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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




"Your Majesty will do me the honor to weigh the opinions I formed and
declared before Parliament had entertained the plan, and, with those
before you, your own good judgment will decide. I have only to add that
whatever that decision may be, nothing will ever alter the interest of
true affection and inviolable duty," &c. &c.

The second Letter that I shall give, from the rough copy of Mr. Sheridan,
was addressed by the Prince to the King after his recovery, announcing
the intention of His Royal Highness to submit to His Majesty a Memorial,
in vindication of his own conduct and that of his Royal brother the Duke
of York throughout the whole of the proceedings consequent upon His
Majesty's indisposition.

"SIR,

"Thinking it probable that I should have been honored with your commands
to attend Your Majesty on Wednesday last, I have unfortunately lost the
opportunity of paying my duty to Your Majesty before your departure from
Weymouth. The account? I have received of Your Majesty's health have
given me the greatest satisfaction, and should it be Your Majesty's
intention to return to Weymouth, I trust, Sir, there will be no
impropriety in my _then_ entreating Your Majesty's gracious
attention to a point of the greatest moment to the peace of my own mind,
and one in which I am convinced Your Majesty's feelings are equally
interested. Your Majesty's letter to my brother the Duke of Clarence, in
May last, was the first direct intimation I had ever received that my
conduct, and that of my brother the Duke of York, during Your Majesty's
late lamented illness, had brought on us the heavy misfortune of Your
Majesty's displeasure. I should be wholly unworthy the return of Your
Majesty's confidence and good opinion, which will ever be the first
objects of my life, if I could have read the passage I refer to in that
letter without the deepest sorrow and regret for the effect produced on
Your Majesty's mind; though at the same time I felt the firmest
persuasion that Your Majesty's generosity and goodness would never permit
that effect to _remain_, without affording us an opportunity of
knowing what had been urged against us, of replying to our accusers, and
of justifying ourselves, if the means of justification were in our power.

"Great however as my impatience and anxiety were on this subject, I felt
it a superior consideration not to intrude any unpleasing or agitating
discussions upon Your Majesty's attention, during an excursion devoted to
the ease and amusement necessary for the re-establishment of Your
Majesty's health. I determined to sacrifice my own feelings, and to wait
with resignation till the fortunate opportunity should arrive, when Your
Majesty's own paternal goodness would, I was convinced, lead you even to
_invite_ your sons to that fair hearing, which your justice would
not deny to the meanest individual of your subjects. In this painful
interval I have employed myself in drawing up a full statement and
account of my conduct during the period alluded to, and of the motives
and circumstances which influenced me. When these shall be humbly
submitted to Your Majesty's consideration, I may be possibly found to
have erred in judgment, and to have acted on mistaken principles, but I
have the most assured conviction that I shall not be found to have been
deficient in that duteous affection to Your Majesty which nothing shall
ever diminish. Anxious for every thing that may contribute to the comfort
and satisfaction of Your Majesty's mind, I cannot omit this opportunity
of lamenting those appearances of a less gracious disposition in the
Queen, towards my brothers and myself, than we were accustomed to
experience; and to assure Your Majesty that if by your affectionate
interposition these most unpleasant sensations should be happily removed,
it would be an event not less grateful to our minds than satisfactory to
Your Majesty's own benign disposition. I will not longer. &c. &c.

"G. P."

The Statement here announced by His Royal Highness (a copy of which I
have seen, occupying, with its Appendix, near a hundred folio pages), is
supposed to have been drawn up by Lord Minto.

To descend from documents of such high import to one of a much humbler
nature, the following curious memorial was presented this year to Mr.
Sheridan, by a literary gentleman whom the Whig party thought it worth
while to employ in their service, and who, as far as industry went,
appears to have been not unworthy of his hire, Simonides is said to be
the first author that ever wrote for pay, but Simonides little dreamt of
the perfection to which his craft would one day be brought.

_Memorial for Dr. W. T.,_ [Footnote: This industrious Scotchman (of
whose name I have only given the initials) was not without some share of
humor. On hearing that a certain modern philosopher had carried his
belief in the perfectibility of all living things so far, as to say that
he did not despair of seeing the day when tigers themselves might be
educated, Dr. T. exclaimed, "I should like dearly to see him in a cage
with _two_ of his pupils!"]

_Fitzroy-street, Fitzroy-Chapel._

"In May, 1787, Dr. Parr, in the name of his political friends, engaged
Dr. T. to embrace those opportunities, which his connections with
booksellers and periodical publications might afford him, of supporting
the principles of their party. Mr. Sheridan in August, 1787, gave two
notes, 50_l_. each, to Dr. T. for the first year's service, which
notes were paid at different periods--the first by Mr. Sheridan at
Brookes's, in January, 1788, the second by Mr. Windham in May, 1788. Mr.
Sheridan, in different conversations, encouraged Dr. T. to go on with the
expectation of a like sum yearly, or 50_l_. half yearly. Dr. T. with
this encouragement engaged in different publications for the purpose of
this agreement. He is charged for the most part with the Political and
Historical articles in the Analytic Review, and he also occasionally
writes the Political Appendix to the English Review, of which
particularly he wrote that for April last, and that for June last. He
also every week writes an abridgment of Politics for the Whitehall
Evening Post, and a Political Review every month for a Sunday paper
entitled the Review and Sunday Advertiser. In a Romance, entitled
'Mammoth, or Human Nature Displayed, &c.,' Dr. T. has shown how mindful
he is on all occasions of his engagements to those who confide in him. He
has also occasionally moved other engines, which it would be tedious and
might appear too trifling to mention. Dr. T. is not ignorant that
uncommon charges have happened in the course of this last year, that is,
the year preceding May, 1789. Instead of 100_l_., therefore, he will
be satisfied with 50_l_ for that year, provided that this abatement
shall not form a precedent against his claim of 100_l_. annually, if
his further services shall be deemed acceptable. There is one point on
which Dr. T. particularly reserved himself, namely, to make no attack on
Mr. Hastings, and this will be attested by Dr. Parr, Mr. Sheridan, and,
if the Doctor rightly recollects, by Mr. Windham.

"_Fitzroy-street, 21st July, 1789."_

Taking into account all the various circumstances that concurred to
glorify this period of Sheridan's life, we may allow ourselves, I think,
to pause upon it as the apex of the pyramid, and, whether we consider his
fame, his talents, or his happiness, may safely say, "Here is their
highest point."

The new splendor which his recent triumphs in eloquence had added to a
reputation already so illustrious,--the power which he seemed to have
acquired over the future destinies of the country, by his acknowledged
influence in the councils of the Heir Apparent, and the tribute paid to
him, by the avowal both of friends and foes, that he had used this
influence in the late trying crisis of the Regency, with a judgment and
delicacy that proved him worthy of it,--all these advantages, both
brilliant and solid, which subsequent circumstances but too much tended
to weaken, at this moment surrounded him in their newest lustre and
promise.

He was just now, too, in the first enjoyment of a feeling, of which habit
must have afterwards dulled the zest, namely, the proud consciousness of
having surmounted the disadvantages of birth and station, and placed
himself on a level with the highest and noblest of the land. This footing
in the society of the great he could only have attained by parliamentary
eminence;--as a mere writer, with all his genius, he never would have
been thus admitted _ad eundem_ among them. Talents, in literature or
science, unassisted by the advantages of birth, may lead to association
with the great, but rarely to equality;--it is a passport through the
well-guarded frontier, but no title to naturalization within. By him, who
has not been born among them, this can only be achieved by politics. In
that arena, which they look upon as their own, the Legislature of the
land, let a man of genius, like Sheridan, but assert his supremacy,--at
once all these barriers of reserve and pride give way, and he takes, by
storm, a station at their side, which a Shakspeare or a Newton would but
have enjoyed by courtesy.

In fixing upon this period of Sheridan's life, as the most shining aera
of his talents as well as his fame, it is not meant to be denied that in
his subsequent warfare with the Minister, during the stormy time of the
French Revolution, he exhibited a prowess of oratory no less suited to
that actual service, than his eloquence on the trial of Hastings had been
to such lighter tilts and tournaments of peace. But the effect of his
talents was far less striking;--the current of feeling through England
was against him;--and, however greatly this added to the merit of his
efforts, it deprived him of that echo from the public heart, by which the
voice of the orator is endued with a sort of multiplied life, and, as it
were, survives itself. In the panic, too, that followed the French
Revolution, all eloquence, but that from the lips of Power, was
disregarded, and the voice of him at the helm was the only one listened
to in the storm.

Of his happiness, at the period of which we are speaking, in the midst of
so much success and hope, there can be but little doubt. Though pecuniary
embarrassment, as appears from his papers, had already begun to weave its
fatal net around him, there was as yet little more than sufficed to give
exercise to his ingenuity, and the resources of the Drury-Lane treasury
were still in full nightly flow. The charms, by which his home was
embellished, were such as few other homes could boast; and, if any thing
made it less happy than it ought to be, the cause was to be found in the
very brilliancy of his life and attractions, and in those triumphs out of
the sphere of domestic love, to which his vanity, perhaps, oftener than
his feelings, impelled him.

Among his own immediate associates, the gaiety of his spirits amounted
almost to boyishness. He delighted in all sorts of dramatic tricks and
disguises; and the lively parties, with which his country-house was
always filled, were kept in momentary expectation of some new device for
their mystification or amusement. [Footnote: To give some idea of the
youthful tone of this society, I shall mention one out of many anecdotes
related to me by persons who themselves been ornaments of it. The ladies
having one evening received the gentlemen in masquerade dresses, which
with their obstinate silence, made it impossible to distinguish one from
the other, the gentlemen, in their turn invited the ladies next evening,
to a similar trial of conjecture on themselves; and notice being given
that they were ready dressed, Mrs. Sheridan and her companions were
admitted into the dining room, where they found a party of Turks, sitting
silent and masked around the table. After a long course of the usual
guesses, examinations, &c, &c., and each lady having taken the arm of the
person she was most sure of, they heard a burst of laughter through the
half open door, and looking there, saw the gentlemen themselves in their
proper person--the masks upon whom they had been lavishing their
sagacity being no other than the maid servants of the house, who had been
thus dressed up to deceive them.] It was not unusual to dispatch a man
and horse seven or eight miles for a piece of crape or a mask, or some
other such trifle for these frolics. His friends Tickell and Richardson,
both men of wit and humor, and the former possessing the same degree of
light animal spirits as himself, were the constant companions of all his
social hours, and kept up with him that ready rebound of pleasantry,
without which the play of wit languishes.

There is a letter, written one night by Richardson at Tunbridge
[Footnote: In the year 1790, when Mrs. Sheridan was trying the waters of
Tunbridge for her health. In a letter to Sheridan's sister from this
place, dated September 1790, she says: "I drink the waters once a day,
and ride and drive all the forenoon, which makes me ravenous when I
return. I feel I am in very good health, and I am in high beauty, two
circumstances which ought and do put me in high good humor."] (after
waiting five long hours for Sheridan,) so full of that mixture of
melancholy and humor, which chequered the mind of this interesting man,
that, as illustrative of the character of one of Sheridan's most intimate
friends, it may be inserted here:--

"DEAR SHERIDAN,

"_Half-past nine, Mount Ephraim._

"After you had been gone an hour or two I got moped damnably. Perhaps
there is a sympathy between the corporeal and the mind's eye. In the
Temple I can't see far before me, and seldom extend my speculations on
things to come into any fatiguing sketch of reflection.--From your
window, however, there was a tedious scope of black atmosphere, that I
think won my mind into a sort of fellow-travellership, pacing me again
through the cheerless waste of the past, and presenting hardly one little
rarified cloud to give a dim ornament to the future;--not a star to be
seen;--no permanent light to gild my horizon;--only the fading helps to
transient gaiety in the lamps of Tunbridge;--no Law coffee-house at hand,
or any other house of relief;--no antagonist to bicker one into a control
of one's cares by a successful opposition, [Footnote: Richardson was
remarkable for his love of disputation; and Tickell, when hard pressed by
him in argument, used often, as a last resource, to assume the voice and
manner of Mr. Fox, which he had the power of mimicking so exactly, that
Richardson confessed he sometimes stood awed and silenced by the
resemblance.

This disputatious humor of Richardson was once turned to account by
Sheridan in a very characteristic manner. Having had a hackney-coach in
employ for five or six hours, and not being provided with the means of
paying it, he happened to espy Richardson in the street, and proposed to
take him in the coach some part of his way. The offer being accepted,
Sheridan lost no time in starting a subject of conversation, on which he
knew his companion was sure to become argumentative and animated. Having,
by well-managed contradiction, brought him to the proper pitch of
excitement, he affected to grow impatient and angry, himself, and saying
that "he could not think of staying in the same coach with a person that
would use such language," pulled the check-string, and desired the
coachman to let him out. Richardson, wholly occupied with the argument,
and regarding the retreat of his opponent as an acknowledgment of defeat,
still pressed his point, and even hollowed "more last words" through the
coach-window after Sheridan, who, walking quietly home, left the poor
disputant responsible for the heavy fare of the coach.] nor a softer
enemy to soothe one into an oblivion of them.

"It is damned foolish for ladies to leave their scissors about;--the
frail thread of a worthless life is soon snipped. I wish to God my fate
had been true to its first destination, and made a parson of me;--I
should have made an excellent country Joll. I think I can, with
confidence, pronounce the character that would have been given of me:--He
was an indolent good-humored man, civil at all times, and hospitable at
others, namely, when he was able to be so, which, truth to say, happened
but seldom. His sermons were better than his preaching, and his doctrine
better than his life; though often grave, and sometimes melancholy, he
nevertheless loved a joke,--the more so when overtaken in his cups,
which, a regard to the faith of history compels us to subjoin, fell out
not unfrequently. He had more thought than was generally imputed to him,
though it must be owned no man alive ever exercised thought to so little
purpose. Rebecca, his wife, the daughter of an opulent farmer in the
neighborhood of his small living, brought him eighteen children; and he
now rests with those who, being rather _not_ absolutely vicious than
actively good, confide in the bounty of Providence to strike a mild
average between the contending negations of their life, and to allow them
in their future state, what he ordained them in this earthly pilgrimage,
a snug neutrality and a useless repose.--I had written thus far,
absolutely determined, under an irresistible influence of the megrims, to
set off for London on foot, when, accidentally searching for a
cardialgic, to my great delight, I discovered three fugitive sixpences,
headed by a vagrant shilling, immerged in the heap in my waistcoat
pocket. This discovery gave an immediate elasticity to my mind; and I
have therefore devised a scheme, worthier the improved state of my
spirits, namely, to swindle your servants out of a horse, under the
pretence of a ride upon the heath, and to jog on contentedly homewards.
So, under the protection of Providence, and the mercy of footpads, I
trust we shall meet again to-morrow; at all events, there is nothing
huffish in this; for, whether sad or merry, I am always,

"Most affectionately yours,

"J. RICHARDSON.

"P.S. Your return only confirmed me in my resolution of going; for I had
worked myself, in five hours solitude, into such a state of nervous
melancholy, that I found I could not help the meanness of crying, even if
any one looked me in the face. I am anxious to avoid a regular conviction
of so disreputable an infirmity;--besides, the night has become quite
pleasant."

Between Tickell and Sheridan there was a never-ending "skirmish of wit,"
both verbal and practical; and the latter kind, in particular, was
carried on between them with all the waggery, and, not unfrequently, the
malice of school-boys. [Footnote: On one occasion, Sheridan having
covered the floor of a dark passage, leading from the drawing room, with
all the plates and dishes of the house, ranged closely together, provoked
his unconscious play-fellow to pursue him into the midst of them. Having
left a path for his own escape, he passed through easily, but Tickell,
falling at full length into the ambuscade, was very much cut in several
places. The next day, Lord John Townshend, on paying a visit to the
bed-side of Tickell, found him covered over with patches, and indignantly
vowing vengeance against Sheridan for this unjustifiable trick. In the
midst of his anger, however, he could not help exclaiming, with the true
feeling of an amateur of this sort of mischief, "but how amazingly well
done it was!"] Tickell, much less occupied by business than his friend,
had always some political _jeux d'esprit_ on the anvil; and
sometimes these trifles were produced by them jointly. The following
string of pasquinades so well known in political circles, and written, as
the reader will perceive, at different dates, though principally by
Sheridan, owes some of its stanzas to Tickel, and a few others, I
believe, to Lord John Townshend. I have strung together, without regard
to chronology, the best of these detached lampoons. Time having removed
their venom, and with it, in a great degree, their wit, they are now,
like dried snakes, mere harmless objects of curiosity.

"Johnny W--lks, Johnny W--lks, [1]
Thou greatest of bilks,
How chang'd are the notes you now sing!
Your fam'd Forty-five
Is Prerogative,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King,'
Johnny W-lks,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King.'"

"Jack Ch--ch--ll, Jack Ch--ch--ll,
The town sure you search ill,
Your mob has disgraced all your brags;
When next you draw out
Your hospital rout,
Do, prithee, afford them clean rags,
Jack Ch--ch--ll,
Do, prithee, afford them clean rags."

"Captain K--th, Captain K--th,
Keep your tongue 'twixt your teeth,
Lest bed-chamber tricks you betray;
And, if teeth you want more,
Why, my bold Commodore,--
You may borrow of Lord G--ll--y,
Captain K--th,
You may borrow of Lord G--ll--y."

[2]"Joe M--wb--y, Joe M--wb--y,
Your throat sure must raw be,
In striving to make yourself heard;
But it pleased not the pigs.
Nor the Westminster Whigs,
That your Knighthood should utter one word,
Joe M--wb--y,
That your Knighthood should utter one word."

"M--ntm--res, M--ntm--res,
Whom nobody for is,
And _for_ whom we none of us care;
From Dublin you came--
It had much been the same
If your Lordship had staid where you were,
M--ntm--res,
If your Lordship had staid where you were."

"Lord O--gl--y, Lord O--gl--y,
You spoke mighty strongly--
Who you _are_, tho', all people admire!
But I'll let you depart,
For I believe in my heart,
You had rather they did not inquire,
Lord O--gl--y,
You had rather they did not inquire."

"Gl--nb--e, Gl--nb--e,
What's good for the scurvy?
For ne'er be your old trade forgot--
In your arms rather quarter
A pestle and mortar,
And your crest be a spruce gallipot,
Gl--nb--e,
And your crest be a spruce gallipot."

"Gl--nb--e, Gl--nb--e,
The world's topsy-turvy,
Of this truth you're the fittest attester;
For, who can deny
That the Low become High,
When the King makes a Lord of Silvester,
Gl--nb--e,
When the King makes a Lord of Silvester."

"Mr. P--l, Mr. P--l,
In return for your zeal,
I am told they have dubb'd you Sir Bob;
Having got wealth enough
By coarse Manchester stuff,
For honors you'll now drive a job,
Mr. P--l,
For honors you'll now drive a job."

"Oh poor B--ks, oh poor B--ks,
Still condemned to the ranks,
Nor e'en yet from a private promoted;
Pitt ne'er will relent,
Though he knows you repent,
Having once or twice honestly voted,
Poor B--ks,
Having once or twice honestly voted."

"Dull H--l--y, dull H--l--y,
Your audience feel ye
A speaker of very great weight,
And they wish you were dumb,
When, with ponderous hum,
You lengthened the drowsy debate,
Dull H--l--y,
You lengthened the drowsy debate."

[Footnote 1: In Sheridan's copy of the stanzas written by him in this
metre at the time of the Union, (beginning "Zooks, Harry! zooks, Harry!")
he entitled them, "An admirable new ballad, which goes excellently well
to the tune of

"Mrs. Arne, Mrs. Arne,
It gives me concern," &c.]

[Footnote 2: This stanza and, I rather think, the next were by Lord John
Townshend.]

There are about as many more of these stanzas, written at different
intervals, according as new victims, with good names for rhyming,
presented themselves,--the metre being a most tempting medium for such
lampoons. There is, indeed, appended to one of Sheridan's copies of them,
a long list (like a Tablet of Proscription), containing about fifteen
other names marked out for the same fate; and it will be seen by the
following specimen that some of them had a very narrow escape:


"Will C--rt--s...."

"V--ns--t--t, V--ns--t--t,--for little thou fit art."

"Will D--nd--s, Will D--nd--s,--were you only an ass."

"L--ghb--h,--thorough."

"Sam H--rsl--y, Sam H--rsl--y, ... coarsely."

"P--ttym--n, P--ttym--n,--speak truth, if you can."

But it was not alone for such lively purposes [Footnote: As I have been
mentioning some instances of Sheridan's love of practical jests, I shall
take this opportunity of adding one more anecdote, which I believe is
pretty well known, but which I have had the advantage of hearing from the
person on whom the joke was inflicted.

The Rev. Mr. O'B---- (afterwards Bishop of ----) having arrived to dinner
at Sheridan's country-house, near Osterley, where, as usual, a gay party
was collected, (consisting of General Burgoyne, Mrs. Crewe, Tickell, &c.)
it was proposed that on the next day (Sunday) the Rev. Gentleman should,
on gaining the consent of the resident clergyman, give a specimen of his
talents as a preacher in the village church. On his objecting that he was
not provided with a sermon, his host offered to write one for him, if he
would consent to preach it; and, the offer being accepted, Sheridan left
the company early, and did not return for the remainder of the evening.
The following morning Mr. O'B---- found the manuscript by his bed-side,
tied together neatly (as he described it) with riband;--the subject of
the discourse being the "Abuse of Riches." Having read it over and
corrected some theological errors, (such as "it is easier for a camel,
_as Moses says_," &c.) he delivered the sermon in his most
impressive style, much to the delight of his own party, and to the
satisfaction, as he unsuspectingly flattered himself, of all the rest of
the congregation, among whom was Mr. Sheridan's wealthy neighbor Mr. C----

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