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Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2

T >> Thomas Moore >> Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2




"The Noble Lord need not remind us, that there is no great danger of our
Chancellor of the Exchequer making any such experiment. I can more easily
fancy another sort of speech for our prudent Minister. I can more easily
conceive him modestly comparing himself and his own measures with the
character and conduct of his rival, and saying,--'Do I demand of you,
wealthy citizens, to lend your hoards to Government without interest? On
the contrary, when I shall come to propose a loan, there is not a man of
you to whom I shall not hold out at least a job in every part of the
subscription, and an usurious profit upon every pound you devote to the
necessities of your country. Do I demand of you, my fellow-placemen and
brother-pensioners, that you should sacrifice any part of your stipends
to the public exigency? On the contrary; am I not daily increasing your
emoluments and your numbers in proportion as the country becomes unable
to provide for you? Do I require of you, my latest and most zealous
proselytes, of you who have come over to me for the special purpose of
supporting the war--a war, on the success of which you solemnly protest,
that the salvation of Britain, and of civil society itself, depend--do I
require of you, that you should make a temporary sacrifice, in the cause
of human nature, of the greater part of your private incomes? No,
gentlemen, I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal; and
to prove that I think the sincerity of your attachment to me needs no
such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle: I
will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you
to contribute to it; and, while their whole thoughts are absorbed in
patriotic apprehensions for their country, I will dexterously force upon
others the favorite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives.

* * * * *

"Good God, Sir, that he should have thought it prudent to have forced
this contrast upon our attention; that he should triumphantly remind us
of everything that shame should have withheld, and caution would have
buried in oblivion! Will those who stood forth with a parade of
disinterested patriotism, and vaunted of the _sacrifices_ they had
made, and the _exposed situation_ they had chosen, in order the
better to oppose the friends of Brissot in England--will they thank the
Noble Lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled
into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependents, as unfit to
fill the offices procured for them, as the offices themselves were unfit
to be created?--Will the train of newly titled alarmists, of
supernumerary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents and
commissaries, thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic
has been to themselves, and how expensive to their country? What a
contrast, indeed, do we exhibit!--What! in such an hour as this, at a
moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency
may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an
impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor,
must make the most practised collector's heart ache while he tears it
from them--can it be that people of high rank, and professing high
principles, that _they_ or _their families_ should seek to
thrive on the spoils of misery and fatten on the meals wrested from
industrious poverty? Can it be that that should be the case with the very
persons, who state the _unprecedented peril of the country_ as the
_sole_ cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks? The
Constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of
the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations
ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion,
and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not murmur at their
burdens, it is for their salvation, their all is at stake. The time is
come, when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the Throne
as round a standard;--for what? ye honest and disinterested men, to
receive, for your own private emolument, a portion of those very taxes
wrung from the people on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and
distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care
no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for
selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument?
Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it
become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the
pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public
men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or even where
there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the
mercenary and the vain to abstain a while at least, and wait the fitting
of the times? Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to
have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which
their actions speak? The Throne is in danger!--'we will support the
Throne; but let us share the smiles of Royalty;'--the order of Nobility
is in danger!--'I will fight for Nobility,' says the Viscount, 'but my
zeal would be much greater if I were made an Earl.' 'Rouse all the
Marquis within me,' exclaims the Earl, 'and the peerage never turned
forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove.' 'Stain
my green riband blue,' cries out the illustrious Knight, 'and the
fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful servant.' What are the
people to think of our sincerity?--What credit are they to give to our
professions?--Is this system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that
whispers to that Right Honorable Gentleman that the crisis is too big,
that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and
every-day means of ordinary corruption?"

The discussions, indeed, during the whole of this Session, were marked by
a degree of personal acrimony, which in the present more sensitive times
would hardly be borne. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan came, most of all, into
collision; and the retorts of the Minister not unfrequently proved with
what weight the haughty sarcasms of Power may descend even upon the
tempered buckler of Wit.

It was in this Session, and on the question of the Treaty with the King
of Sardinia, that Mr. Canning made his first appearance, as an orator, in
the House. He brought with him a fame, already full of promise, and has
been one of the brightest ornaments of the senate and the country ever
since. From the political faith in which he had been educated, under the
very eyes of Mr. Sheridan, who had long been the friend of his family,
and at whose house he generally passed his college vacations, the line
that he was to take in the House of Commons seemed already, according to
the usual course of events, marked out for him. Mr. Sheridan had, indeed,
with an eagerness which, however premature, showed the value which he and
others set upon the alliance, taken occasion in the course of a laudatory
tribute to Mr. Jenkinson, [Footnote: Now Lord Liverpool] on the success
of his first effort in the House, to announce the accession which his own
party was about to receive, in the talents of another gentleman,--the
companion and friend of the young orator who had now distinguished
himself. Whether this and other friendships, formed by Mr. Canning at the
University, had any share in alienating him from a political creed, which
he had hitherto, perhaps, adopted rather from habit and authority than
choice--or, whether he was startled at the idea of appearing for the
first time in the world, as the announced pupil and friend of a person
who, both by the vehemence of his politics and the irregularities of his
life, had put himself, in some degree, under the ban of public
opinion--or whether, lastly, he saw the difficulties which even genius
like his would experience, in rising to the full growth of its ambition,
under the shadowing branches of the Whig aristocracy, and that
superseding influence of birth and connections, which had contributed to
keep even such men as Burke and Sheridan out of the Cabinet--_which_
of these motives it was that now decided the choice of the young
political Hercules, between the two paths that equally wooed his
footsteps, none, perhaps, but himself can fully determine. His decision,
we know, was in favor of the Minister and Toryism; and, after a friendly
and candid explanation to Sheridan of the reasons and feelings that urged
him to this step, he entered into terms with Mr. Pitt, and was by him
immediately brought into Parliament.

However dangerous it might be to exalt such an example into a precedent,
it is questionable whether, in thus resolving to join the ascendant side,
Mr. Canning has not conferred a greater benefit on the country than he
ever would have been able to effect in the ranks of his original friends.
That Party, which has now so long been the sole depository of the power
of the State, had, in addition to the original narrowness of its
principles, contracted all that proud obstinacy, in antiquated error,
which is the invariable characteristic of such monopolies; and which,
however consonant with its vocation, as the chosen instrument of the
Crown, should have long since _invalided_ it in the service of a
free and enlightened people. Some infusion of the spirit of the times
into this body had become necessary, even for its own preservation,--in
the same manner as the inhalement of youthful breath has been
recommended, by some physicians, to the infirm and superannuated. This
renovating inspiration the genius of Mr. Canning has supplied. His first
political lessons were derived from sources too sacred to his young
admiration to be forgotten. He has carried the spirit of these lessons
with him into the councils which he joined, and by the vigor of the
graft, which already, indeed, shows itself in the fruits, bids fair to
change altogether the nature of Toryism.

Among the eminent persons summoned as witnesses on the Trial of Horne
Tooke, which took place in November of this year, was Mr. Sheridan; and,
as his evidence contains some curious particulars, both with regard to
himself and the state of political feeling in the year 1790, I shall here
transcribe a part of it:--

"He, (Mr. Sheridan,) said he recollects a meeting to celebrate the
establishment of liberty in France in the year 1790. Upon that occasion
he moved a Resolution drawn up the day before by the Whig club. Mr. Horne
Tooke, he says, made no objection to his motion, but proposed an
amendment. Mr. Tooke stated that an unqualified approbation of the French
Revolution, in the terms moved, might produce an ill effect out of doors,
a disposition to a revolution in this country, or, at least, be
misrepresented to have that object; he adverted to the circumstance of
their having all of them national cockades in their hats; he proposed to
add some qualifying expression to the approbation of the French
Revolution, a declaration of attachment to the principles of our own
Constitution; he said Mr. Tooke spoke in a figurative manner of the
former Government of France; he described it as a vessel so foul and
decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, that in
contrasting our state with that, he said, thank God, the main timbers of
our Constitution are sound; he had before observed, however, that some
reforms might be necessary; he said that sentiment was received with
great disapprobation, and with very rude interruption, insomuch that Lord
Stanhope, who was in the chair, interfered; he said it had happened to
him, in many public meetings, to differ with and oppose the prisoner, and
that he has frequently seen him received with very considerable marks of
disapprobation, but he never saw them affect him much; he said that he
himself objected to Mr. Tooke's amendment; he thinks he withdrew his
amendment, and moved it as a separate motion; he said it was then carried
as unanimously as his own motion had been; that original motion and
separate motion are in these words:--'That this meeting does most
cordially rejoice in the establishment and confirmation of liberty in
France; and it beholds with peculiar satisfaction the sentiments of amity
and good will which appear to pervade the people of that country towards
this kingdom, especially at a time when it is the manifest interest of
both states that nothing should interrupt the harmony which at present
subsists between them, and which is so essentially necessary to the
freedom and happiness, not only of the French nation, but of all mankind.'

"Mr. Tooke wished to add to his motion some qualifying clause, to guard
against misunderstanding and misrepresentation:--that there was a wide
difference between England and France; that in France the vessel was so
foul and decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, whereas,
in England, we had a noble and stately vessel, sailing proudly on the
bosom of the ocean; that her main timbers were sound, though it was true,
after so long a course of years, she might want some repairs. Mr. Tooke's
motion was,--'That we feel equal satisfaction that the subjects of
England, by the virtuous exertions of their ancestors, have not so
arduous a task to perform as the French have had, but have only to
maintain and improve the Constitution which their ancestors have
transmitted to them.'--This was carried unanimously."

The trial of Warren Hastings still "dragged its slow length along," and
in the May of this year Mr. Sheridan was called upon for his Reply on the
Begum Charge. It was usual, on these occasions, for the Manager who spoke
to be assisted by one of his brother Managers, whose task it was to carry
the bag that contained his papers, and to read out whatever Minutes might
be referred to in the course of the argument. Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor
was the person who undertook this office for Sheridan; but, on the
morning of the speech, upon his asking for the bag that he was to carry,
he was told by Sheridan that there was none--neither bag nor papers.
They must manage, he said, as well as they could without them;--and when
the papers were called for, his friend must only put the best countenance
he could upon it. As for himself "he would abuse Ned Law--ridicule
Plumer's long orations--make the Court laugh--please the women, and, in
short, with Taylor's aid would get triumphantly through his task." His
opening of the case was listened to with the profoundest attention; but
when he came to contrast the evidence of the Commons with that adduced by
Hastings, it was not long before the Chancellor interrupted him, with a
request that the printed Minutes to which he referred should be read.
Sheridan answered that his friend Mr. Taylor would read them; and Mr.
Taylor affected to send for the bag, while the orator begged leave, in
the meantime, to proceed. Again, however, his statements rendered a
reference to the Minutes necessary, and again he was interrupted by the
Chancellor, while an outcry after Mr. Sheridan's bag was raised in all
directions. At first the blame was laid on the solicitor's clerk--then a
messenger was dispatched to Mr. Sheridan's house. In the meantime, the
orator was proceeding brilliantly and successfully in his argument; and,
on some further interruption and expostulation from the Chancellor,
raised his voice and said, in a dignified tone, "On the part of the
Commons, and as a Manager of this Impeachment, I shall conduct my case as
I think proper. I mean to be correct, and Your Lordships, having the
printed Minutes before you, will afterwards see whether I am right or
wrong."

During the bustle produced by the inquiries after the bag, Mr. Fox,
alarmed at the inconvenience which, he feared, the want of it might
occasion Sheridan, ran up from the Managers' room, and demanded eagerly
the cause of this mistake from Mr. Taylor; who, hiding his mouth with his
hand, whispered him, (in a tone of which they alone, who have heard this
gentleman relate the anecdote, can feel the full humor,) "The man has no
bag!"

The whole of this characteristic contrivance was evidently intended by
Sheridan to raise that sort of surprise at the readiness of his
resources, which it was the favorite triumph of his vanity to create. I
have it on the authority of Mr. William Smythe, that, previously to the
delivery of this speech, he passed two or three days alone at Wanstead,
so occupied from morning till night in writing and reading of papers, as
to complain in the evenings that he "had motes before his eyes." This
mixture of real labor with apparent carelessness was, indeed, one of the
most curious features of his life and character.

Together with the political contests of this stormy year, he had also on
his mind the cares of his new Theatre, which opened on the 21st of April,
with a prologue, not by himself, as might have been expected, but by his
friend General Fitzpatrick. He found time, however, to assist in the
rapid manufacture of a little piece called "The Glorious First of June,"
which was acted immediately after Lord Howe's victory, and of which I
have found some sketches [Footnote: One of these is as follows:--

"SCENE I.--Miss _Leake_--Miss _Decamp--Walsh_.

"Short dialogue--Nancy persuading Susan to go to the Fair, where there is
an entertainment to be given by the Lord of the Manor--Susan melancholy
because Henry, her lover, is at sea with the British Admiral--_Song_
--Her old mother scolds from the cottage--her little brother (_Walsh_)
comes from the house, with a message--laughs at his sister's fears and
sings--_Trio_.

"SCENE II.--_The Fair_

"Puppet show--dancing bear--bells--hurdy-gurdy--recruiting party--song
and chorus.

"_Ballet_--D'Egville.

"Susan says she has no pleasure, and will go and take a solitary walk.

"SCENE III.--_Dark Wood._

"Susan--gipsy--tells her fortune--recitative and ditty.

"SCENE IV.

"SEA-FIGHT--hell and the devil!

"Henry and Susan meet--Chorus introducing burden,

"Rule Britannia."

Among other occasional trifles of this kind, to which Sheridan
condescended for the advantage of the theatre, was the pantomime of
Robinson Crusoe, brought out, I believe, in 1781, of which he is
understood to have been the author. There was a practical joke in this
pantomime, (where, in pulling off a man's boot, the leg was pulled off
with it,) which the famous Delpini laid claim to as his own, and publicly
complained of Sheridan's having stolen it from him. The punsters of the
day said it was claimed as literary property--being "in usum
_Delpini_."

Another of these inglorious tasks of the author of The School for
Scandal, was the furnishing of the first outline or _Programme_ of
"The Forty Thieves." His brother in law, Ward, supplied the dialogue, and
Mr. Colman was employed to season it with an infusion of jokes. The
following is Sheridan's sketch of one of the scenes--

"ALI BABA.

"Bannister called out of the cavern boldly by his son--comes out and
falls on the ground a long time, not knowing him--says he would only have
taken a little gold to Keep off misery and save his son, &c.

"Afterwards, when he loads his asses, his son reminds him to be
moderate--but it was a promise made to thieves--'it gets nearer the
owner, if taken from the stealer'--the son disputes this morality--'they
stole it, _ergo_, they have no right to it; and we steal it from the
stealer, _ergo_, our title is twice as bad as theirs.'"] in
Sheridan's hand-writing,--though the dialogue was, no doubt, supplied (as
Mr. Boaden says,) "by Cobb, or some other such _pedissequus_ of the
Dramatic Muse. This piece was written, rehearsed, and acted within three
days. The first operation of Mr. Sheridan towards it was to order the
mechanist of the theatre to get ready two fleets. It was in vain that
objections were started to the possibility of equipping these pasteboard
armaments in so short an interval--Lord Chatham's famous order to Lord
Anson was not more peremptory. [Footnote: For the expedition to the coast
of France, after the Convention of Closter seven. When he ordered the
fleet to be equipped, and appointed the time and place of its rendezvous,
Lord Anson said it would be impossible to have it prepared so soon. "It
may," said Mr. Pitt, "be done, and if the ships are not ready at the time
specified, I shall signify Your Lordship's neglect to the King, and
impeach you in the House of Commons." This intimation produced the
desired effect--the ships were ready. See Anecdotes of Lord Chatham,
vol. i] The two fleets were accordingly ready at the time, and the Duke
of Clarence attended the rehearsal of their evolutions. This mixture of
the cares of the Statesman and the Manager is one of those whimsical
peculiarities that made Sheridan's own life so dramatic, and formed a
compound altogether too singular ever to occur again.

In the spring of the following year, (1795,) we find Mr. Sheridan paying
that sort of tribute to the happiness of a first marriage which is
implied by the step of entering into a second. The lady to whom he now
united himself was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
Winchester, and grand-daughter, by the mother's side, of the former
Bishop of Winchester. We have here another proof of the ready mine of
wealth which the theatre opened,--as in gratitude it ought,--to him who
had endowed, it with such imperishable treasures. The fortune of the lady
being five thousand pounds, he added to it fifteen thousand more, which
he contrived to raise by the sale of Drury-Lane shares; and the whole of
the sum was subsequently laid out in the purchase from Sir W. Geary of
the estate of Polesden, in Surrey, near Leatherhead. The Trustees of this
settlement were Mr. Grey, (now Lord Grey,) and Mr. Whitbread.

To a man at the time of life which Sheridan had now attained--four years
beyond that period, at which Petrarch thought it decorous to leave off
writing love-verses [Footnote: See his Epistle, "ad Posteritatem," where,
after lamenting the many years which he had devoted to love, he adds:
"Mox vero ad _quadragesimum annum_ appropinquans, dum adhuc et
caloris satis esset," &c.]--a union with a young and accomplished girl,
ardently devoted to him, must have been like a renewal of his own youth;
and it is, indeed, said by those who were in habits of intimacy with him
at this period, that they had seldom seen his spirits in a state of more
buoyant vivacity. He passed much of his time at the house of his
father-in-law near Southampton;--and in sailing about with his lively
bride on the Southampton river, (in a small cutter called the Phaedria,
after the magic boat in the "Fairy Queen,") forgot for a while his debts,
his theatre, and his politics. It was on one of these occasions that my
friend Mr. Bowles, who was a frequent companion of his parties,
[Footnote: Among other distinguished persons present at these excursions
were Mr. Joseph Richardson, Dr. Howley, now Bishop of London, and Mrs.
Wilmot, now Lady Dacre, a lady, whose various talents,--not the less
delightful for being so feminine,--like the group of the Graces, reflect
beauty on each other.] wrote the following verses, which were much
admired, as they well deserved to be, by Sheridan, for the sweetness of
their thoughts, and the perfect music of their rhythm:--


"Smooth went our boat upon the summer seas,
Leaving, (for so it seem'd.) the world behind,
Its cares, its sounds, its shadows: we reclin'd
Upon the sunny deck, heard but the breeze
That o'er us whispering pass'd or idly play'd
With the lithe flag aloft.--A woodland scene
On either side drew its slope line of green,
And hung the water's shining edge with shade.
Above the woods, Netley! thy ruins pale
Peer'd, as we pass'd; and Vecta's [1] azure hue
Beyond the misty castle [2] met the view;
Where in mid channel hung the scarce-seen sail.
So all was calm and sunshine as we went
Cheerily o'er the briny element.
Oh! were this little boat to us the world,
As thus we wander'd far from sounds of care,
Circled with friends and gentle maidens fair,
Whilst morning airs the waving pendant curl'd,
How sweet were life's long voyage, till in peace
We gain'd that haven still, where all things cease!"

[Footnote 1: Isle of Wight]
[Footnote 2: Kelshot Castle]

The events of this year but added fresh impetus to that reaction upon
each other of the Government and the People, which such a system of
misrule is always sure to produce. Among the worst effects, as I have
already remarked, of the rigorous policy adopted by the Minister, was the
extremity to which it drove the principles and language of Opposition,
and that sanction which the vehement rebound against oppression of such
influencing spirits as Fox and Sheridan seemed to hold out to the
obscurer and more practical assertors of freedom. This was at no time
more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of
those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks
were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the
combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little
perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a
Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were
determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed in
the two Houses of Parliament, to pass these Bills, in violent opposition
to the declared sense of the great majority of the nation, and they
should be put in force with all their rigorous provisions,--if his
opinion were asked by the people as to their obedience, he should tell
them, that it was no longer a question of moral obligation and duty, but
of prudence." Mr. Sheridan followed in the bold footsteps of his friend,
and said, that "if a degraded and oppressed majority of the people
applied to him, he would advise them to acquiesce in those bills only as
long as resistance was imprudent." This language was, of course, visited
with the heavy reprobation of the Ministry;--but their own partisans had
already gone as great lengths on the side of absolute power, and it is
the nature of such extremes to generate each other. Bishop Horsley had
preached the doctrine of passive obedience in the House of Lords,
asserting that "man's abuse of his delegated authority is to be borne
with resignation, like any other of God's judgments; and that the
opposition of the individual to the sovereign power is an opposition to
God's providential arrangements." The promotion of the Right Reverend
Prelate that followed, was not likely to abate his zeal in the cause of
power; and, accordingly, we find him in the present session declaring, in
his place in the House of Lords, that "the people have nothing to do with
the laws but to obey them."

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