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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




Some months afterwards, however, Mr. O'B---- perceived that the family of
Mr. C----, with whom he had previously been intimate, treated him with
marked coldness; and, on his expressing some innocent wonder at the
circumstance, was at length informed, to his dismay, by General Burgoyne,
that the sermon which Sheridan had written for him was, throughout, a
personal attack upon Mr. C----, who had at that time rendered himself
very unpopular in the neighborhood by some harsh conduct to the poor, and
to whom every one in the church, except the unconscious preacher, applied
almost every sentence of the sermon.] that Sheridan and his two friends
drew upon their joint wits; they had also but too much to do with
subjects of a far different nature)--with debts, bonds, judgments, writs,
and all those other humiliating matters of fact, that bring Law and Wit
so often and so unnaturally in contact. That they were serviceable to
each other, in their defensive alliance against duns, is fully proved by
various documents; and I have now before me articles of agreement, dated
in 1787, by which Tickell, to avert an execution from the Theatre, bound
himself as security for Sheridan in the sum of 250_l_.,--the
arrears of an annuity charged upon Sheridan's moiety of the property. So
soon did those pecuniary difficulties, by which his peace and character
were afterwards undermined, begin their operations.

Yet even into transactions of this nature, little as they are akin to
mirth, the following letter of Richardson will show that these brother
wits contrived to infuse a portion of gaiety:

"DEAR SHERIDAN,

"_Essex-Street, Saturday evening._

"I had a terrible long batch with Bobby this morning, after I wrote to
you by Francois. I have so far succeeded that he has agreed to continue
the day of trial as _we_ call it (that is, in vulgar, unlearned
language, to put it off) from Tuesday till Saturday. He demands, as
preliminaries, that Wright's bill of 500_l_. should be given up to
him, as a prosecution had been commenced against him, which, however, he
has stopped by an injunction from the Court of Chancery. This, if the
transaction be as he states it, appears reasonable enough. He insists,
besides, that the bill should undergo the most rigid examination; that
you should transmit your objections, to which he will send answers, (for
the point of a personal interview has not been yet carried,) and that the
whole amount at last, whatever it may be, should have your clear and
satisfied approbation:--nothing to be done without this--almighty honor!

"All these things being done, I desired to know what was to be the result
at last:--'Surely, after having carried so many points, you will think it
only common decency to relax a little as to the time of payment? You will
not cut your pound of flesh the nearest from the merchant's heart?' To
this Bobides, 'I must have 2000_l_. put in a shape of practicable
use, and payment immediately;--for the rest I will accept security.' This
was strongly objected to by me, as Jewish in the extreme; but, however,
so we parted. You will think with me, I hope, that something has been
done, however, by this meeting. It has opened an access to a favorable
adjustment, and time and trust may do much. I am to see him again on
Monday morning at two, so pray don't go out of town to-morrow without my
seeing you. The matter is of immense consequence. I never knew till
to-day that the process had been going on so long. I am convinced he
could force you to trial next Tuesday with all your infirmities green
upon your head; so pray attend to it.

"_R. B. Sheridan, Esq._

"Yours ever,

"_Lower Grosvenor-Street_.

"J. RICHARDSON."

This letter was written in the year 1792, when Sheridan's involvements
had begun to thicken around him more rapidly. There is another letter,
about the same date, still more characteristic,--where, after beginning
in evident anger and distress of mind, the writer breaks off, as if
irresistibly, into the old strain of playfulness and good humor.

"DEAR SHERIDAN,

"_Wednesday, Essex-Street, July 30_.

"I write to you with more unpleasant feelings than I ever did in my life.
Westly, after having told me for the last three weeks that nothing was
wanting for my accommodation but your consent, having told me so, so late
as Friday, sends me word on Monday that he would not do it at all. In
four days I have a _cognovit_ expires for 200_l_. I can't
suffer my family to be turned into the streets if I can help it. I have
no resource but my abilities, such as they are. I certainly mean to write
something in the course of the summer. As a matter of business and
bargain I _can_ have no higher hope about it than that you won't
suffer by it. However, if you won't take it somebody else _must_,
for no human consideration will induce me to leave any means untried,
that may rescue my family from this impending misfortune.

"For the sake of convenience you will probably give me the importance of
construing this into an incendiary letter. I wish to God you may, and
order your treasurer to deposit the acceptance accordingly; for nothing
can be so irksome to me as that the nations of the earth should think
there had been any interruption of friendship between you and me; and
though that would not be the case in fact, both being influenced, I must
believe, by a necessity which we could not control, yet the said nations
would so interpret it. If I don't hear from you before Friday, I shall
conclude that you leave me in this dire scrape to shift for myself.

"_R. B. Sheridan, Esq._

"Yours ever,

"_Isleworth, Middlesex._

"J. RICHARDSON."

_Diben, Friday, 22d._




CHAPTER IV.

FRENCH REVOLUTION.--MR. BURKE.--HIS BREACH WITH MR.
SHERIDAN.--DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.--MR. BURKE AND MR. FOX.--RUSSIAN
ARMAMENT.--ROYAL SCOTCH BOROUGHS.


We have now to consider the conduct and opinions of Mr. Sheridan, during
the measures and discussions consequent upon the French Revolution,--an
event, by which the minds of men throughout all Europe were thrown into a
state of such feverish excitement, that a more than usual degree of
tolerance should be exercised towards the errors and extremes into which
all parties were hurried during the paroxysm. There was, indeed, no rank
or class of society, whose interests and passions were not deeply
involved in the question. The powerful and the rich, both of State and
Church, must naturally have regarded with dismay the advance of a
political heresy, whose path they saw strewed over with the broken
talismans of rank and authority. Many, too, with a disinterested
reverence for ancient institutions, trembled to see them thus approached
by rash hands, whose talents for ruin were sufficiently certain, but
whose powers of reconstruction were yet to be tried. On the other hand,
the easy triumph of a people over their oppressors was an example which
could not fail to excite the hopes of the many as actively as the fears
of the few. The great problem of the natural rights of mankind seemed
about to be solved in a manner most flattering to the majority; the zeal
of the lover of liberty was kindled into enthusiasm, by a conquest
achieved for his cause upon an arena so vast; and many, who before would
have smiled at the doctrine of human perfectibility, now imagined they
saw, in what the Revolution performed and promised, almost enough to
sanction the indulgence of that splendid dream. It was natural, too, that
the greater portion of that unemployed, and, as it were, homeless talent,
which, in all great communities, is ever abroad on the wing, uncertain
where to settle, should now swarm round the light of the new
principles,--while all those obscure but ambitious spirits, who felt
their aspirings clogged by the medium in which they were sunk, would as
naturally welcome such a state of political effervescence, as might
enable them, like enfranchised air, to mount at once to the surface.

Amidst all these various interests, imaginations, and fears, which were
brought to life by the dawn of the French Revolution, it is not
surprising that errors and excesses, both of conduct and opinion, should
be among the first products of so new and sudden a movement of the whole
civilized world;--that the friends of popular rights, presuming upon the
triumph that had been gained, should, in the ardor of pursuit, push on
the vanguard of their principles, somewhat farther than was consistent
with prudence and safety; or that, on the other side, Authority and its
supporters, alarmed by the inroads of the Revolutionary spirit, should
but the more stubbornly intrench themselves in established abuses, and
make the dangers they apprehended from liberty a pretext for assailing
its very existence.

It was not long before these effects of the French Revolution began to
show themselves very strikingly in the politics of England; and,
singularly enough, the two extreme opinions, to which, as I have just
remarked, that disturbing event gave rise, instead of first appearing, as
might naturally be expected, the one on the side of Government, and the
other on that of the Opposition, both broke out simultaneously in the
very heart of the latter body.

On such an imagination as that of Burke, the scenes now passing in France
were every way calculated to make a most vivid impression. So susceptible
was he, indeed, of such impulses, and so much under the control of the
imaginative department of his intellect, that, whatever might have been
the accidental mood of his mind, at the moment when this astounding event
first burst upon him, it would most probably have acted as a sort of
mental catalepsy, and fixed his reason in the very attitude in which it
found it. He had, however, been prepared for the part which he now took
by much more deep and grounded causes. It was rather from circumstances
than from choice, or any natural affinity, that Mr. Burke had ever
attached himself to the popular party in politics. There was, in truth,
nothing democratic about him but his origin;--his tastes were all on the
side of the splendid and the arbitrary. The chief recommendation of the
cause of India to his fancy and his feeling was that it involved the fate
of ancient dynasties, and invoked retribution for the downfall of thrones
and princedoms, to which his imagination, always most affected by objects
at a distance, lent a state and splendor that did not, in sober reality,
belong to them. Though doomed to make Whiggism his habitual haunt, he
took his perch at all times on its loftiest branches, as far as possible
away from popular contact; and, upon most occasions, adopted a sort of
baronial view of liberty, as rather a question lying between the Throne
and the Aristocracy, than one in which the people had a right to any
efficient voice or agency. Accordingly, the question of Parliamentary
Reform, from the first moment of its agitation, found in him a most
decided opponent.

This inherent repugnance to popular principles became naturally
heightened into impatience and disgust, by the long and fruitless warfare
which he had waged under their banner, and the uniform ill success with
which they had blasted all his struggles for wealth and power. Nor was he
in any better temper with his associates in the cause,--having found that
the ascendancy, which he had formerly exercised over them, and which, in
some degree, consoled him for the want of official dominion, was of late
considerably diminished, if not wholly transferred to others. Sheridan,
as has been stated, was the most prominent object of his jealousy;--and
it is curious to remark how much, even in feelings of this description,
the aristocratical bias of his mind betrayed itself. For, though Mr. Fox,
too, had overtaken and even passed him in the race, assuming that station
in politics which he himself had previously held, yet so paramount did
those claims of birth and connection, by which the new leader came
recommended, appear in his eyes, that he submitted to be superseded by
him, not only without a murmur, but cheerfully. To Sheridan, however, who
had no such hereditary passport to pre-eminence, he could not give way
without heart burning and humiliation; and to be supplanted thus by a
rival son of earth seemed no less a shock to his superstitious notions
about rank, than it was painful to his feelings of self-love and pride.

Such, as far as can be ascertained by a distant observer of those times,
was the temper in which the first events of the Revolution found the mind
of this remarkable man;--and, powerfully as they would, at any time, have
appealed to his imagination and prejudices, the state of irritability to
which he had been wrought by the causes already enumerated peculiarly
predisposed him, at this moment, to give way to such impressions without
restraint, and even to welcome as a timely relief to his pride, the
mighty vent thus afforded to the "_splendida bilis_" with which it
was charged.

There was indeed much to animate and give a zest to the new part which he
now took. He saw those principles, to which he owed a deep grudge, for
the time and the talents he had wasted in their service, now embodied in
a shape so wild and alarming, as seemed to justify him, on grounds of
public safety, in turning against them the hole powers of his mind, and
thus enabled him, opportunely, to dignify desertion, by throwing the
semblance of patriotism and conscientiousness round the reality of
defection and revenge. He saw the party, too, who, from the moment they
had ceased to be ruled by him, were associated only in his mind with
recollections of unpopularity and defeat, about to adopt a line of
politics which his long knowledge of the people of England, and his
sagacious foresight of the consequences of the French Revolution, fully
convinced him would lead to the same barren and mortifying results. On
the contrary, the cause to which he proffered his alliance, would, he was
equally sure, by arraying on its side all the rank, riches, and religion
of Europe, enable him at length to feel that sense of power and triumph,
for which his domineering spirit had so long panted in vain. In this
latter hope, indeed, of a speedy triumph over Jacobinism, his
temperament, as was often the case, outran his sagacity; for, while he
foresaw clearly that the dissolution of social order in France would at
last harden into a military tyranny, he appeared not to be aware that the
violent measures which he recommended against her would not only hasten
this formidable result, but bind the whole mass of the people into union
and resistance during the process.

Lastly--To these attractions, of various kinds, with which the cause of
Thrones was now encircled in the eyes of Burke, must be added one, which,
however it may still further disenchant our views of his conversion,
cannot wholly be omitted among the inducements to his change,--and this
was the strong claim upon the gratitude of government, which his
seasonable and powerful advocacy in a crisis so difficult established for
him, and which the narrow and embarrassed state of his circumstances
rendered an object by no means of secondary importance in his views.
Unfortunately,--from a delicate wish, perhaps, that the reward should
not appear to come in too close coincidence with the service,--the
pension bestowed upon him arrived too late to admit of his deriving much
more from it than the obloquy by which it was accompanied.

The consequence, as is well known, of the new course taken by Burke was
that the speeches and writings which he henceforward produced, and in
which, as usual, his judgment was run away with by his temper, form a
complete contrast, in spirit and tendency, to all that he had put on
record in the former part of his life. He has, indeed, left behind him
two separate and distinct armories of opinion, from which both Whig and
Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the
most highly tempered, that ever Genius and Eloquence have condescended to
bequeath to Party. He has thus too, by his own personal versatility,
attained, in the world of politics, what Shakspeare, by the versatility
of his characters, achieved for the world in general,--namely, such a
universality of application to all opinions and purposes, that it would
be difficult for any statesman of any party to find himself placed in any
situation, for which he could not select some golden sentence from Burke,
either to strengthen his position by reasoning or illustrate and adorn it
by, fancy. While, therefore, our respect for the man himself is
diminished by this want of moral identity observable through his life and
writings, we are but the more disposed to admire that unrivalled genius,
which could thus throw itself out in so many various directions with
equal splendor and vigor. In general, political deserters lose their
value and power in the very act, and bring little more than their treason
to the new cause which they espouse:--


_"Fortis in armis
Caesaris Labienus erat; nunc transfuga vilis."_


But Burke was mighty in either camp; and it would have taken _two_
great men to effect what he, by this division of himself achieved. His
mind, indeed, lies parted asunder in his works, like some vast continent
severed by a convulsion of nature,--each portion peopled by its own giant
race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and
committed in eternal hostility with each other.

It was during the discussions on the Army Estimates, at the commencement
of the session of 1790, that the difference between Mr. Burke and his
party in their views of the French Revolution first manifested itself.
Mr. Fox having taken occasion to praise the late conduct of the French
Guards in refusing to obey the dictates of the Court, and having declared
that he exulted, "both from feelings and from principles," in the
political change that had been brought about in that country, Mr. Burke,
in answering him, entered fully, and, it must be owned, most luminously
into the question,--expressing his apprehension, lest the example of
France, which had, at a former period, threatened England with the
contagion of despotism, should now be the means of introducing among her
people the no less fatal taint of Democracy and Atheism. After some
eloquent tributes of admiration to Mr. Fox, rendered more animated,
perhaps, by the consciousness that they were the last offerings thrown
into the open grave of their friendship, he proceeded to deprecate the
effects which the language of his Right Honorable Friend might have, in
appearing to countenance the disposition observable among "some wicked
persons" to "recommend an imitation of the French spirit of Reform," and
then added a declaration, equally remarkable for the insidious charge
which it implied against his own party, and the notice of his approaching
desertion which it conveyed to the other,--that "so strongly opposed was
he to any the least tendency towards the _means_ of introducing a
democracy like that of the French, as well as to the _end_ itself,
that, much as it would afflict him, if such a thing should be attempted,
and that any friend of his could concur in such measures (he was far,
very far, from believing they could), he would abandon his best friends,
and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end."

It is pretty evident, from these words, that Burke had already made up
his mind as to the course he should pursue, and but delayed his
declaration of a total breach, in order to prepare the minds of the
public for such an event, and, by waiting to take advantage of some
moment of provocation, make the intemperance of others responsible for
his own deliberate schism. The reply of Mr. Fox was not such as could
afford this opportunity;--it was, on the contrary, full of candor and
moderation, and repelled the implied charge of being a favorer of the new
doctrines of France in the most decided, but, at the same time, most
conciliatory terms.

"Did such a declaration," he asked, "warrant the idea that he was a
friend to Democracy? He declared himself equally the enemy of all
absolute forms of government, whether an absolute Monarchy, an absolute
Aristocracy, or an absolute Democracy. He was adverse to all extremes,
and a friend only to a mixed government like our own, in which, if the
Aristocracy, or indeed either of the three branches of the Constitution,
were destroyed, the good effect of the whole, and the happiness derived
under it would, in his mind, be at an end."

In returning, too, the praises bestowed upon him by his friend, he made
the following memorable and noble acknowledgment of all that he himself
had gained by their intercourse:--

"Such (he said) was his sense of the judgment of his Right Honorable
Friend, such his knowledge of his principles, such the value which he set
upon them, and such the estimation in which he held his friendship, that
if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from
books, all which he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge
of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the
improvement which he had derived from his Right Honorable Friend's
instruction and conversation were placed in the other, he should be at a
loss to decide to which to give the preference."

This, from a person so rich in acquirements as Mr. Fox, was the very
highest praise,--nor, except in what related to the judgment and
principles of his friend, was it at all exaggerated. The conversation of
Burke must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting
power and riches at every step--occasionally, perhaps, mingling the low
Fescennine jest with the lofty music of its march, but glittering all
over with the spoils of the whole ransacked world.

Mr. Burke, in reply, after reiterating his praises of Mr. Fox, and the
full confidence which he felt in his moderation and sagacity, professed
himself perfectly satisfied with the explanations that had been given.
The conversation would thus have passed off without any explosion, had
not Sheridan, who was well aware that against him, in particular, the
charge of a tendency to the adoption of French principles was directed,
risen immediately after, and by a speech warmly in favor of the
Revolution and of the National Assembly, at once lighted the train in the
mind of Burke, and brought the question, as far as regarded themselves,
to an immediate issue.

"He differed," he said, "decidedly, from his Right Honorable Friend in
almost every word that be had uttered respecting the French Revolution.
He conceived it to be as just a Revolution as ours, proceeding upon as
sound a principle and as just a provocation. He vehemently defended the
general views and conduct of the National Assembly. He could not even
understand what was meant by the charges against them of having
overturned the laws, the justice, and the revenues of their country. What
were their laws? the arbitrary mandates of capricious despotism. What
their justice? the partial adjudications of venal magistrates. What their
revenues? national bankruptcy. This he thought the fundamental error of
his Right Honorable Friend's argument, that he accused the National
Assembly of creating the evils, which they had found existing in full
deformity at the first hour of their meeting. The public creditor had
been defrauded; the manufacturer was without employ; trade was
languishing; famine clung upon the poor; despair on all. In this
situation, the wisdom and feelings of the nation were appealed to by the
government; and was it to be wondered at by Englishmen, that a people, so
circumstanced, should search for the cause and source of all their
calamities, or that they should find them in the arbitrary constitution
of their government, and in the prodigal and corrupt administration of
their revenues? For such an evil when proved, what remedy could be
resorted to, but a radical amendment of the frame and fabric of the
Constitution itself? This change was not the object and wish of the
National Assembly only; it was the claim and cry of all France, united as
one man for one purpose."

All this is just and unanswerable--as indeed was the greater part of the
sentiments which he uttered. But he seems to have failed, even more
signally than Mr. Fox, in endeavoring to invalidate the masterly view
which Burke had just taken of the Revolution of 1688, as compared, in its
means and object, with that of France. There was, in truth, but little
similarity between them,--the task of the former being to preserve
liberty, that of the latter to destroy tyranny; the one being a regulated
movement of the Aristocracy against the Throne for the Nation, the other
a tumultuous rising of the whole Nation against both for itself.

The reply of Mr. Burke was conclusive and peremptory,--such, in short,
as might be expected from a person who came prepared to take the first
plausible opportunity of a rupture. He declared that "henceforth, his
Honorable Friend and he were separated in politics,"--complained that his
arguments had been cruelly misrepresented, and that "the Honorable
Gentleman had thought proper to charge him with being the advocate of
despotism." Having endeavored to defend himself from such an imputation,
he concluded by saying,--

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