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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




"Junius said in a public letter of his, addressed to Your Royal Father,
'the fate that made you a King forbad your having a friend.' I deny his
proposition as a general maxim--I am confident that Your Royal Highness
possesses qualities to win and secure to you the attachment and devotion
of private friendship, in spite of your being a Sovereign. At least I
feel that I am entitled to make this declaration as far as relates to
myself--and I do it under the assured conviction that you will never
require from me any proof of that attachment and devotion inconsistent
with the clear and honorable independence of mind and conduct, which
constitute my sole value as a public man, and which have hitherto been my
best recommendation to your gracious favor, confidence, and protection."

It is to be regretted that while by this wise advice he helped to save
His Royal Master from the invidious _appearance_ of acting upon a
principle of exclusion, he should, by his private management afterwards,
have but too well contrived to secure to him all the advantage of that
principle in _reality_.

The political career of Sheridan was now drawing fast to a close. He
spoke but upon two or three other occasions during the Session; and among
the last sentences uttered by him in the House were the
following;--which, as calculated to leave a sweeter flavor on the memory,
at parting, than those questionable transactions that have just been
related, I have great pleasure in citing:--

"My objection to the present Ministry, is that they are avowedly arrayed
and embodied against a principle,--that of concession to the Catholics of
Ireland,--which I think, and must always think, essential to the safety
of this empire. I will never give my vote to any Administration that
opposes the question of Catholic Emancipation. I will not consent to
receive a furlough upon that particular question, even though a Ministry
were carrying every other that I wished. In fine, I think the situation
of Ireland a paramount consideration. If they were to be the last words I
should ever utter in this House, I should say, 'Be just to Ireland, as
you value your own honor,--be just to Ireland, as you value your own
peace.'"

His very last words in Parliament, on his own motion relative to the
Overtures of Peace from France, were as follow:--

"Yet after the general subjugation and ruin of Europe, should there ever
exist an independent historian to record the awful events that produced
this universal calamity, let that historian have to say,--'Great Britain
fell, and with her fell all the best securities for the charities of
human life, for the power and honor, the fame, the glory, and the
liberties, not only of herself, but of the whole civilized world.'" In
the month of September following, Parliament was dissolved; and,
presuming upon the encouragement which he had received from some of his
Stafford friends, he again tried his chance of election for that borough,
but without success. This failure he, himself, imputed, as will be seen
by the following letter, to the refusal of Mr. Whitbread to advance him
2000_l._ out of the sum due to him by the Committee for his share of
the property:--

"DEAR WHITBREAD,

"_Cook's Hotel, Nov._ 1, 1812.

"I was misled to expect you in town the beginning of last week, but being
positively assured that you will arrive to-morrow, I have declined
accompanying Hester into Hampshire as I intended, and she has gone to-day
without me; but I must leave town to join her _as soon as I can_. We
must have some serious but yet, I hope, friendly conversation respecting
my unsettled claims on the Drury-Lane Theatre Corporation. A concluding
paragraph, in one of your last letters to Burgess, which he thought
himself justified in showing me, leads me to believe that it is not your
object to distress or destroy me. On the subject of your refusing to
advance to me the 2000_l._. I applied for to take with me to
Stafford, out of the large sum confessedly due to me, (unless I signed
some paper containing I know not what, and which you presented to my
breast like a cocked pistol on the last day I saw you,) I will not dwell.
_This, and this alone, lost me my election._ You deceive yourself if
you give credit to any other causes, which the pride of my friends chose
to attribute our failure to, rather than confess our poverty. I do not
mean now to expostulate with you, much less to reproach you, but sure I
am that when you contemplate the positive injustice of refusing me the
accommodation I required, and the irreparable injury that refusal has
cast on me, overturning, probably, all the honor and independence of what
remains of my political life, you will deeply reproach yourself.

"I shall make an application to the Committee, when I hear you have
appointed one, for the assistance which most pressing circumstances now
compel me to call for; and all I desire is, through a sincere wish that
our friendship may not be interrupted, that the answer to that
application may proceed from a _bonâ fide Committee, with their
signatures_, testifying their decision.

"I am, yet,

"Yours very sincerely,

"_S. Whitbread, Esq._

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

Notwithstanding the angry feeling which is expressed in this letter, and
which the state of poor Sheridan's mind, goaded as he was now by distress
and disappointment, may well excuse, it will be seen by the following
letter from Whitbread, written on the very eve of the elections in
September, that there was no want of inclination, on the part of this
honorable and excellent man, to afford assistance to his friend,--but
that the duties of the perplexing trust which he had undertaken rendered
such irregular advances as Sheridan required impossible:--

'MY DEAR SHERIDAN,

"We will not enter into details, although you are quite mistaken in them.
You know how happy I shall be to propose to the Committee to agree to
anything practicable; and you may make all practicable, if you will have
resolution to look at the state of the account between you and the
Committee, and agree to the mode of its liquidation.

"You will recollect the 5000_l_. pledged to Peter Moore to answer
demands; the certificates given to Giblet, Ker, Ironmonger, Cross, and
Hirdle, five each at your request; the engagements given to Ellis and
myself, and the arrears to the Linley family. All this taken into
consideration will leave a large balance still payable to you. Still
there are upon that balance the claims upon you by Shaw, Taylor, and
Grubb, for all of which you have offered to leave the whole of your
compensation in my hands, to abide the issue of arbitration.

"This may be managed by your agreeing to take a considerable portion of
your balance in bonds, leaving those bonds in trust to answer the events.

"I shall be in town on Monday to the Committee, and will be prepared with
a sketch of the state of your account with the Committee, and with the
mode in which I think it would be prudent for you and them to adjust it;
which if you will agree to, and direct the conveyance to be made
forthwith, I will undertake to propose the advance of money you wish. But
without a clear arrangement, as a justification, nothing can be done.

"I shall be in Dover-Street at nine o'clock, and be there and in
Drury-Lane all day. The Queen comes, but the day is not fixed. The
election will occupy me after Monday. After that is over, I hope we shall
see you.

"Yours very truly,

"_Southill, Sept. 25, 1812._

"S. WHITBREAD."

The feeling entertained by Sheridan towards the Committee had already
been strongly manifested this year by the manner in which Mrs. Sheridan
received the Resolution passed by them, offering her the use of a box in
the new Theatre. The notes of Whitbread to Mrs. Sheridan on this subject,
prove how anxious he was to conciliate the wounded feelings of his
friend:--

"MY DEAR ESTHER,

"I have delayed sending the enclosed Resolution of the Drury-Lane
Committee to you, because I had hoped to have found a moment to have
called upon you, and to have delivered it into your hands. But I see no
chance of that, and therefore literally obey my instructions in writing
to you.

"I had great pleasure in proposing the Resolution, which was cordially
and unanimously adopted. I had it always in contemplation,--but to have
proposed it earlier would have been improper. I hope you will derive much
amusement from your visits to the Theatre, and that you and all of your
name will ultimately be pleased with what has been done. I have just had
a most satisfactory letter from Tom Sheridan.

"I am,

"My dear Esther,

"Affectionately yours,

"_Dover-Street, July 4, 1812._

"SAMUEL WHITBREAD."

"MY DEAR ESTHER,

"It has been a great mortification and disappointment to me, to have met
the Committee twice, since the offer of the use of a box at the new
Theatre was made to you, and that I have not had to report the slightest
acknowledgment from you in return.

"The Committee meet again tomorrow, and after that there will be no
meeting for some time. If I shall be compelled to return the same blank
answer I have hitherto done, the inference drawn will naturally be, that
what was designed by himself, who moved it, and by those who voted it, as
a gratifying mark of attention to Sheridan through you, (as the most
gratifying mode of conveying it,) has, for some unaccountable reason,
been mistaken and is declined.

"But I shall be glad to know before to-morrow, what is your determination
on the subject.

"I am, dear Esther,

"Affectionately yours,

"_Dover-Street, July_ 12, 1812."

"S. WHITBREAD.

The failure of Sheridan at Stafford completed his ruin. He was now
excluded both from the Theatre and from Parliament:--the two anchors by
which he held in life were gone, and he was left a lonely and helpless
wreck upon the waters. The Prince Regent offered to bring him into
Parliament; but the thought of returning to that scene of his triumphs
and his freedom, with the Royal owner's mark, as it were, upon him, was
more than he could bear--and he declined the offer. Indeed, miserable and
insecure as his life was now, when we consider the public humiliations to
which he would have been exposed, between his ancient pledge to Whiggism
and his attachment and gratitude to Royalty, it is not wonderful that he
should have preferred even the alternative of arrests and imprisonments
to the risk of bringing upon his political name any further tarnish in
such a struggle. Neither could his talents have much longer continued to
do themselves justice, amid the pressure of such cares, and the increased
indulgence of habits, which, as is usual, gained upon him, as all other
indulgences vanished. The ancients, we are told, by a significant device,
inscribed on the wreaths they wore at banquets the name of Minerva.
Unfortunately, from the festal wreath of Sheridan this name was now but
too often effaced; and the same charm, that once had served to give a
quicker flow to thought, was now employed to muddy the stream, as it
became painful to contemplate what was at the bottom of it. By his
exclusion, therefore, from Parliament, he was, perhaps, seasonably saved
from affording to that "Folly, which loves the martyrdom of Fame,"
[Footnote: "And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame."

This fine line is in Lord Byron's Monody to his memory. There is another
line, equally true and touching, where, alluding to the irregularities of
the latter part of Sheridan's life, he says--

"And what to them seem'd vice might be but woe."] the spectacle of a
great mind, not only surviving itself, but, like the champion in Berni,
continuing the combat after life is gone:--

_"Andava combattendo, ed era morto."_

In private society, however, he could, even now, (before the Rubicon of
the cup was passed,) fully justify his high reputation for agreeableness
and wit; and a day which it was my good fortune to spend with him, at the
table of Mr. Rogers, has too many mournful, as well as pleasant,
associations connected with it, to be easily forgotten by the survivors
of the party. The company consisted but of Mr. Rogers himself, Lord
Byron, Mr. Sheridan, and the writer of this Memoir. Sheridan knew the
admiration his audience felt for him; the presence of the young poet, in
particular, seemed to bring back his own youth and wit; and the details
he gave of his early life were not less interesting and animating to
himself than delightful to us. It was in the course of this evening that,
describing to us the poem which Mr. Whitbread had written and sent in,
among the other Addresses, for the opening of Drury-Lane, and which, like
the rest, turned chiefly on allusions to the Phenix, he said,--"But
Whitbread made more of this bird than any of them:--he entered into
particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.; in short, it was a
_Poulterer's_ description of a Phenix!"

The following extract from a Diary in my possession, kept by Lord Byron
during six months of his residence in London, 1812-13, will show the
admiration which this great and generous spirit felt for Sheridan:--

"_Saturday, December 18, 1813._

"Lord Holland told me a curious piece of _sentimentality_ in
Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and
various opinions on him and other '_hommes marquans,_' and mine was
this:--'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been _par
excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. He has written the
_best_ comedy, (School for Scandal,) the _best_ opera, (The
Duenna--in my mind far before that St. Giles's lampoon, The Beggar's
Opera,) the _best_ farce, (The Critic--it is only too good for an
after-piece,) and the _best_ Address, (Monologue on Garrick,)--and
to crown all, delivered the very _best_ oration, (the famous Begum
Speech,) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan
this the next day, and on hearing it, he burst into tears!--Poor
Brinsley! If they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said those
few, but sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or made his own
celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to
hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine
--humble as it must appear to 'my elders and my betters.'"

The distresses of Sheridan now increased every day, and through the short
remainder of his life it is a melancholy task to follow him. The sum
arising from the sale of his theatrical property was soon exhausted by
the various claims upon it, and he was driven to part with all that he
most valued, to satisfy further demands and provide for the subsistence
of the day. Those books which, as I have already mentioned, were
presented to him by various friends, now stood in their splendid
bindings, [Footnote: In most of them, too, were the names of the givers.
The delicacy with which Mr. Harrison of Wardour-Street, (the pawnbroker
with whom the books and the cup were deposited,) behaved, after the death
of Mr. Sheridan, deserves to be mentioned with praise. Instead of
availing himself of the public feeling at that moment, by submitting
these precious relics to the competition of a sale, he privately
communicated to the family and one or two friends of Sheridan the
circumstance of his having such articles in his hands, and demanded
nothing more than the sum regularly due on them. The Stafford cup is in
the possession of Mr. Charles Sheridan.] on the shelves of the
pawnbroker. The handsome cup, given him by the electors of Stafford,
shared the same fate. Three or four fine pictures by Gainsborough, and
one by Morland, were sold for little more than five hundred pounds;
[Footnote: In the following extract from a note to his solicitor, he
refers to these pictures:

"DEAR BURGESS,

"I am perfectly satisfied with your account;--nothing can be more clear
or fair, or more disinterested on your part;--but I must grieve to think
that five or six hundred pounds for my poor pictures are added to the
expenditure. However, we shall come through!"] and even the precious
portrait of his first wife, [Footnote: As Saint Cecilia. The portrait of
Mrs. Sheridan at Knowle, though less ideal than that of Sir Joshua, is,
(for this very reason, perhaps, as bearing a closer resemblance to the
original,) still more beautiful.] by Reynolds, though not actually sold
during his life, vanished away from his eyes into other hands.

One of the most humiliating trials of his pride was yet to come. In the
spring of this year he was arrested and carried to a spunging-house,
where he remained two or three days. This abode, from which the following
painful letter to Whitbread was written, formed a sad contrast to those
Princely halls, of which he had so lately been the most brilliant and
favored guest, and which were possibly, at that very moment, lighted up
and crowded with gay company, unmindful of him within those prison
walls:--

"_Tooke's Court, Cursitor-Street, Thursday, past two._

"I have done everything in my power with the solicitors, White and
Founes, to obtain my release, by substituting a better security for them
than their detaining me--but in vain.

"Whitbread, putting all false professions of friendship and feeling out
of the question, you have no right to keep me here!--for it is in truth
_your_ act--if you had not forcibly withheld from me the _twelve
thousand pounds_, in consequence of a threatening letter from a
miserable swindler, whose claim YOU in particular knew to _be a
lie_, I should at least have been out of the reach of _this_
state of miserable insult--for that, and that only, lost me my seat in
Parliament. And I assert that you cannot find a lawyer in the land, that
is not either a natural-born fool or a corrupted scoundrel, who will not
declare that your conduct in this respect was neither warrantable nor
legal--but let that pass _for the present_.

"Independently of the 1000_l_. ignorantly withheld from me on the
day of considering my last claim. I require of you to answer the draft I
send herewith on the part of the Committee, pledging myself to prove to
them on the first day I can _personally_ meet them, that there are
still thousands and thousands due to me, both legally, and equitably,
from the Theatre. My word ought to be taken on this subject; and you may
produce to them this document, if one, among them could think that, under
all the circumstances, your conduct required a justification. O God! with
what mad confidence have I trusted _your word_,--I ask
_justice_ from you, and _no boon_. I enclosed you yesterday
three different securities, which had you been disposed to have acted
even as a private friend, would have made it _certain_ that you
might have done so _without the smallest risk_. These you discreetly
offered to put into the fire, when you found the object of your humane
visit satisfied by seeing me safe in prison.

"I shall only add, that, I think, if I know myself, had our lots been
reversed, and I had seen you in my situation, and had left Lady E. in
that of my wife, I would have risked 600_l_. rather than have left
you so--although I had been in no way accessory in bringing you into that
condition.

"_S. Whitbread. Esq._

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

Even in this situation the sanguineness of his disposition did not desert
him; for he was found by Mr. Whitbread, on his visit to the
spunging-house, confidently calculating on the representation for
Westminster, in which the proceedings relative to Lord Cochrane at that
moment promised a vacancy. On his return home, however, to Mrs. Sheridan,
(some arrangements having been made by Whitbread for his release,) all
his fortitude forsook him, and he burst into a long and passionate fit of
weeping at the profanation, as he termed it, which his person had
suffered.

He had for some months had a feeling that his life was near its close;
and I find the following touching passage in a letter from him to Mrs.
Sheridan, after one of those differences which will sometimes occur
between the most affectionate companions, and which, possibly, a
remonstrance on his irregularities and want of care of himself
occasioned:--"Never again let one harsh word pass between us, during the
period, which may not perhaps be long, that we are in this world
together, and life, however clouded to me, is mutually spared to us. I
have expressed this same sentiment to my son, in a letter I wrote to him
a few days since, and I had his answer--a most affecting one, and, I am
sure, very sincere--and have since cordially embraced him. Don't imagine
that I am expressing an interesting apprehension about myself, which I do
not feel."

Though the new Theatre of Drury-Lane had now been three years built, his
feelings had never allowed him to set his foot within its walls. About
this time, however, he was persuaded by his friend, Lord Essex, to dine
with him and go in the evening to His Lordship's box, to see Kean. Once
there, the "_genius loci_" seems to have regained its influence over
him; for, on missing him from the box, between the Acts, Lord Essex, who
feared that he had left the House, hastened out to inquire, and, to his
great satisfaction, found him installed in the Green-room, with all the
actors around him, welcoming him back to the old region of his glory,
with a sort of filial cordiality. Wine was immediately ordered, and a
bumper to the health of Mr. Sheridan was drank by all present, with the
expression of many a hearty wish that he would often, very often,
re-appear among them. This scene, as was natural, exhilarated his
spirits, and, on parting with Lord Essex that night, at his own door, in
Saville-Row, he said triumphantly that the world would soon hear of him,
for the Duke of Norfolk was about to bring him into Parliament. This, it
appears, was actually the case; but Death stood near as he spoke. In a
few days after his last fatal illness began.

Amid all the distresses of these latter years of his life, he appears but
rarely to have had recourse to pecuniary assistance from friends. Mr.
Peter Moore, Mr. Ironmonger, and one or two others, who did more for the
comfort of his decline than any of his high and noble associates, concur
in stating that, except for such an occasional trifle as his coach-hire,
he was by no means, as has been sometimes asserted, in the habit of
borrowing. One instance, however, where he laid himself under this sort
of obligation, deserves to be mentioned. Soon after the return of Mr.
Canning from Lisbon, a letter was put into his hands, in the House of
Commons, which proved to be a request from his old friend Sheridan, then
lying ill in bed, that he would oblige him with the loan of a hundred
pounds. It is unnecessary to say that the request was promptly and
feelingly complied with; and if the pupil has ever regretted leaving the
politics of his master, it was not at _that_ moment, at least, such
a feeling was likely to present itself.

There are, in the possession of a friend of Sheridan, copies of a
correspondence in which he was engaged this year with two noble Lords and
the confidential agent of an illustrious Personage, upon a subject, as it
appears, of the utmost delicacy and importance. The letters of Sheridan,
it is said, (for I have not seen them,) though of too secret and
confidential a nature to meet the public eye, not only prove the great
confidence reposed in him by the parties concerned, but show the
clearness and manliness of mind which he could still command, under the
pressure of all that was most trying to human intellect.

The disorder, with which he was now attacked, arose from a diseased state
of the stomach, brought on partly by irregular living, and partly by the
harassing anxieties that had, for so many years, without intermission,
beset him. His powers of digestion grew every day worse, till he was at
length unable to retain any sustenance. Notwithstanding this, however,
his strength seemed to be but little broken, and his pulse remained, for
some time, strong and regular. Had he taken, indeed, but ordinary care of
himself through life, the robust conformation of his frame, and
particularly, as I have heard his physician remark, the peculiar width
and capaciousness of his chest, seemed to mark him out for a long course
of healthy existence. In general Nature appears to have a prodigal
delight in enclosing her costliest essences in the most frail and
perishable vessels:--but Sheridan was a signal exception to this remark;
for, with a spirit so "finely touched," he combined all the robustness of
the most uninspired clay.

Mrs. Sheridan was, at first, not aware of his danger; but Dr. Bain--whose
skill was now, as it ever had been, disinterestedly at the service of his
friend, [Footnote: A letter from Sheridan to this amiable man, (of which
I know not the date,) written in reference to a caution which he had
given Mrs. Sheridan, against sleeping in the same bed with a lady who was
consumptive, expresses feelings creditable alike to the writer and his
physician:--

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