, that had I, at the period which this
passage alludes to, known what was the theory which Mr. M. held of
_gentlemanly scuffle_, I might, possibly, have been so unhappy as
to put it out of his power ever to have brought it into practice.

"Mr. B. now charges me with having cut short a number of pretty
preliminaries, concerning which he was treating with Captain Paumier, by
drawing my sword, and, in a vaunting manner, desiring Mr. M. to draw.
Though I acknowledge (with deference to these gentlemen) the full right
of interference which seconds have on such occasions, yet I may remind
Mr. B. that he was acquainted with my determination with regard to
pistols before we went on the Down, nor could I have expected it to have
been proposed. 'Mr. M. drew; Mr. S. advanced, &c.:'--here let me remind
Mr. B. of a circumstance, which I am convinced his memory will at once
acknowledge."

This paper ends here: but in a rougher draught of the same letter (for
he appears to have studied and corrected it with no common care) the
remarks are continued, in a hand not very legible, thus:

"But Mr. B. here represents me as drawing my sword in a _vaunting_
manner. This I take to be a reflection; and can only say, that a
person's demeanor is generally regulated by their idea of their
antagonist, and, for what I know, I may now be writing in a vaunting
style. Here let me remind Mr. B. of an omission, which, I am convinced,
nothing but want of recollection could occasion, yet which is a material
point in an exact account of such an affair, nor does it reflect in the
least on Mr. M. Mr. M. could not possibly have drawn his sword on my
calling to him, as.... [Footnote: It is impossible to make any
connected sense of the passage that follows.]

"Mr. B.'s account proceeds, that I 'advanced first on Mr. M.,' &c. &c.;
'which, (says Mr. B.) I imagine, happened from the resistance it met
with from one of those parts; but whether it was broke by that, or on
the closing, I cannot aver.' How strange is the confusion here!--First,
it certainly broke;--whether it broke against rib or no, doubtful;--
then, indeed, whether it broke at all, uncertain.... But of all times
Mr. B. could not have chosen a worse than this for Mr. M.'s sword to
break; for the relating of the action unfortunately carries a
contradiction with it;--since if, on closing, Mr. M. received me on his
point, it is not possible for him to have made a lunge of such a nature
as to break his sword against a rib-bone. But as the time chosen is
unfortunate, so is the place on which it is said to have broke,--as Mr.
B. might have been informed, by inquiring of the surgeons, that I had no
wounds on my breast or rib with the point of a sword, they being the
marks of the jagged and blunted part."

He was driven from the ground to the White-Hart; where Ditcher and
Sharpe, the most eminent surgeons of Bath, attended and dressed his
wounds,--and, on the following day, at the request of his sisters, he
was carefully removed to his own home. The newspapers which contained
the account of the affair, and even stated that Sheridan's life was in
danger, reached the Linleys at Oxford, during the performance, but were
anxiously concealed from Miss Linley by her father, who knew that the
intelligence would totally disable her from appearing. Some persons who
were witnesses of the performance that day, still talk of the touching
effect which her beauty and singing produced upon all present--aware, as
they were, that a heavy calamity had befallen her, of which she herself
was perhaps the only one in the assembly ignorant.

In her way back to Bath, she was met at some miles from the town by a
Mr. Panton, a clergyman, long intimate with the family, who, taking her
from her father's chaise into his own, employed the rest of the journey
in cautiously breaking to her the particulars of the alarming event that
had occurred. Notwithstanding this precaution, her feelings were so
taken by surprise, that in the distress of the moment, she let the
secret of her heart escape, and passionately exclaimed, "My husband! my
husband!"--demanding to see him, and insisting upon her right as his
wife to be near him, and watch over him day and night. Her entreaties,
however, could not be complied with; for the elder Mr. Sheridan, on his
return from town, incensed and grieved at the catastrophe to which his
son's imprudent passion had led, refused for some time even to see him,
and strictly forbade all intercourse between his daughters and the
Linley family. But the appealing looks of a brother lying wounded and
unhappy, had more power over their hearts than the commands of a father,
and they, accordingly, contrived to communicate intelligence of the
lovers to each other.

In the following letter, addressed to him by Charles at this time, we
can trace that difference between the dispositions of the brothers,
which, with every one except their father, rendered Richard, in spite of
all his faults, by far the most popular and beloved of the two.

"London, July 3d, 1772.

"DEAR DICK,

"It was with the deepest concern I received the late accounts of you,
though it was somewhat softened by the assurance of your not being in
the least danger. You cannot conceive the uneasiness it occasioned to my
father. Both he and I were resolved to believe the best, and to suppose
you safe, but then we neither of us could approve of the cause in which
you suffer. All your friends here condemned you. You risked every thing,
where you had nothing to gain, to give your antagonist the thing he
wished, a chance for recovering his reputation. Your courage was past
dispute:--he wanted to get rid of the contemptible opinion he was held
in, and you were good-natured enough to let him do it at your expense.
It is not now a time to scold, but all your friends were of opinion you
could, with the greatest propriety, have refused to meet him. For my
part, I shall suspend my judgment till better informed, only I cannot
forgive your preferring swords.

"I am exceedingly unhappy at the situation I leave you in with respect
to money matters, the more so as it is totally out of my power to be of
any use to you. Ewart was greatly vexed at the manner of your drawing
for the last L20.--I own, I think with some reason.

"As to old Ewart, what you were talking about is absolutely impossible;
he is already surprised at Mr. Linley's long delay, and, indeed, I think
the latter much to blame in this respect. I did intend to give you some
account of myself since my arrival here, but you cannot conceive how I
have been hurried,--even much pressed for time at this _present
writing_. I must therefore conclude, with wishing you speedily
restored to health, and that if I could make your purse as whole as that
will shortly be, I hope, it would make me exceedingly happy.

"I am, dear Dick, yours sincerely,

"C. F. SHERIDAN."

Finding that the suspicion of their marriage, which Miss Linley's
unguarded exclamation had suggested, was gaining ground in the mind of
both fathers,--who seemed equally determined to break the tie, if they
could arrive at some positive proof of its existence,--Sheridan wrote
frequently to his young wife, (who passed most of this anxious period
with her relations at Wells,) cautioning her against being led into any
acknowledgment, which might further the views of the elders against
their happiness. Many methods were tried upon both sides, to ensnare
them into a confession of this nature; but they eluded every effort, and
persisted in attributing the avowal which had escaped from Miss Linley,
before Mr. Panton, and others, to the natural agitation and bewilderment
into which her mind was thrown at the instant.

As soon as Sheridan was sufficiently recovered of his wounds, [Footnote:
The Bath Chronicle of the 9th of July has the following paragraph: "It
is with great pleasure we inform our readers that Mr. Sheridan is
declared by his surgeon to be out of danger."] his father, in order to
detach him, as much as possible, from the dangerous recollections which
continually presented themselves in Bath, sent him to pass some months
at Waltham Abbey, in Essex, under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Parker of
Farm Hill, his most particular friends. In this retirement, where he
continued, with but few and short intervals of absence, from August or
September, 1772, till the spring of the following year, it is probable
that, notwithstanding the ferment in which his heart was kept, he
occasionally and desultorily occupied his hours in study. Among other
proofs of industry, which I have found among his manuscripts, and which
may possibly be referred to this period, is an abstract of the History
of England--nearly filling a small quarto volume of more than a hundred
pages, closely written. I have also found in his early hand-writing (for
there was a considerable change in his writing afterwards) a collection
of remarks on Sir William Temple's works, which may likewise have been
among the fruits of his reading at Waltham Abbey.

These remarks are confined chiefly to verbal criticism, and prove, in
many instances, that he had not yet quite formed his taste to that
idiomatic English, which was afterwards one of the great charms of his
own dramatic style. For instance, he objects to the following phrases:--
"Then I _fell to_ my task again."--"These things _come_, with
time, to be habitual."--"By which these people _come_ to be either
scattered or destroyed."--"Which alone could pretend to _contest_
it with them:" (upon which phrase he remarks, "It refers to nothing
here:") and the following graceful idiom in some verses by Temple:--

  "Thy busy head can find no gentle rest
  For thinking on the events," &c. &c.

Some of his observations, however, are just and tasteful. Upon the Essay
"Of Popular Discontents," after remarking, that "Sir W. T. opens all his
Essays with something as foreign to the purpose as possible," he has the
following criticism:--"Page 260, 'Represent misfortunes for faults, and
_mole-hills_ for _mountains_,'--the metaphorical and literal
expression too often coupled. P. 262, 'Upon these four wheels the
chariot of state may in all appearance drive easy and safe, or at least
not be too much _shaken_ by the usual _roughness_ of ways,
unequal _humors_ of _men_, or any common accidents,'--another
instance of the confusion of the metaphorical and literal expression."

Among the passages he quotes from Temple's verses, as faulty, is the
following:--

       "--that we may _see_,
  Thou art indeed the empress of the _sea_."

It is curious enough that he himself was afterwards guilty of nearly as
illicit a rhyme in his song "When 'tis night," and always defended it:--

  "But when the fight's _begun_,
  Each serving at his _gun_."

Whatever grounds there may be for referring these labors of Sheridan to
the period of his retirement at Waltham Abbey, there are certainly but
few other intervals in his life that could be selected as likely to have
afforded him opportunities of reading. Even here, however, the fears and
anxieties that beset him were too many and incessant to leave much
leisure for the pursuits of scholarship. However, a state of excitement
may be favorable to the development of genius--which is often of the
nature of those seas, that become more luminous the more they are
agitated,--for a student, a far different mood is necessary; and in
order to reflect with clearness the images that study presents, the mind
should have its surface level and unruffled.

The situation, indeed, of Sheridan was at this time particularly
perplexing. He had won the heart, and even hand, of the woman he loved,
yet saw his hopes of possessing her farther off than ever. He had twice
risked his life against an unworthy antagonist, yet found the
vindication of his honor still incomplete, from the misrepresentations
of enemies, and the yet more mischievous testimony of friends. He felt
within himself all the proud consciousness of genius, yet, thrown on the
world without even a profession, looked in vain for a channel through
which to direct its energies. Even the precarious hope, which his
father's favor held out, had been purchased by an act of duplicity which
his conscience could not approve; for he had been induced, with the
view, perhaps, of blinding his father's vigilance, not only to promise
that he would instantly give up a pursuit so unpleasing to him, but to
take "an oath equivocal" that he never would marry Miss Linley.

The pressure of these various anxieties upon so young and so ardent a
mind, and their effects in alternately kindling and damping its spirit,
could only have been worthily described by him who felt them, and there
still exist some letters which he wrote during this time, to a gentleman
well known as one of his earliest and latest friends. I had hoped that
such a picture, as these letters must exhibit, of his feelings at that
most interesting period of his private life, would not have been lost to
the present work. But scruples--over-delicate, perhaps, but respectable,
as founded upon a systematic objection to the exposure of _any_
papers, received under the seal of private friendship--forbid the
publication of these precious documents. The reader must, therefore, be
satisfied with the few distant glimpses of their contents, which are
afforded by the answers of his correspondent, found among the papers
entrusted to me. From these it appears, that through all his letters the
same strain of sadness and despondency prevailed,--sometimes breaking
out into aspirings of ambition, and sometimes rising into a tone of
cheerfulness, which but ill concealed the melancholy under it. It is
evident also, and not a little remarkable, that in none of these
overflowings of his confidence, had he as yet suffered the secret of his
French marriage with Miss Linley to escape; and that his friend
accordingly knew but half the wretched peculiarities of his situation.
Like most lovers, too, imagining that every one who approached his
mistress must be equally intoxicated with her beauty as himself, he
seems anxiously to have cautioned his young correspondent (who
occasionally saw her at Oxford and at Bath) against the danger that lay
in such irresistible charms. From another letter, where the writer
refers to some message, which Sheridan had requested him to deliver to
Miss Linley, we learn, that she was at this time so strictly watched, as
to be unable to achieve--what to an ingenious woman is seldom difficult
--an answer to a letter which her lover had contrived to convey to her.

It was at first the intention of the elder Mr. Sheridan to send his
daughters, in the course of this autumn, under the care of their brother
Richard, to France. But, fearing to entrust them to a guardian who
seemed himself so much in need of direction, he altered his plan, and,
about the beginning of October, having formed an engagement for the
ensuing winter with the manager of the Dublin theatre, gave up his house
in Bath, and set out with his daughters for Ireland. At the same time
Mr. Grenville, (afterwards Marquis of Buckingham,) who had passed a
great part of this and the preceding summer at Bath, for the purpose of
receiving instruction from Mr. Sheridan in elocution, went also to
Dublin on a short visit, accompanied by Mr. Cleaver, and by his brother
Mr. Thomas Grenville--between whom and Richard Sheridan an intimacy had
at this period commenced, which continued with uninterrupted cordiality
ever after.

Some time previous to the departure of the elder Mr. Sheridan for
Ireland, having taken before a magistrate the depositions of the
postillions who were witnesses of the duel at Kingsdown, he had
earnestly entreated of his son to join him in a prosecution against
Mathews, whose conduct on the occasion he and others considered as by no
means that of a fair and honorable antagonist. It was in contemplation
of a measure of this nature, that the account of the meeting already
given was drawn up by Mr. Barnett, and deposited in the hands of Captain
Wade. Though Sheridan refused to join in legal proceedings--from an
unwillingness, perhaps, to keep Miss Linley's name any longer afloat
upon public conversation--yet this revival of the subject, and the
conflicting statements to which it gave rise, produced naturally in both
parties a relapse of angry feelings, which was very near ending in a
third duel between them. The authenticity given by Captain Paumier's
name to a narrative which Sheridan considered false and injurious, was
for some time a source of considerable mortification to him; and it must
be owned, that the helpless irresolution of this gentleman during the
duel, and his weak acquiescence in these misrepresentations afterwards,
showed him as unfit to be trusted with the life as with the character of
his friend.

How nearly this new train of misunderstanding had led to another
explosion, appears from one of the letters already referred to, written
in December, and directed to Sheridan at the Bedford Coffee-house,
Covent Garden, in which the writer expresses the most friendly and
anxious alarm at the intelligence which he has just received,--implores
of Sheridan to moderate his rage, and reminds him how often he had
resolved never to have any concern with Mathews again. Some explanation,
however, took place, as we collect from a letter dated a few days later;
and the world was thus spared not only such an instance of inveteracy,
as three duels between the same two men would have exhibited, but,
perhaps, the premature loss of a life to which we are indebted, for an
example as noble in its excitements, and a lesson as useful in its
warnings, as ever genius and its errors have bequeathed to mankind.

The following Lent, Miss Linley appeared in the oratorios at Covent
Garden; and Sheridan, who, from the nearness of his retreat to London,
(to use a phrase of his own, repeated in one of his friend's letters),
"trod upon the heels of perilous probabilities," though prevented by the
vigilance of her father from a private interview, had frequent
opportunities of seeing her in public. Among many other stratagems which
he contrived, for the purpose of exchanging a few words with her, he
more than once disguised himself as a hackney-coachman, and drove her
home from the theatre.

It appears, however, that a serious misunderstanding at this time
occurred between them,--originating probably in some of those paroxysms
of jealousy, into which a lover like Sheridan must have been continually
thrown, by the numerous admirers and pursuers of all kinds, which the
beauty and celebrity of his mistress attracted. Among various alliances
invented for her by the public at this period, it was rumored that she
was about to be married to Sir Thomas Clarges; and in the Bath Chronicle
of April, 1773, a correspondence is given as authentic between her and
"Lord Grosvenor," which, though pretty evidently a fabrication, yet
proves the high opinion entertained of the purity of her character. The
correspondence is thus introduced, in a letter to the editor:--"The
following letters are confidently said to have passed between Lord G---r
and the celebrated English syren, Miss L--y. I send them to you for
publication, not with any view to increase the volume of literary
scandal, which, I am sorry to say, at present needs no assistance, but
with the most laudable intent of setting an example for our modern
belles, by holding out the character of a young woman, who,
notwithstanding the solicitations of her profession, and the flattering
example of higher ranks, has added _incorruptible virtue_ to a
number of the most elegant qualifications."

Whatever may have caused the misunderstanding between her and her lover,
a reconcilement was with no great difficulty effected, by the mediation
of Sheridan's young friend, Mr. Ewart; and, at length, after a series of
stratagems and scenes, which convinced Mr. Linley that it was impossible
much longer to keep them asunder, he consented to their union, and on
the 13th of April, 1773, they were married by license [Footnote: Thus
announced in the Gentleman's Magazine:--"Mr. Sheridan of the Temple to
the celebrated Miss Linley of Bath."]--Mr. Ewart being at the same time
wedded to a young lady with whom he also had eloped clandestinely to
France, but was now enabled, by the forgiveness of his father, to
complete this double triumph of friendship and love.

A curious instance of the indolence and procrastinating habits of
Sheridan used to be related by Woodfall, as having occurred about this
time. A statement of his conduct in the duels having appeared in one of
the Bath papers, so false and calumnious as to require an immediate
answer, he called upon Woodfall to request that his paper might be the
medium of it. But wishing, as he said, that the public should have the
whole matter fairly before them, he thought it right that the offensive
statement should first be inserted, and in a day or two after be
followed by his answer, which would thus come with more relevancy and
effect. In compliance with his wish, Woodfall lost not a moment in
transcribing the calumnious article into his columns--not doubting, of
course, that the refutation of it would be furnished with still greater
eagerness. Day after day, however, elapsed, and, notwithstanding
frequent applications on the one side, and promises on the other, not a
line of the answer was ever sent by Sheridan,--who, having expended all
his activity in assisting the circulation of the poison, had not
industry enough left to supply the antidote. Throughout his whole life,
indeed, he but too consistently acted upon the principles, which the
first Lord Holland used playfully to impress upon his son:--"Never do
to-day what you can possibly put off till to-morrow, nor ever do,
yourself, what you can get any one else to do for you."




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."


A few weeks previous to his marriage, Sheridan, had been entered a
student of the Middle Temple. It was not, however, to be expected that
talents like his, so sure of a quick return of fame and emolument, would
wait for the distant and dearly-earned emoluments which a life of labor
in this profession promises. Nor, indeed, did his circumstances admit of
any such patient speculation. A part of the sum which Mr. Long had
settled upon Miss Linley, and occasional assistance from her father (his
own having withdrawn all countenance from him), were now the only
resources, besides his own talents, left him. The celebrity of Mrs.
Sheridan as a singer was, it is true, a ready source of wealth; and
offers of the most advantageous kind were pressed upon them, by managers
of concerts both in town and country. But with a pride and delicacy,
which received the tribute of Dr. Johnson's praise, he rejected at once
all thoughts of allowing her to reappear in public; and, instead of
profiting by the display of his wife's talents, adopted the manlier
resolution of seeking an independence by his own. An engagement had been
made for her some months before by her father, to perform at the music-
meeting that was to take place at Worcester this summer. But Sheridan,
who considered that his own claims upon her had superseded all others,
would not suffer her to keep this engagement.

How decided his mind was upon the subject will appear from the following
letter, written by him to Mr. Linley about a month after his marriage,
and containing some other interesting particulars, that show the
temptations with which his pride had, at this time, to struggle:--

"East Burnham, May 12, 1773.

"Dear Sir,

"I purposely deferred writing to you till I should have settled
_all_ matters in London, and in some degree settled ourselves at
our little home. Some unforeseen delays prevented my finishing with
Swale till Thursday last, when everything was concluded. I likewise
settled with him for his own account, as he brought it to me, and, for a
_friendly_ bill, it is pretty decent.--Yours of the 3d instant did
not reach me till yesterday, by reason of its missing us at Morden. As
to the principal point it treats of, I had given my answer some days
ago, to Mr. Isaac of Worcester. He had enclosed a letter to Storace for
my wife, in which he dwells much on the nature of the agreement you had
made for her eight months ago, and adds, that 'as this is no new
application, but a request that you (Mrs. S.) will fulfil a positive
engagement, the breach of which would prove of fatal consequence to our
meeting, I hope Mr. Sheridan will think his honor in some degree
concerned in fulfilling it.'--Mr. Storace, in order to enforce Mr.
Isaac's argument, showed me his letter on the same subject to him, which
begins with saying, 'We must have Mrs. Sheridan, somehow or other, if
possible!'--the plain English of which is that, if her husband is not
willing to let her perform, we will persuade him that he acts
_dishonorably_ in preventing her from fulfilling a _positive
engagement_. This I conceive to be the very worst mode of application
that could have been taken; as there really is not common sense in the
idea that my _honor_ can be concerned in my wife's fulfilling an
engagement, which it is impossible she should ever have made.--Nor (as I
wrote to Mr. Isaac) can you, who gave the promise, whatever it was, be
in the least charged with the breach of it, as your daughter's marriage
was an event which must always have been looked to by them as quite as
natural a period to your right over her as her death. And, in my
opinion, it would have been just as reasonable to have applied to you to
fulfil your engagement in the latter case as in the former. As to the
_imprudence_ of declining this engagement, I do not think, even
were we to suppose that my wife should ever on any occasion appear again
in public, there would be the least at present. For instance, I have had
a gentleman with me from Oxford (where they do not claim the least
_right_ as from an engagement), who has endeavored to place the
idea of my complimenting the University with Betsey's performance in the
strongest light of advantage to me. This he said, on my declining to let
her perform on any agreement. He likewise informed me, that he had just
left Lord North (the Chancellor), who, he assured me, would look upon it
as the highest compliment, and had expressed himself so to him. Now,
should it be a point of inclination or convenience to me to break my
resolution with regard to Betsey's performing, there surely would be
more sense in obliging Lord North (and probably from _his own_
application) and the University, than Lord Coventry and Mr. Isaac. For,
were she to sing at Worcester, there would not be the least compliment
in her performing at Oxford. Indeed, they would have a right to _claim
it_--particularly, as that is the mode of application they have
chosen from Worcester. I have mentioned the Oxford matter merely as an
argument, that I can have no kind of inducement to accept of the
proposal from Worcester. And, as I have written fully on the subject to
Mr. Isaac, I think there will be no occasion for you to give any further
reasons to Lord Coventry--only that I am sorry I cannot accept of his
proposal, civilities, &c. &c., and refer him for my motives to Mr.
Isaac, as what I have said to you on the subject I mean for you only,
and, if more remains to be argued on the subject in general, we must
defer it till we meet, which you have given us reason to hope will not
be long first.

"As this is a letter of business chiefly, I shall say little of our
situation and arrangement of affairs, but that I think we are as happy
as those who wish us best could desire. There is but one thing that has
the least weight upon me, though it is one I was prepared for. But time,
while it strengthens the other blessings we possess, will, I hope, add
that to the number. You will know that I speak with regard to my father.
Betsey informs me you have written to him again--have you heard from
him?....

"I should hope to hear from you very soon, and I assure you, you shall
now find me a very exact correspondent; though I hope you will not give
me leave to confirm my character in that respect before we meet.

"As there is with this a letter for Polly and you, I shall only charge
you with mine and Betsey's best love to her, mother, and Tom, &c. &c.,
and believe me your sincere friend and affectionate son,

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

At East Burnham, from whence this letter is dated, they were now living
in a small cottage, to which they had retired immediately on their
marriage, and to which they often looked back with a sigh in after-
times, when they were more prosperous, but less happy. It was during a
very short absence from this cottage, that the following lines were
written by him:--

  "Teach me, kind Hymen, teach, for thou
  Must be my only tutor now,--
  Teach me some innocent employ,
  That shall the hateful thought destroy,
  That I this whole long night must pass
  In exile from my love's embrace.
  Alas, thou hast no wings, oh Time!
[Footnote: It will be perceived that the eight following lines are the
foundation of the song "What bard, oh Time," in the Duenna.]
  It was some thoughtless lover's rhyme,
  Who, writing in his Chloe's view,
  Paid her the compliment through you.
  For had he, if he truly lov'd,
  But once the pangs of absence prov'd,
  He'd cropt thy wings, and, in their stead,
  Have painted thee with heels of lead.
  But 'tis the temper of the mind,
  Where we thy regulator find.
  Still o'er the gay and o'er the young
  unfelt steps you flit along,--
  As Virgil's nymph o'er ripen'd corn,
  With such ethereal haste was borne,
  That every stock, with upright head,
  Denied the pressure of her tread.
  But o'er the wretched, oh, how slow
  And heavy sweeps thy scythe of woe!
  Oppress'd beneath each stroke they bow,
  Thy course engraven on their brow:
  A day of absence shall consume
  The glow of youth and manhood's bloom,
  And one short night of anxious fear
  Shall leave the wrinkles of a year.
  For me who, when I'm happy, owe
  No thanks to fortune that I'm so,
  Who long have learned to look at one
  Dear object, and at one alone,
  For all the joy, or all the sorrow,
  That gilds the day, or threats the morrow,
  I never felt thy footsteps light,
  But when sweet love did aid thy flight,
  And, banish'd from his blest dominion,
  I cared not for thy borrowed pinion.

  True, she is mine, and, since she's mine,
  At trifles I should not repine;
  But oh, the miser's real pleasure
  Is not in knowing he has treasure;
  He must behold his golden store,
  And feel, and count his riches o'er.
  Thus I, of one dear gem possest,
  And in that treasure only blest,
  There every day would seek delight,
  And clasp the casket every night."

Towards the winter they went to lodge for a short time with Storace, the
intimate friend of Mr. Linley, and in the following year attained that
first step of independence, a house to themselves; Mr. Linley having
kindly supplied the furniture of their new residence, which was in
Orchard-Street, Portman-Square. During the summer of 1774, they passed
some time at Mr. Canning's and Lord Coventry's; but, so little did these
visits interfere with the literary industry of Sheridan, that, as
appears from the following letter, written to Mr. Linley in November, he
had not only at that time finished his play of the Rivals, but was on
the point of "sending a hook to the press:"--

"Dear Sir,

"Nov. 17th 1774.

"If I were to attempt to make as many apologies as my long omission in
writing to you requires, I should have no room for any other subject.
One excuse only I shall bring forward, which is, that I have been
exceedingly employed, and I believe _very profitably_. However,
before I explain how, I must ease my mind on a subject that much more
nearly concerns me than any point of business or profit. I must premise
to you that Betsey is now very well, before I tell you abruptly that she
has encountered another disappointment, and consequent indisposition....
However, she is now getting entirely over it, and she shall never take
any journey of the kind again. I inform you of this now, that you may
not be alarmed by any accounts from some other quarter, which might lead
you to fear she was going to have such an illness as last year, of which
I assure you, upon my honor, there is not the least apprehension. If I
did not write now, Betsey would write herself, and in a day she will
make you quite easy on this head.

"I have been very seriously at work on a book, which I am just now
sending to the press, and which I think will do me some credit, if it
leads to nothing else. However, the profitable affair is of another
nature. There will be a _Comedy_ of mine in rehearsal at Covent-
Garden within a few days. I did not set to work on it till within a few
days of my setting out for _Crome_, so you may think I have not,
for these last six weeks, been very idle. I have done it at Mr. Harris's
(the manager's) own request; it is now complete in his hands, and
preparing for the stage. He, and some of his friends also who have heard
it, assure me in the most flattering terms that there is not a doubt of
its success. It will be very well played, and Harris tells me that the
least shilling I shall get (if it succeeds) will be six hundred pounds.
I shall make no secret of it towards the time of representation, that it
may not lose any support my friends can give it. I had not written a
line of it two months ago, except a scene or two, which I believe you
have seen in an odd act of a little farce.

"Mr. Stanley was with me a day or two ago on the subject of the
oratorios. I found Mr. Smith has declined, and is retiring to Bath. Mr.
Stanley informed me that on his applying to the king for the continuance
of his favor, he was desired by his Majesty to make me an offer of Mr.
Smith's situation and partnership in them, and that he should continue
his protection, &c. I declined the matter very civilly and very
peremptorily. I should imagine that Mr. Stanley would apply to you;--I
started the subject to him, and said you had twenty Mrs. Sheridans more.
However, he said very little:--if he does, and you wish to make an
alteration in your system at once, I should think you may stand in
Smith's place. I would not listen to him on any other terms, and I
should think the King might be made to signify his pleasure for such an
arrangement. On this you will reflect, and if any way strikes you that I
can move in it, I need not add how happy I shall be in its success.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I hope you will let me have the pleasure to hear from you soon, as I
shall think any delay unfair,--unless you can plead that you are writing
an opera, and a folio on music besides. Accept Betsey's love and duty.

"Your sincere and affectionate

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

What the book here alluded to was, I cannot with any accuracy ascertain.
Besides a few sketches of plays and poems, of which I shall give some
account in a subsequent Chapter, there exist among his papers several
fragments of Essays and Letters, all of which--including the unfinished
plays and poems--must have been written by him in the interval between
1769, when he left Harrow, and the present year; though at what precise
dates during that period there are no means of judging.

Among these there are a few political Letters, evidently designed for
the newspapers;--some of them but half copied out, and probably never
sent. One of this description, which must have been written immediately
on his leaving school, is a piece of irony against the Duke of Grafton,
giving reasons why that nobleman should not lose his head, and, under
the semblance of a defence, exaggerating all the popular charges against
him.

The first argument (he says) of the Duke's adversaries, "is founded on
the regard which ought to be paid to justice, and on the good effects
which, they affirm, such an example would have, in suppressing the
ambition of any future minister. But if I can prove that his ---- might
be made a much greater example of by being suffered to live, I think I
may, without vanity, affirm that their whole argument will fall to the
ground. By pursuing the methods which they propose, viz. chopping off
his ----'s head, I allow the impression would be stronger at first; but
we should consider how soon that wears off. If, indeed, his ----'s
crimes were of such a nature, as to entitle his head to a place on
Temple-Bar, I should allow some weight to their argument. But, in the
present case, we should reflect how apt mankind are to relent after they
have inflicted punishment;--so that, perhaps, the same men who would
have detested the noble Lord, while alive and in prosperity, pointing
him as a scarecrow to their children, might, after being witnesses to
the miserable fate that had overtaken him, begin in their hearts to pity
him; and from the fickleness so common to human nature, perhaps, by way
of compensation, acquit him of part of his crimes; insinuate that he was
dealt hardly with, and thus, by the remembrance of their compassion, on
this occasion, be led to show more indulgence to any future offender in
the same circumstances." There is a clearness of thought and style here
very remarkable in so young a writer.

In affecting to defend the Duke against the charge of fickleness and
unpunctuality, he says, "I think I could bring several instances which
should seem to promise the greatest steadiness and resolution. I have
known him make the Council wait, on the business of the whole nation,
when he has had an appointment to Newmarket. Surely, this is an instance
of the greatest honor; and, if we see him so punctual in private
appointments, must we not conclude that he is infinitely more so in
greater matters? Nay, when W----s [Footnote: Wilkes.] came over, is it
not notorious that the late Lord Mayor went to His Grace on that
evening, proposing a scheme which, by securing this fire-brand, might
have put an end to all the troubles he has caused? But His Grace did not
see him;--no, he was a man of too much honor;--he had _promised_
that evening to attend Nancy Parsons to Ranelagh, and he would not
disappoint her, but made three thousand people witnesses of his
punctuality."

There is another Letter, which happens to be dated (1770), addressed to
"Novus,"--some writer in Woodfall's Public Advertiser,--and appearing to
be one of a series to the same correspondent. From the few political
allusions introduced in this letter, (which is occupied chiefly in an
attack upon the literary style of "Novus,") we can collect that the
object of Sheridan was to defend the new ministry of Lord North, who
had, in the beginning of that year, succeeded the Duke of Grafton.
Junius was just then in the height of his power and reputation; and as,
in English literature, one great voice always produces a multitude of
echoes, it was thought at that time indispensable to every letter-writer
in a newspaper, to be a close copyist of the style of Junius: of course,
our young political tyro followed this "mould of form" as well as the
rest. Thus, in addressing his correspondent:--"That gloomy seriousness
in your style,--that seeming consciousness of superiority, together with
the consideration of the infinite pains it must have cost you to have
been so elaborately wrong,--will not suffer me to attribute such
numerous errors to any thing but real ignorance, joined with most
consummate vanity." The following is a specimen of his acuteness in
criticising the absurd style of his adversary:--"You leave it rather
dubious whether you were most pleased with the glorious opposition to
Charles I. or the dangerous designs of that monarch, which you
emphatically call 'the arbitrary projects of a Stuart's nature.' What do
you mean by the projects of a man's _nature_? A man's natural
disposition may urge him to the commission of some actions;--Nature may
instigate and encourage, but I believe you are the first that ever made
her a projector."

It is amusing to observe, that, while he thus criticises the style and
language of his correspondent, his own spelling, in every second line,
convicts him of deficiency in at least one common branch of literary
acquirement:--we find _thing_ always spelt _think_;--
_whether_, _where_, and _which_, turned into
_wether_, _were_, and _wich_;--and double _m's_ and
_s's_ almost invariably reduced to "single blessedness." This sign
of a neglected education remained with him to a very late period, and,
in his hasty writing, or scribbling, would occasionally recur to the
last.

From these Essays for the newspapers it may be seen how early was the
bias of his mind towards politics. It was, indeed, the rival of
literature in his affections during all the early part of his life, and,
at length,--whether luckily for himself or not it is difficult to say,--
gained the mastery.

There are also among his manuscripts some commencements of Periodical
Papers, under various names, "The Detector," "The Dramatic Censor,"
&c.;--none of them, apparently, carried beyond the middle of the first
number. But one of the most curious of these youthful productions is a
Letter to the Queen, recommending the establishment of an Institution,
for the instruction and maintenance of young females in the better
classes of life, who, from either the loss of their parents, or from
poverty, are without the means of being brought up suitably to their
station. He refers to the asylum founded by Madame de Maintenon, at St.
Cyr, as a model, and proposes that the establishment should be placed
under the patronage of Her Majesty, and entitled "The Royal Sanctuary."
The reader, however, has to arrive at the practical part of the plan,
through long and flowery windings of panegyric, on the beauty, genius,
and virtue of women, and their transcendent superiority, in every
respect, over men.

The following sentence will give some idea of the sort of eloquence with
which he prefaces this grave proposal to Her Majesty:--"The dispute
about the proper sphere of women is idle. That men should have attempted
to draw a line for their orbit, shows that God meant them for comets,
and above our jurisdiction. With them the enthusiasm of poetry and the
idolatry of love is the simple voice of nature." There are, indeed, many
passages of this boyish composition, a good deal resembling in their
style those ambitious apostrophes with which he afterwards ornamented
his speeches on the trial of Hastings.

He next proceeds to remark to Her Majesty, that in those countries where
"man is scarce better than a brute, he shows his degeneracy by his
treatment of women," and again falls into metaphor, not very clearly
made out:--"The influence that women have over us is as the medium
through which the finer Arts act upon us. The incense of our love and
respect for them creates the atmosphere of our souls, which corrects and
meliorates the beams of knowledge."

The following is in a better style:--"However, in savage countries,
where the pride of man has not fixed the first dictates of ignorance
into law, we see the real effects of nature. The wild Huron shall, to
the object of his love, become gently as his weary rein-deer;--he shall
present to her the spoil of his bow on his knee;-he shall watch without
reward the cave where she sleeps;--he shall rob the birds for feathers
for her hair, and dive for pearls for her neck;--her look shall be his
law, and her beauties his worship!" He then endeavors to prove that, as
it is the destiny of man to be ruled by woman, he ought, for his own
sake, to render her as fit for that task as possible:--" How can we be
better employed than in perfecting that which governs us? The brighter
they are, the more we shall be illumined. Were the minds of all women
cultivated by inspiration, men would become wise of course. They are a
sort of pentagraphs with which nature writes on the heart of man;--what
_she_ delineates on the original map will appear on the copy."

In showing how much less women are able to struggle against adversity
than men, he says,--"As for us, we are born in a state of warfare with
poverty and distress. The sea of adversity is our natural element, and
he that will not buffet with the billows deserves to sink. But you, oh
you, by nature formed of gentler kind, can _you_ endure the biting
storm? shall you be turned to the nipping blast, and not a door be open
to give you shelter?"

After describing, with evident seriousness, the nature of the
institution of Madame de Maintenon, at St. Cyr, he adds the following
strange romantic allusion: "Had such a charity as I have been speaking
of existed here, the mild _Parthenia_ and my poor _Laura_
would not have fallen into untimely graves."

The practical details of his plan, in which it is equally evident that
he means to be serious, exhibit the same flightiness of language and
notions. The King, he supposes, would have no objection to "grant
Hampton-Court, or some other palace, for the purpose;" and "as it is (he
continues, still addressing the Queen) to be immediately under your
majesty's patronage, so should your majesty be the first member of it.
Let the constitution of it be like that of a university, Your Majesty,
Chancellor; some of the first ladies in the kingdom sub-chancellors;
whose care it shall be to provide instructors of real merit. The classes
are to be distinguished by age--none by degree. For, as their
qualification shall be gentility, they are all on a level. The
instructors shall be women, except for the languages. Latin and Greek
should not be learned;--the frown of pedantry destroys the blush of
humility. The practical part of the sciences, as of astronomy, &c.,
should be taught. In history they would find that there are other
passions in man than love. As for novels, there are some I would
strongly recommend; but romances infinitely more. The one is a
representation of the effects of the passions as they should be, though
extravagant; the other, as they are. The latter is falsely called
nature, and is a picture of depraved and corrupted society; the other is
the glow of nature. I would therefore exclude all novels that show human
nature depraved:--however well executed, the design will disgust."

He concludes by enumerating the various good effects which the examples
of female virtue, sent forth from such an institution, would produce
upon the manners and morals of the other sex; and in describing, among
other kinds of coxcombs, the cold, courtly man of the world, uses the
following strong figure: "They are so clipped, and rubbed, and polished,
that God's image and inscription is worn from them, and when He calls in
his coin, He will no longer know them for his own."

There is still another Essay, or rather a small fragment of an Essay, on
the letters of Lord Chesterfield, which, I am inclined to think, may
have formed a part of the rough copy of the book, announced by him to
Mr. Linley as ready in the November of this year. Lord Chesterfield's
Letters appeared for the first time in 1774, and the sensation they
produced was exactly such as would tempt a writer in quest of popular
subjects to avail himself of it. As the few pages which I have found,
and which contain merely scattered hints of thoughts, are numbered as
high as 232, it is possible that the preceding part of the work may have
been sufficiently complete to go into the printer's hands, and that
there,--like so many more of his "unshelled brood,"--it died without
ever taking wing. A few of these memorandums will, I have no doubt, be
acceptable to the reader.

"Lord C.'s whole system in no one article calculated to make a great
man.--A noble youth should be ignorant of the things he wishes him to
know;--such a one as he wants would be _too soon_ a man.

"Emulation is a dangerous passion to encourage, in some points, in young
men; it is so linked with envy: if you reproach your son for not
surpassing his school-fellows, he will hate those who are before him.
Emulation not to be encouraged even in virtue. True virtue will, like
the Athenian, rejoice in being surpassed; a friendly emulation cannot
exist in two minds; one must hate the perfections in which he is
eclipsed by the other;--thus, from hating the quality in his
competitor, he loses the respect for it in himself:--a young man by
himself better educated than two.--A Roman's emulation was not to excel
his countrymen, but to make his country excel: this is the true, the
other selfish.--Epaminondas, who reflected on the pleasure his success
would give his father, most glorious;--an emulation for that purpose,
true.

"The selfish vanity of the father appears in all these letters--his
sending the copy of a letter for his sister.--His object was the praise
of his own mode of education.--How much more noble the affection of
Morni in Ossian; 'Oh, that the name of Morni,' &c. &c. [Footnote: "Oh,
that the name of Morni were forgot among the people; that the heroes
would only say, 'Behold the father of Gaul!'" Sheridan applied this,
more than thirty years after, in talking of his own son, on the hustings
of Westminster, and said that, in like manner, he would ask no greater
distinction than for men to point at him and say, "There goes the father
of Tom Sheridan."]

"His frequent directions for constant employment entirely ill founded:
--a wise man is formed more by the action of his own thoughts than by
continually feeding it. 'Hurry,' he says, 'from play to study; never be
doing nothing'--I say, 'Frequently be unemployed; sit and think.'
_There are on every subject but a few leading and fixed ideas; their
tracks may be traced by your own genius as well as by reading_:--a
man of deep thought, who shall have accustomed himself to support or
attack all he has read, will soon find nothing new: thought is exercise,
and the mind, like the body, must not be wearied."

These last two sentences contain the secret of Sheridan's confidence in
his own powers. His subsequent success bore him out in the opinions he
thus early expressed, and might even have persuaded him that it was in
consequence, not in spite, of his want of cultivation that he succeeded.

On the 17th of January, 1775, the comedy of The Rivals was brought out
at Covent-Garden, and the following was the cast of the characters on
the first night:--

Sir Anthony Absolute      _Mr. Shuter_.
Captain Absolute          _Mr. Woodward_.
Falkland                  _Mr. Lewis_.
Acres                     _Mr. Quick_.
Sir Lucius O'Trigger      _Mr. Lee_.
Fag                       _Mr. Lee Lewes_.
David                     _Mr. Dunstal_.
Coachman                  _Mr. Fearon_.

Mrs. Malaprop             _Mrs. Green_.
Lydia Languish            _Miss Barsanti_.
Julia                     _Mrs. Bulkley_.
Lucy                      _Mrs. Lessingham_.

This comedy, as is well known, failed on its first representation,--
chiefly from the bad acting of Mr. Lee in Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Another
actor, however, Mr. Clinch, was substituted in his place, and the play
being lightened of this and some other incumbrances, rose at once into
that high region of public favor, where it has continued to float so
buoyantly and gracefully ever since.

The following extracts from letters written at that time by Miss Linley
(afterwards Mrs. Tickell) to her sister, Mrs. Sheridan, though
containing nothing remarkable, yet, as warm with the feelings of a
moment so interesting in Sheridan's literary life, will be read,
perhaps, with some degree of pleasure. The slightest outline of a
celebrated place, taken on the spot, has often a charm beyond the most
elaborate picture finished at a distance.

"Bath.

"MY DEAREST ELIZA,

"We are all in the greatest anxiety about Sheridan's play,--though
I do not think there is the least doubt of its succeeding. I was told
last night that it was his own story, and therefore called "The Rivals;"
but I do not give any credit to this intelligence....

"I am told he will get at least 700_l_. for his play."

"Bath, January, 1775.

"It is impossible to tell you what pleasure we felt at the receipt of
Sheridan's last letter, which confirmed what we had seen in the
newspapers of the success of his play. The _knowing ones_ were very
much disappointed, as they had so very bad an opinion of its success.
After the first night we were indeed all very fearful that the audience
would go very much prejudiced against it. But now, there can be no doubt
of its success, as it has certainly got through more difficulties than
any comedy which has not met its doom the first night. I know you have
been very busy in writing for Sheridan,--I don't mean _copying_,
but _composing_;--it's true, indeed;--you must not contradict me
when I say you wrote the much admired epilogue to the Rivals. How I long
to read it! What makes it more certain is, that my _father_ guessed
it was _yours_ the first time he saw it praised in the paper."

This statement respecting the epilogue would, if true, deprive Sheridan
of one of the fairest leaves of his poetic crown. It appears, however,
to be but a conjecture hazarded at the moment, and proves only the high
idea entertained of Mrs. Sheridan's talents by her own family. The cast
of the play at Bath, and its success there and elsewhere, are thus
mentioned in these letters of Miss Linley:

"Bath, February 18, 1775.

"What shall I say of The Rivals!--a compliment must naturally be
expected; but really it goes so far beyond any thing I can say in its
praise, that I am afraid my modesty must keep me silent. When you and I
meet I shall be better able to explain myself, and tell you how much I
am delighted with it. We expect to have it _here_ very soon:--it is
now in rehearsal. You pretty well know the merits of our principal
performers:--I'll show you how it is cast.

Sir Anthony         _Mr. Edwin_.
Captain Absolute    _Mr. Didier_.
Falkland            _Mr. Dimond_.
  (A new actor of great merit, and a sweet figure.)
Sir Lucius          _Mr. Jackson_.
Acres               _Mr. Keasberry_.
Fag                 _Mr. Brunsdon_.

Mrs. Malaprop       _Mrs. Wheeler_.
Miss Lydia          _Miss Wheeler_.
  (Literally, a very pretty romantic girl, of seventeen.)
Julia               _Mrs. Didier_
Lucy                _Mrs. Brett_.

There, Madam, do not you think we shall do your Rivals some justice? I'm
convinced it won't be done better any where out of London. I don't think
Mrs. Mattocks can do Julia very well."

"Bath, March 9, 1775.

"You will know by what you see enclosed in this frank my reason for not
answering your letter sooner was, that I waited the success of
Sheridan's play in Bath; for, let me tell you, I look upon our
theatrical tribunal, though not in _quantity_, in _quality_ as
good as yours, and I do not believe there was a critic in the whole city
that was not there. But, in my life, I never saw any thing go off with
such uncommon applause. I must first of all inform you that there was a
very full house:--the play was performed inimitably well; nor did I
hear, for the honor of our Bath actors, one single prompt the whole
night; but I suppose the poor creatures never acted with such shouts of
applause in their lives, so that they were incited by that to do their
best. They lost many of Malaprop's good sayings by the applause: in
short, I never saw or heard any thing like it;--before the actors spoke,
they began their clapping. There was a new scene of the N. Parade,
painted by Mr. Davis, and a most delightful one it is, I assure you.
Every body says,--Bowers in particular,--that yours in town is not so
good. Most of the dresses were entirely new, and very handsome. On the
whole, I think Sheridan is vastly obliged to poor dear Keasberry for
getting it up so well. We only wanted a good Julia to have made it quite
complete. You must know that it was entirely out of Mrs. Didier's style
of playing: but I never saw better acting than Keasberry's,--so all the
critics agreed."

"Bath, August 22d, 1775.

"Tell Sheridan his play has been acted at Southampton:--above a hundred
people were turned away the first night. They say there never was any
thing so universally liked. They have very good success at Bristol, and
have played The Rivals several times:--Miss Barsanti, Lydia, and Mrs.
Canning, Julia."

To enter into a regular analysis of this lively play, the best comment
on which is to be found in the many smiling faces that are lighted up
around wherever it appears, is a task of criticism that will hardly be
thought necessary. With much less wit, it exhibits perhaps more humor
than The School for Scandal, and the dialogue, though by no means so
pointed or sparkling, is, in this respect, more natural, as coming
nearer the current coin of ordinary conversation; whereas, the
circulating medium of The School for Scandal is diamonds. The characters
of The Rivals, on the contrary, are _not_ such as occur very
commonly in the world; and, instead of producing striking effects with
natural and obvious materials, which is the great art and difficulty of
a painter of human life, he has here overcharged most of his persons
with whims and absurdities, for which the circumstances they are engaged
in afford but a very disproportionate vent. Accordingly, for our insight
into their characters, we are indebted rather to their confessions than
their actions. Lydia Languish, in proclaiming the extravagance of her
own romantic notions, prepares us for events much more ludicrous and
eccentric, than those in which the plot allows her to be concerned; and
the young lady herself is scarcely more disappointed than we are, at the
tameness with which her amour concludes. Among the various ingredients
supposed to be mixed up in the composition of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, his
love of fighting is the only one whose flavor is very strongly brought
out; and the wayward, captious jealousy of Falkland, though so highly
colored in his own representation of it, is productive of no incident
answerable to such an announcement:--the imposture which he practises
upon Julia being perhaps weakened in its effect, by our recollection of
the same device in the Nut-brown Maid and Peregrine Pickle.

The character of Sir Anthony Absolute is, perhaps, the best sustained
and most natural of any, and the scenes between him and Captain Absolute
are richly, genuinely dramatic. His surprise at the apathy with which
his son receives the glowing picture which he draws of the charms of his
destined bride, and the effect of the question, "And which is to be
mine, Sir,--the niece or the aunt?" are in the truest style of humor.
Mrs. Malaprop's mistakes, in what she herself calls "orthodoxy," have
been often objected to as improbable from a woman in her rank of life;
but, though some of them, it must be owned, are extravagant and
farcical, they are almost all amusing,--and the luckiness of her simile,
"as headstrong as an _allegory_ on the banks of the Nile," will be
acknowledged as long as there are writers to be run away with, by the
wilfulness of this truly "headstrong" species of composition.

Of the faults of Sheridan both in his witty and serious styles--the
occasional effort of the one, and the too frequent false finery of the
other--some examples may be cited from the dialogue of this play. Among
the former kind is the following elaborate conceit:--

"_Falk._ Has Lydia changed her mind? I should have thought her duty
and inclination would now have pointed to the same object.

"_Abs._ Ay, just as the eyes of a person who squints: when her
love-eye was fixed on me, t'other--her eye of duty--was finely obliqued:
but when duty bade her point that the same way, off turned t'other on a
swivel, and secured its retreat with a frown."

This, though ingenious, is far too labored--and of that false taste by
which sometimes, in his graver style, he was seduced into the display of
second-rate ornament, the following speeches of Julia afford specimens:--

"Then on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your keen regret
to slumbering; while virtuous love, with a cherub's hand, shall smooth
the brow of upbraiding thought, and pluck the thorn from compunction."

Again:--"When hearts deserving happiness would unite their fortunes,
virtue would crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless
flowers: but ill-judging passion will force the gaudier rose into the
wreath, whose thorn offends them when its leaves are dropt."

But, notwithstanding such blemishes,--and it is easy for the microscopic
eye of criticism to discover gaps and inequalities in the finest edge of
genius,--this play, from the liveliness of its plot, the variety and
whimsicality of its characters, and the exquisite humor of its dialogue,
is one of the most amusing in the whole range of the drama; and even
without the aid of its more splendid successor, The School for Scandal,
would have placed Sheridan in the first rank of comic writers.

A copy of The Rivals has fallen into my hands, which once belonged to
Tickell, the friend and brother-in-law of Sheridan, and on the margin of
which I find written by him in many places his opinion of particular
parts of the dialogue. [Footnote: These opinions are generally expressed
in two or three words, and are, for the most part, judicious. Upon Mrs.
Malaprop's quotation from Shakspeare, "Hesperian curls," &c. he writes,
"overdone--fitter for farce than comedy." Acres's classification of
oaths, "This we call the _oath referential,"_ &c. he pronounces to
be "very good, but above the speaker's capacity." Of Julia's speech, "Oh
woman, how true should be your judgment, when your resolution is so
weak!" he remarks, "On the contrary, it seems to be of little
consequence whether any person's judgment be weak or not, who wants
resolution to act according to it."] He has also prefixed to it, as
coming from Sheridan, the following humorous dedication, which, I take
for granted, has never before met the light, and which the reader will
perceive, by the allusions in it to the two Whig ministries, could not
have been written before the year 1784:--

"DEDICATION TO IDLENESS.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"If it were necessary to make any apology for this freedom, I know you
would think it a sufficient one, that I shall find it easier to dedicate
my play to you than to any other person. There is likewise a propriety
in prefixing your name to a work begun entirely at your suggestion, and
finished under your auspices; and I should think myself wanting in
gratitude to you, if I did not take an early opportunity of
acknowledging the obligations which I owe you. There was a time--though
it is so long ago that I now scarcely remember it, and cannot mention it
without compunction--but there was a time, when the importunity of
parents, and the example of a few injudicious young men of my
acquaintance, had almost prevailed on me to thwart my genius, and
prostitute my abilities by an application to serious pursuits. And if
you had not opened my eyes to the absurdity and profligacy of such a
perversion of the best gifts of nature, I am by no means clear that I
might not have been a wealthy merchant or an eminent lawyer at this very
moment. Nor was it only on my first setting out in life that I availed
myself of a connection with you, though perhaps I never reaped such
signal advantages from it as at that critical period. I have frequently
since stood in need of your admonitions, and have always found you ready
to assist me--though you were frequently brought by your zeal for me
into new and awkward situations, and such as you were at first,
naturally enough, unwilling to appear in. Amongst innumerable other
instances, I cannot omit two, where you afforded me considerable and
unexpected relief, and in fact converted employments, usually attended
by dry and disgusting business, into scenes of perpetual merriment and
recreation. I allude, as you will easily imagine, to those cheerful
hours which I spent in the Secretary of State's office and the Treasury,
during all which time you were my inseparable companion, and showed me
such a preference over the rest of my colleagues, as excited at once
their envy and admiration. Indeed, it was very natural for them to
repine at your having taught me a way of doing business, which it was
impossible for them to follow--it was both original and inimitable.

"If I were to say here all that I think of your excellencies, I might be
suspected of flattery; but I beg leave to refer you for the test of my
sincerity to the constant tenor of my life and actions; and shall
conclude with a sentiment of which no one can dispute the truth, nor
mistake the application,--that those persons usually deserve most of
their friends who expect least of them.

"I am, &c. &c. &c.,

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

The celebrity which Sheridan had acquired, as the chivalrous lover of
Miss Linley, was of course considerably increased by the success of The
Rivals; and, gifted as he and his beautiful wife were with all that
forms the magnetism of society,--the power to attract, and the
disposition to be attracted,--their life, as may easily be supposed, was
one of gaiety both at home and abroad. Though little able to cope with
the entertainments of their wealthy acquaintance, her music and the good
company which his talents drew around him, were an ample repayment for
the more solid hospitalities which they received. Among the families
visited by them was that of Mr. Coote (Purden), at whose musical parties
Mrs. Sheridan frequently sung, accompanied occasionally by the two
little daughters [Footnote: The charm of her singing, as well as her
fondness for children, are interestingly described in a letter to my
friend Mr. Rogers, from one of the most tasteful writers of the present
day:--"Hers was truly 'a voice as of the cherub choir,' and she was
always ready to sing without any pressing. She sung here a great deal,
and to my infinite delight; but what had a particular charm was, that
she used to take my daughter, then a child, on her lap, and sing a
number of childish songs with such a playfulness of manner, and such a
sweetness of look and voice, as was quite enchanting."] of Mr. Coote,
who were the originals of the children introduced into Sir Joshua
Reynolds's portrait of Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia. It was here that
the Duchess of Devonshire first met Sheridan; and, as I have been told,
long hesitated as to the propriety of inviting to her house two persons
of such equivocal rank in society, as he and his wife were at that time
considered. Her Grace was reminded of these scruples some years after,
when "the player's son" had become the admiration of the proudest and
fairest; and when a house, provided for the Duchess herself at Bath, was
left two months unoccupied, in consequence of the social attractions of
Sheridan, which prevented a party then assembled at Chatsworth from
separating. These are triumphs which, for the sake of all humbly born
heirs of genius, deserve to be commemorated.

In gratitude, it is said, to Clinch, the actor, for the seasonable
reinforcement which he had brought to The Rivals, Mr. Sheridan produced
this year a farce called "St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming
Lieutenant," which was acted on the 2d of May, and had considerable
success.

Though we must not look for the usual point of Sheridan in this piece,
where the hits of pleasantry are performed with the broad end or
_mace_ of his wit, there is yet a quick circulation of humor
through the dialogue,--and laughter, the great end of farce, is
abundantly achieved by it. The moralizing of Doctor Rosy, and the
dispute between the justice's wife and her daughter, as to the
respective merits of militia-men and regulars, are highly comic:--

"Psha, you know, Mamma, I hate militia officers; a set of dunghill cocks
with spurs on--heroes scratched off a church door. No, give me the bold
upright youth, who makes love to-day, and has his head shot off to-
morrow. Dear! to think how the sweet fellows sleep on the ground, and
fight in silk stockings and lace ruffles.

"_Mother._ Oh barbarous! to want a husband that may wed you to-day
and be sent the Lord knows where before night; then in a twelve-month,
perhaps, to have him come like a Colossus, with one leg at New York and
the other at Chelsea Hospital."

Sometimes, too, there occurs a phrase or sentence, which might be sworn
to, as from the pen of Sheridan, any where. Thus, in the very opening:--

"_1st Soldier._ I say you are wrong; we should all speak together,
each for himself, and all at once, that we may be heard the better.

"_2d Soldier._ Right, Jack, we'll _argue in platoons_."

Notwithstanding the great success of his first attempts in the drama, we
find politics this year renewing its claims upon his attention, and
tempting him to enter into the lists with no less an antagonist than Dr.
Johnson. That eminent man had just published his pamphlet on the
American question, entitled "Taxation no Tyranny;"--a work whose pompous
sarcasms on the Congress of Philadelphia, when compared with what has
happened since, dwindle into puerilities, and show what straws upon the
great tide of events are even the mightiest intellects of this world.
Some notes and fragments, found among the papers of Mr. Sheridan, prove
that he had it in contemplation to answer this pamphlet; and, however
inferior he might have been in style to his practised adversary, he
would at least have had the advantage of a good cause, and of those
durable materials of truth and justice, which outlive the mere
workmanship, however splendid, of talent. Such arguments as the
following, which Johnson did not scruple to use, are, by the haughtiness
of their tone and thought, only fit for the lips of autocrats:--

"When they apply to our compassion, by telling us that they are to be
carried from their own country to be tried for certain offences, we are
not so ready to pity them, as to advise them not to offend. While they
are innocent, they are safe.

"If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a
trial. The crime is manifest and notorious," &c. &c.

It appears from the fragments of the projected answer, that Johnson's
pension was one of the points upon which Mr. Sheridan intended to assail
him. The prospect of being able to neutralize the effects of his zeal,
by exposing the nature of the chi

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