Whatever in more important points may be the inferiority of the present school of poetry to that which preceded it, in the music of versification there can be but little doubt of its improvement; nor has criticism, perhaps, ever rendered a greater service to the art, than in helping to unseal the ears of its worshippers to that true spheric harmony of the elders of song, which, during a long period of our literature, was as unheard as if it never existed.

The Monody does not seem to have kept the stage more than five or six nights;—nor is this surprising. The recitation of a long, serious address must always be, to a certain degree, ineffective on the stage; and, though this subject contained within it many strong sources of interest, as well personal as dramatic, they were not, perhaps, turned to account by the poet with sufficient warmth and earnestness on his own part, to excite a very ready response of sympathy in others. Feeling never wanders into generalities—it is only by concentrating his rays upon one point that even Genius can kindle strong emotion; and, in order to produce any such effect in the present instance upon the audience, Garrick himself ought to have been kept prominently and individually before their eyes in almost every line. Instead of this, however, the man is soon forgotten in his Art, which is then deliberately compared with other Arts, and the attention, through the greater part of the poem, is diffused over the transitoriness of actors in general, instead of being brought strongly to a focus upon the particular loss just sustained. Even in those parts which apply most directly to Garrick, the feeling is a good deal diluted by this tendency to the abstract; and, sometimes, by a false taste of personification, like that in the very first line,—

"If dying excellence deserves a tear,"

where the substitution of a quality of the man for the man himself [Footnote: Another instance of this fault occurs in his song "When sable Night:"—

"As some fond mother, o'er her babe deploring, Wakes its beauty with a tear;"

where the clearness and reality of the picture are spoiled by the affectation of representing the beauty of the child as waked, instead of the child itself.] puts the mind, as it were, one remove farther from the substantial object of its interest, and disturbs that sense of reality, on which the operations even of Fancy itself ought to be founded.

But it is very easy to play the critic—so easy as to be a task of but little glory. For one person who could produce such a poem as this, how many thousands exist and have existed, who could shine in the exposition of its faults! Though insufficient, perhaps, in itself, to create a reputation for an author, yet, as a "stella Coronae"—one of the stars in that various crown, which marks the place of Sheridan in the firmament of Fame,—it not only well sustains its own part in the lustre, but draws new light from the host of brilliancy around it.

It was in the course of this same year that he produced the entertainment of the Critic—his last legitimate offering on the shrine of the Dramatic Muse. In this admirable farce we have a striking instance of that privilege which, as I have already said, Genius assumes, of taking up subjects that had passed through other hands, and giving them a new value and currency by his stamp. The plan of a Rehearsal was first adopted for the purpose of ridiculing Dryden, by the Duke of Buckingham; but, though there is much laughable humor in some of the dialogue between Bayes and his friends, the salt of the satire altogether was not of a very conservative nature, and the piece continued to be served up to the public long after it had lost its relish. Fielding tried the same plan in a variety of pieces—in his Pasquin, his Historical Register, his Author's Farce, his Eurydice, &c.,—but without much success, except in the comedy of Pasquin, which had, I believe, at first a prosperous career, though it has since, except with the few that still read it for its fine tone of pleasantry, fallen into oblivion. It was reserved for Sheridan to give vitality to this form of dramatic humor, and to invest even his satirical portraits —as in the instance of Sir Fretful Plagiary, which, it is well known, was designed for Cumberland—with a generic character, which, without weakening the particular resemblance, makes them representatives for ever of the whole class to which the original belonged. Bayes, on the contrary, is a caricature—made up of little more than personal peculiarities, which may amuse as long as reference can be had to the prototype, but, like those supplemental features furnished from the living subject by Taliacotius, fall lifeless the moment the individual that supplied them is defunct.

It is evident, however, that Bayes was not forgotten in the composition of The Critic. His speech, where the two Kings of Brentford are singing in the clouds, may be considered as the exemplar which Sheridan had before him in writing some of the rehearsal scenes of Puff:—

"Smith. Well, but methinks the sense of this song is not very plain.

"Bayes. Plain! why did you ever hear any people in the clouds sing plain? They must be all for flight of fancy at its fullest range, without the least check or control upon it. When once you tie up spirits and people in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all."

There are particular instances of imitation still more direct. Thus in The Critic:

"Enter SIR WALTER RALEIGH and SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON.

"Sir Christ. H. True, gallant Raleigh.—

"Dangle. What, had they been talking before?

"Puff. Oh yes, all the way as they came along."

In the same manner in The Rehearsal, where the Physician and Usher of the two Kings enter:—

"Phys. Sir, to conclude—

"Smith. What, before he begins?

"Bayes. No, Sir, you must know they had been talking of this a pretty while without.

"Smith. Where? in the tyring room?

"Bayes. Why, ay, Sir. He's so dull."

Bayes, at the opening of the Fifth Act, says, "Now, gentlemen, I will be bold to say, I'll show you the greatest scene that England ever saw; I mean not for words, for those I don't value, but for state, show, and magnificence." Puff announces his grand scene in much the same manner:— "Now then for my magnificence! my battle! my noise! and my procession!"

In Fielding, too, we find numerous hints or germs, that have come to their full growth of wit in The Critic. For instance, in Trapwit (a character in "Pasquin") there are the rudiments of Sir Fretful as well as of Puff:—

"Sneerwell. Yes, faith, I think I would cut that last speech.

"Trapwit. Sir, I'll sooner cut off an ear or two; Sir, that's the very best thing in the whole play....

"Trapwit. Now, Mr. Sneerwell, we shall begin my third and last act; and I believe I may defy all the poets who have ever writ, or ever will write, to produce its equal: it is, Sir, so crammed with drums and trumpets, thunder and lightning, battles and ghosts, that I believe the audience will want no entertainment after it."

The manager, Marplay, in "The Author's Farce," like him of Drury Lane in the Critic, "does the town the honor of writing himself;" and the following incident in "The Historical Register" suggested possibly the humorous scene of Lord Burleigh:—

"Enter Four Patriots from different Doors, who meet in the centre and shake Hands.

"Sour-wit. These patriots seem to equal your greatest politicians in their silence.

"Medley. Sir, what they think now cannot well be spoke, but you may conjecture a good deal from their shaking their heads."

Such coincidences, whether accidental or designed, are at least curious, and the following is another of somewhat a different kind:—"Steal! (says Sir Fretful) to be sure they may; and egad, serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them, to make 'em pass for their own." [Footnote: This simile was again made use of by him in a speech upon Mr. Pitt's India Bill, which he declared to be "nothing more than a bad plagiarism on Mr. Fox's, disfigured, indeed, as gipsies do stolen children, in order to make them pass for their own."] Churchill has the same idea in nearly the same language:—

"Still pilfers wretched plans and makes them worse, Like gipsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then claiming for their own."

The character of Puff, as I have already shown, was our author's first dramatic attempt; and, having left it unfinished in the porch as he entered the temple of Comedy, he now, we see, made it worthy of being his farewell oblation in quitting it. Like Eve's flowers, it was his

"Early visitation, and his last."

We must not, however, forget a lively Epilogue which he wrote this year, for Miss Hannah More's tragedy of Fatal Falsehood, in which there is a description of a blue-stocking lady, executed with all his happiest point. Of this dense, epigrammatic style, in which every line is a cartridge of wit in itself, Sheridan was, both in prose and verse, a consummate master; and if any one could hope to succeed, after Pope, in a Mock Epic, founded upon fashionable life, it would have been, we should think, the writer of this epilogue. There are some verses, written on the "Immortelle Emilie" of Voltaire, in which her employments, as a savante and a woman of the world, are thus contrasted:—

"Tout lui plait, tout convient a son vaste genie, Les livres, les bijoux, les compas, les pompons, Les vers, les diamans, les beribis, l'optique, L'algebre, les soupers, le Latin, les jupons, L'opera, les proces, le bal, et la physique."

How powerfully has Sheridan, in bringing out the same contrasts, shown the difference between the raw material of a thought, and the fine fabric as it comes from the hands of a workman:—

"What motley cares Corilla's mind perplex, Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex! In studious deshabille behold her sit, A letter'd gossip and a housewife wit: At once invoking, though for different views, Her gods, her cook, her milliner, and muse. Round her strew'd room a frippery chaos lies, A chequer'd wreck of notable and wise. Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass, Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass; Unfinished here an epigram is laid, And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid. There new-born plays foretaste the town's applause, There dormant patterns pine for future gauze. A moral essay now is all her care, A satire next, and then a bill of fare. A scene she now projects, and now a dish, Here Act the First, and here 'Remove with Fish.' Now, while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls, That soberly casts up a bill for coals; Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks. And tears, and threads, and bowls, and thimbles mix."

We must now prepare to follow the subject of this Memoir into a field of display, altogether different, where he was in turn to become an actor before the public himself, and where, instead of inditing lively speeches for others, he was to deliver the dictates of his eloquence and wit from his own lips. However the lovers of the drama may lament this diversion of his talents, and doubt whether even the chance of another School for Scandal were not worth more than all his subsequent career, yet to the individual himself, full of ambition, and conscious of versatility of powers, such an opening into a new course of action and fame, must have been like one of those sudden turnings of the road in a beautiful country, which dazzle the eyes of a traveller with new glories, and invite him on to untried paths of fertility and sunshine.

It has been before remarked how early, in a majority of instances, the dramatic talent has come to its fullest maturity. Mr. Sheridan would possibly never have exceeded what he had already done, and his celebrity had now reached that point of elevation, where, by a sort of optical deception in the atmosphere of fame, to remain stationary is to seem, in the eyes of the spectators, to fall. He had, indeed, enjoyed only the triumphs of talent, and without even descending to those ovations, or minor triumphs, which in general are little more than celebrations of escape from defeat, and to which they, who surpass all but themselves, are often capriciously reduced. It is questionable, too, whether, in any other walk of literature, he would have sustained the high reputation which he acquired by the drama. Very rarely have dramatic writers, even of the first rank, exhibited powers of equal rate, when out of the precincts of their own art; while, on the other hand, poets of a more general range, whether epic, lyric, or satiric, have as rarely succeeded on the stage. There is, indeed, hardly one of our celebrated dramatic authors (and the remark might be extended to other countries) who has left works worthy of his reputation in any other line; and Mr. Sheridan, perhaps, might only have been saved from adding to the list of failures, by such a degree of prudence or of indolence as would have prevented him from making the attempt. He may, therefore, be said to have closed his account with literature, when not only the glory of his past successes, but the hopes of all that he might yet have achieved, were set down fully, and without any risk of forfeiture, to his credit; and, instead of being left, like Alexander, to sigh for new worlds to vanquish, no sooner were his triumphs in one sphere of action complete than another opened to invite him to new conquests.

We have already seen that Politics, from the very commencement of his career, had held divided empire with Literature in the tastes and studies of Mr. Sheridan; and, even in his fullest enjoyment of the smiles of the Comic Muse, while he stood without a rival in her affections, the "Musa severior" of politics was estranging the constancy of his—

"Te tenet, absentes alios suspirat amores"

"E'en while perfection lies within his arms, He strays in thought, and sighs for other charms."

Among his manuscripts there are some sheets of an Essay on Absentees, which, from the allusions it contains to the measures then in contemplation for Ireland, must have been written, I rather think, about the year 1778—when the School for Scandal was in its first career of success, and the Critic preparing, at no very long interval, to partake its triumph. It is obvious, from some expressions used in this pamphlet, that his intention was, if not to publish it in Ireland, at least to give it the appearance of having been written there—and, except the pure unmixed motive of rendering a service to his country, by the discussion of a subject so closely connected with her interests, it is difficult to conceive what inducement he could have had to select at that moment such a topic for his pen. The plain, unpretending style of the greater part of the composition sufficiently proves that literary display was not the object of it; while the absence of all criminatory matter against the government precludes the idea of its having originated in party zeal.

As it is curious to observe how soberly his genius could yoke itself to grave matter of fact, after the winged excursions in which it had been indulging, I shall here lay some paragraphs of this pamphlet before the reader.

In describing the effects of the prevailing system of pasturage—one of the evils attributed by him to Absentees,—he thus, with occasional irradiations of eloquence and ingenuity, expresses himself:—

"Now it must ever be the interest of the Absentee to place his estates in the hands of as few tenants as possible, by which means there will be less difficulty or hazard in collecting his rents, and less intrusted to an agent, if his estate require one. The easiest method of effecting this is by laying the land out for pasturage, and letting it in gross to those who deal only in 'a fatal living crop'—whose produce we are not allowed a market for when manufactured, while we want art, honesty, and encouragement to fit it for home consumption. Thus the indolent extravagance of the lord becomes subservient to the interest of a few mercenary graziers—shepherds of most unpastoral principles—while the veteran husbandman may lean on the shattered, unused plough, and view himself surrounded with flocks that furnish raiment without food. Or, if his honesty be not proof against the hard assaults of penury, he may be led to revenge himself on these dumb innovators of his little field— then learn too late that some portion of the soil is reserved for a crop more fatal even than that which tempted and destroyed him.

"Without dwelling on the particular ill effects of non-residence in this case, I shall conclude with representing that principal and supreme prerogative which the Absentee foregoes—the prerogative of mercy, of charity. The estated resident is invested with a kind of relieving providence—a power to heal the wounds of undeserved misfortune—to break the blows of adverse fortune, and leave chance no power to undo the hopes of honest persevering industry. There cannot surely be a more happy station than that wherein prosperity and worldly interest are to be best forwarded by an exertion of the most endearing offices of humanity. This is his situation who lives on the soil which furnishes him with means to live. It is his interest to watch the devastation of the storm, the ravage of the flood—to mark the pernicious extremes of the elements, and, by a judicious indulgence and assistance, to convert the sorrows and repinings of the sufferer into blessings on his humanity. By such a conduct he saves his people from the sin of unrighteous murmurs, and makes Heaven his debtor for their resignation.

"It will be said that the residing in another kingdom will never erase from humane minds the duty and attention which they owe to those whom they have left to cultivate their demesnes. I will not say that absence lessens their humanity, or that the superior dissipation which they enjoy in it contracts their feelings to coarser enjoyments—without this, we know that agents and stewards are seldom intrusted with full powers of aiding and remitting. In some, compassion would be injustice. They are, in general, content with the virtue of justice and punctuality towards their employer; part of which they conceive to be a rigorous exaction of his rents, and, where difficulty occurs, their process is simply to distrain and to eject—a rigor that must ever be prejudicial to an estate, and which, practised frequently, betrays either an original negligence, or want of judgment in choosing tenants, or an extreme inhumanity towards their incidental miscarriages.

"But, granting an undiminished benevolence to exist on the part both of the landlord and the agent, yet can we expect any great exertion of pathetic eloquence to proceed from the latter to palliate any deficiency of the tenants?—or, if there were, do we not know how much lighter an impression is made by distresses related to us than by those which are 'oculis subjecta fidelibus? The heart, the seat of charity and compassion, is more accessible to the senses than the understanding. Many, who would be unmoved by any address to the latter, would melt into charity at the eloquent persuasion of silent sorrow. When he sees the widow's tear, and hears the orphan's sigh, every one will act with a sudden uniform rectitude, because he acts from the divine impulse of 'free love dealt equally to all.'"

The blind selfishness of those commercial laws, which England so long imposed upon Ireland,—like ligatures to check the circulation of the empire's life-blood,—is thus adverted to:

"Though I have mentioned the decay of trade in Ireland as insufficient to occasion the great increase of emigration, yet is it to be considered as an important ill effect, arising from the same cause. It may be said that trade is now in higher repute in Ireland, and that the exports and imports (which are always supposed the test of it) are daily increasing. This may be admitted to be true, yet cannot it be said that the trade of the kingdom flourishes. The trade of a kingdom should increase in exact proportion to its luxuries, and those of the nations connected with it. Therefore it is no argument to say, that, on examining the accounts of customs fifty years back, they appear to be trebled now; for England, by some sudden stroke, might lose such a proportion of its trade, as would ruin it as a commercial nation, yet the amount of what remained might be tenfold of what it enjoyed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Trade, properly speaking, is the commutations of the product of each country— this extends itself to the exchange of commodities in which art has fixed a price. Where a nation hath free power to export the works of its industry, the balance in such articles will certainly be in its favor. Thus had we in Ireland power to export our manufactured silks, stuffs, and woollens, we should be assured that it would be our interest to import and cultivate their materials. But, as this is not the case, the gain of individuals is no proof that the nation is benefited by such commerce. For instance, the exportation of un-wrought wool may be very advantageous to the dealer, and, through his hands, bring money, or a beneficial return of commodities into the kingdom; but trace the ill effects of depopulating such tracts of land as are necessary for the support of flocks to supply this branch, and number those who are deprived of support and employment by it, and so become a dead weight on the community—we shall find that the nation in fact will be the poorer for this apparent advantage. This would be remedied were we allowed to export it manufactured; because the husbandman might get his bread as a manufacturer.

"Another principal cause that the trade may increase, without proportionally benefiting the nation, is that a great part of the stock which carries on the foreign trade of Ireland belongs to those who reside out of the country—thus the ultimate and material profits on it are withdrawn to another kingdom. It is likewise to be observed, that, though the exportations may appear to exceed the importations, yet may this in part arise from the accounts of the former being of a more certain nature, and those of the latter very conjectural, and always falling short of the fact."

Though Mr. Sheridan afterwards opposed a Union with Ireland, the train of reasoning which he pursued in this pamphlet naturally led him to look forward to such an arrangement between the two countries, as, perhaps, the only chance of solving the long-existing problem of their relationship to each other.

"It is the state, (he continues,) the luxury, and fashions of the wealthy, that give life to the artificers of elegance and taste;—it is their numerous train that sends the rapid shuttle through the loom;— and, when they leave their country, they not only beggar these dependents, but the tribes that lived by clothing them.

"An extravagant passion for luxuries hath been in all nations a symptom of an approaching dissolution. However, in commercial states, while it predominates only among the higher ranks, it brings with it the conciliating advantage of being greatly beneficial to trade and manufactures. But, how singularly unfortunate is that kingdom, where the luxurious passions of the great beggar those who should be supported by them,—a kingdom, whose wealthy members keep equal pace with their numbers in the dissipated and fantastical pursuits of life, without suffering the lower class to glean even the dregs of their vices. While this is the case with Ireland the prosperity of her trade must be all forced and unnatural; and if, in the absence of its wealthy and estated members, the state already feels all the disadvantages of a Union, it cannot do better than endeavor at a free trade by effecting it in reality."

Having demonstrated, at some length, the general evil of absenteeism, he thus proceeds to inquire into the most eligible remedy for it:—

"The evil complained of is simply the absence of the proprietors of a certain portion of the landed property. This is an evil unprovided against by the legislature;—therefore, we are not to consider whether it might not with propriety have been guarded against, but whether a remedy or alleviation of it can now be attempted consistently with the spirit of the Constitution. On examining all the most obvious methods of attempting this, I believe there will appear but two practicable. The First will be by enacting a law for the frequent summoning the proprietors of landed property to appear de facto at stated times. The Second will be the voting a supply to be raised from the estates of such as do never reside in the kingdom.

"The First, it is obvious, would be an obligation of no use, without a penalty was affixed to the breach of it, amounting to the actual forfeiture of the estate of the recusant. This, we are informed, was once the case in Ireland. But at present, whatever advantage the kingdom might reap by it, it could not possibly be reconciled to the genius of the Constitution: and, if the fine were trifling, it would prove the same as the second method, with the disadvantage of appearing to treat as an act of delinquency what in no way infringes the municipal laws of the kingdom.

"In the Second method the legislature is, in no respect, to be supposed to regard the person of the Absentee. It prescribes no place of residence to him, nor attempts to summon or detain him. The light it takes up the point in is this—that the welfare of the whole is injured by the produce of a certain portion of the soil being sent out of the kingdom.... It will be said that the produce of the soil is not exported by being carried to our own markets; but if the value received in exchange for it, whatever it be, whether money or commodities, be exported, it is exactly the same in its ultimate effects as if the grain, flocks, &c. were literally sent to England. In this light, then, if the state is found to suffer by such an exportation, its deducting a small part from the produce is simply a reimbursing the public, and putting the loss of the public (to whose welfare the interest of individuals is always to be subservient) upon those very members who occasion that loss.

"This is only to be effected by a tax."

Though to a political economist of the present day much of what is so loosely expressed in these extracts will appear but the crudities of a tyro in the science, yet, at the time when they were written,—when both Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke could expatiate on the state of Ireland, without a single attempt to develop or enforce those simple, but wise principles of commercial policy, every one of which had been violated in the restrictions on her industry,—it was no small merit in Mr. Sheridan to have advanced even thus far in a branch of knowledge so rare and so important.

In addition to his own early taste for politics, the intimacies which he had now formed with some of the most eminent public men of the day must have considerably tended to turn his ambition in that direction. At what time he first became acquainted with Mr. Fox I have no means of ascertaining exactly. Among the letters addressed to him by that statesman, there is one which, from the formality of its style, must have been written at the very commencement of their acquaintance—but, unluckily, it is not dated. Lord John Townshend, who first had the happiness of bringing two such men together, has given the following interesting account of their meeting, and of the impressions which they left upon the minds of each other. His lordship, however, has not specified the period of this introduction:—

"I made the first dinner-party at which they met, having told Fox that all the notions he might have conceived of Sheridan's talents and genius from the comedy of The Rivals, &c. would fall infinitely short of the admiration of his astonishing powers, which I was sure he would entertain at the first interview. The first interview between them (there were very few present, only Tickell and myself, and one or two more) I shall never forget. Fox told me, after breaking up from dinner, that he had always thought Hare, after my uncle, Charles Townshend, the wittiest man he ever met with, but that Sheridan surpassed them both infinitely; and Sheridan told me next day that he was quite lost in admiration of Fox, and that it was a puzzle to him to say what he admired most, his commanding superiority of talent and universal knowledge, or his playful fancy, artless manners, and benevolence of heart, which showed itself in every word he uttered."

With Burke Mr. Sheridan became acquainted at the celebrated Turk's Head Club,—and, if any incentive was wanting to his new passion for political distinction, the station to which he saw his eloquent fellow- countryman exalted, with no greater claims from birth or connection than his own, could not have failed to furnish it. His intimacy with Mr. Windham began, as we have seen, very early at Bath, and the following letter, addressed to him by that gentleman from Norfolk, in the year 1778, is a curious record not only of the first political movements of a person so celebrated as Mr. Windham, but of the interest with which Sheridan then entered into the public measures of the day:—

"Jan. 5, 1778.

"I fear my letter will greatly disappoint your hopes. [Footnote: Mr. Windham had gone down to Norfolk, in consequence of a proposed meeting in that county, under the auspices of Lord Townshend, for the purpose of raising a subscription in aid of government, to be applied towards carrying on the war with the American colonies. In about three weeks after the date of this letter, the meeting was held, and Mr. Windham, in a spirited answer to Lord Townshend, made the first essay of his eloquence in public.] I have no account to send you of my answering Lord Townshend—of hard-fought contests—spirited resolves—ballads, mobs, cockades, and Lord North burnt in effigy. We have had a bloodless campaign, but not from backwardness in our troops, but for the most creditable reason that can be—want of resolution in the enemy to encounter us. When I got down here early this morning, expecting to find a room prepared, a chair set for the president, and nothing wanting but that the orators should begin, I was surprised to learn that no advertisement had appeared on the other part; but that Lord T. having dined at a meeting, where the proposal was received very coldly, had taken fright, and for the time at least had dropped the proposal. It had appeared, therefore, to those whom I applied to (and I think very rightly) that till an advertisement was inserted by them, or was known for certain to be intended, it would not be proper for any thing to be done by us. In this state, therefore, it rests. The advertisement which we agreed upon is left at the printer's, ready to be inserted upon the appearance of one from them. We lie upon our arms, and shall begin to act upon any motion of the enemy. I am very sorry that things have taken this turn, as I came down in full confidence of being able to accomplish something distinguished. I had drawn up, as I came along, a tolerably good paper, to be distributed to-morrow in the streets, and settled pretty well in my head the terms of a protest—besides some pretty smart pieces of oratory, delivered upon Newmarket Heath. I never felt so much disposition to exert myself before—I hope from my never having before so fair a prospect of doing it with success. When the coach comes in, I hope I shall receive a packet from you, which shall not be lost, though it may not be used immediately.

"I must leave off writing, for I have got some other letters to send by to-night's post. Writing in this ink is like speaking with respect to the utter annihilation of what is past;—by the time it gets to you, perhaps, it may have become legible, but I have no chance of reading over my letter myself.

"I shall not suffer this occasion to pass over entirely without benefit.

"Believe me yours most truly,

"W. WlNDHAM.

"Tell Mrs. Sheridan that I hope she will have a closet ready, where I may remain till the heat of the pursuit is over. My friends in France have promised to have a vessel ready upon the coast.

"Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq.,

"Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields."

The first political service rendered by Mr. Sheridan to the party with whom he now closely connected himself, was the active share which he took in a periodical paper called The Englishman, set up by the Whigs for the purpose of seconding, out of parliament, the crimination and invective of which they kept up such a brisk fire within. The intention, as announced by Sheridan in the first Number, [Footnote: Published 13th of March, 1779.] was, like Swift in the Drapier's Letters, to accommodate the style of the publication to the comprehension of persons in "that class of the community, who are commonly called the honest and industrious." But this plan,—which not even Swift, independent as was his humor of the artifices of style, could adhere to,—was soon abandoned, and there is in most of Sheridan's own papers a finesse and ingenuity of allusion, which only the most cultivated part of his readers could fully enjoy. For instance, in exposing the inconsistency of Lord North, who had lately consented in a Committee of the whole House, to a motion which he had violently opposed in the House itself,—thus "making (says Sheridan) that respectable assembly disobey its own orders, and the members reject with contempt, under the form of a Chairman, the resolutions they had imposed on themselves under the authority of a Speaker;"—he proceeds in a strain of refined raillery, as little suited to the "honest and industrious" class of the community, as Swift's references to Locke, Molyneux, and Sydney, were to the readers for whom he also professed to write:—

"The burlesque of any plan, I know, is rather a recommendation of it to Your Lordship; and the ridicule you might throw on this assembly, by continuing to support this Athanasian distinction of powers in the unity of an apparently corporate body, might in the end compensate to you for the discredit you have incurred in the attempt.

"A deliberative body of so uncommon a form, would probably be deemed a kind of STATE MONSTER by the ignorant and the vulgar. This might at first increase their awe for it, and so far counteract Your Lordship's intentions. They would probably approach it with as much reverence as Stephano does the monster in the Tempest:—'What, one body and two voices—a most delicate monster!' However, they would soon grow familiarized to it, and probably hold it in as little respect as they were wished to do. They would find it on many occasions 'a very shallow monster,' and particularly 'a most poor credulous monster,'— while Your Lordship, as keeper, would enjoy every advantage and profit that could be made of it. You would have the benefit of the two voices, which would be the MONSTER'S great excellencies, and would be peculiarly serviceable to Your Lordship. With 'the forward voice' you would aptly promulgate those vigorous schemes and productive resources, in which Your Lordship's fancy is so pregnant; while 'the backward voice' might be kept solely for recantation. The MONSTER, to maintain its character, must appear no novice in the science of flattery, or in the talents of servility,—and while it could never scruple to bear any burdens Your Lordship should please to lay on it, you would always, on the approach of a storm, find a shelter under its gabardine."

The most celebrated of these papers was the attack upon Lord George Germaine, written also by Mr. Sheridan,—a composition which, for unaffected strength of style and earnestness of feeling, may claim a high rank among the models of political vituperation. To every generation its own contemporary press seems always more licentious than any that had preceded it; but it may be questioned, whether the boldness of modern libel has ever gone beyond the direct and undisguised personality, with which one cabinet minister was called a liar and another a coward, in this and other writings of the popular party at that period. The following is the concluding paragraph of this paper against Lord George Germaine, which is in the form of a Letter to the Freeholders of England:—

"It would be presuming too much on your attention, at present, to enter into an investigation of the measures and system of war which this minister has pursued,—these shall certainly be the subject of a future paper. At present I shall only observe that, however mortifying it may be to reflect on the ignominy and disasters which this inauspicious character has brought on his country, yet there are consoling circumstances to be drawn even from his ill success. The calamities which may be laid to his account are certainly great; but, had the case been otherwise, it may fairly be questioned whether the example of a degraded and reprobated officer (preposterously elevated to one of the first stations of honor and confidence in the state) directing the military enterprises of this country with unlooked-for prosperity, might not ultimately be the cause of more extensive evils than even those, great as they are, which we at present experience: whether from so fatal a precedent we might not be led to introduce characters under similar disqualifications into every department:—to appoint Atheists to the mitre, Jews to the exchequer,—to select a treasury-bench from the Justitia, to place Brown Dignam on the wool-sack, and Sir Hugh Palliser at the head of the admiralty."

The Englishman, as might be expected from the pursuits and habits of those concerned in it, was not very punctually conducted, and after many apologies from the publisher for its not appearing at the stated times, (Wednesdays and Saturdays,) ceased altogether on the 2d of June. From an imperfect sketch of a new Number, found among Mr. Sheridan's manuscripts, it appears that there was an intention of reviving it a short time after—probably towards the autumn of the same year, from the following allusion to Mr. Gibbon, whose acceptance of a seat at the Board of Trade took place, if I recollect right, in the summer of 1779:—

"This policy is very evident among the majority in both houses, who, though they make no scruple in private to acknowledge the total incapacity of ministers, yet, in public, speak and vote as if they believed them to have every virtue under heaven; and, on this principle, some gentlemen,—as Mr. Gibbon, for instance,—while, in private, they indulge their opinion pretty freely, will yet, in their zeal for the public good, even condescend to accept a place, in order to give a color to their confidence in the wisdom of the government."

It is needless to say that Mr. Sheridan had been for some time among the most welcome guests at Devonshire House—that rendezvous of all the wits and beauties of fashionable life, where Politics was taught to wear its most attractive form, and sat enthroned, like Virtue among the Epicureans, with all the graces and pleasures for handmaids.

Without any disparagement of the manly and useful talents, which are at present no where more conspicuous than in the upper ranks of society, it may be owned that for wit, social powers, and literary accomplishments, the political men of the period under consideration formed such an assemblage as it would be flattery to say that our own times can parallel. The natural tendency of the excesses of the French Revolution was to produce in the higher classes of England an increased reserve of manner, and, of course, a proportionate restraint on all within their circle, which have been fatal to conviviality and humor, and not very propitious to wit—subduing both manners and conversation to a sort of polished level, to rise above which is often thought almost as vulgar as to sink below it. Of the greater ease of manners that existed some forty or fifty years ago, one trifling, but not the less significant, indication was the habit, then prevalent among men of high station, of calling each other by such familiar names as Dick, Jack, Tom, &c. [Footnote: Dick Sheridan, Ned Burke, Jack Townshend, Tom Grenville, &c. &c.]—a mode of address that brings with it, in its very sound, the notion of conviviality and playfulness, and, however unrefined, implies, at least, that ease and sea-room, in which wit spreads its canvas most fearlessly.

With respect to literary accomplishments, too,—in one branch of which, poetry, almost all the leading politicians of that day distinguished themselves—the change that has taken place in the times, independently of any want of such talent, will fully account for the difference that we witness, in this respect, at present. As the public mind becomes more intelligent and watchful, statesmen can the less afford to trifle with their talents, or to bring suspicion upon their fitness for their own vocation, by the failures which they risk in deviating into others. Besides, in poetry, the temptation of distinction no longer exists—the commonness of that talent in the market, at present, being such as to reduce the value of an elegant copy of verses very far below the price it was at, when Mr. Hayley enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly of the article.

In the clever Epistle, by Tickell, "from the Hon. Charles Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townshend, cruising," some of the most shining persons in that assemblage of wits and statesmen, who gave a lustre to Brooks's Club-House at the period of which we are speaking, are thus agreeably grouped:—

"Soon as to Brooks's thence thy footsteps bend, [Footnote: The well-known lines on Brooks himself are perhaps the perfection of this drawing-room style of humor:—

"And know, I've bought the best champagne from Brooks; From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill; Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."] What gratulations thy approach attend! See Gibbon rap his box-auspicious sign That classic compliment and wit combine; See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give what cruel health denies;—

* * * * *

On that auspicious night, supremely grac'd With chosen guests, the pride of liberal taste, Not in contentious heat, nor madd'ning strife, Not with the busy ills, nor cares of life, We'll waste the fleeting hours—far happier themes Shall claim each thought and chase ambition's dreams. Each beauty that sublimity can boast He best shall tell, who still unites them most. Of wit, of taste, of fancy we'll debate, If Sheridan, for once, be not too late: But scarce a thought on politics we'll spare, Unless on Polish politics, with Hare. Good-natur'd Devon! oft shall then appear The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer: Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit and Stanhope's case And Burgoyne's manly sense unite to please. And while each guest attends our varied feats Of scattered covies and retreating fleets, Me shall they wish some better sport to gain, And Thee more glory, from the next campaign."

In the society of such men the destiny of Mr. Sheridan could not be long in fixing. On the one side, his own keen thirst for distinction, and on the other, a quick and sanguine appreciation of the service that such talents might render in the warfare of party, could not fail to hasten the result that both desired.

His first appearance before the public as a political character was in conjunction with Mr. Fox, at the beginning of the year 1780, when the famous Resolutions on the State of the Representation, signed by Mr. Fox as chairman of the Westminster Committee, together with a Report on the same subject from the Sub-committee, signed by Sheridan, were laid before the public. Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage were the professed objects of this meeting; and the first of the Resolutions, subscribed by Mr. Fox, stated that "Annual Parliaments are the undoubted right of the people of England."

Notwithstanding this strong declaration, it may be doubted whether Sheridan was, any more than Mr. Fox, a very sincere friend to the principle of Reform; and the manner in which he masked his disinclination or indifference to it was strongly characteristic both of his humor and his tact. Aware that the wild scheme of Cartwright and others, which these resolutions recommended, was wholly impracticable, he always took refuge in it when pressed upon the subject, and would laughingly advise his political friends to do the same:—"Whenever any one," he would say, "proposes to you a specific plan of Reform, always answer that you are for nothing short of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage—there you are safe." He also had evident delight, when talking on this question, in referring to a jest of Burke, who said that there had arisen a new party of Reformers, still more orthodox than the rest, who thought Annual Parliaments far from being sufficiently frequent, and who, founding themselves upon the latter words of the statute of Edward III., that "a parliament shall be holden every year once and more often if need be" were known by the denomination of the Oftener-if-need-bes. "For my part," he would add, in relating this, "I am an Oftener-if-need-be." Even when most serious on the subject (for, to the last he professed himself a warm friend to Reform) his arguments had the air of being ironical and insidious. To Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, he would say, the principles of representation naturally and necessarily led,—any less extensive proposition was a base compromise and a dereliction of right; and the first encroachment on the people was the Act of Henry VI., which limited the power of election to forty-shilling freeholders within the county, whereas the real right was in the "outrageous and excessive" number of people by whom the preamble recites [Footnote: "Elections of knights of shires have now of late been made by very great outrageous and excessive number of people, dwelling within the same counties, of the which most part was people of small substance and of no value." 8 H. 6. c. 7.] that the choice had been made of late.—Such were the arguments by which he affected to support his cause, and it is not difficult to detect the eyes of the snake glistening from under them.

The dissolution of parliament that took place in the autumn of this year (1780) afforded at length the opportunity to which his ambition had so eagerly looked forward. It has been said, I know not with what accuracy, that he first tried his chance of election at Honiton—but Stafford was the place destined to have the honor of first choosing him for its representative; and it must have been no small gratification to his independent spirit, that, unfurnished as he was with claims from past political services, he appeared in parliament, not as the nominee of any aristocratic patron, but as member for a borough, which, whatever might be its purity in other respects, at least enjoyed the freedom of choice. Elected conjointly with Mr. Monckton, to whose interest and exertions he chiefly owed his success, he took his seat in the new parliament which met in the month of October;—and, from that moment giving himself up to the pursuit of politics, bid adieu to the worship of the Dramatic Muse for ever.

"Comoedia luget; Scena est deserta: hinc ludus risusque jocusgue Et numeri innumeri simul omnes collacrumarunt."

Comedy mourns—the Stage neglected sleeps— E'en Mirth in tears his languid laughter steeps— And Song, through all her various empire, weeps.



CHAPTER VII.

UNFINISHED PLAYS AND POEMS.

Before I enter upon the sketch of Mr. Sheridan's political life, I shall take this opportunity of laying before the reader such information with respect to his unfinished literary designs, both dramatic and poetic, as the papers in my possession enable me to communicate.

Some of his youthful attempts in literature have already been mentioned, and there is a dramatic sketch of his, founded on the Vicar of Wakefield, which from a date on the manuscript (1768), appears to have been produced at a still earlier age, and when he was only in his seventeenth year. A scene of this piece will be sufficient to show how very soon his talent for lively dialogue displayed itself:—

"SCENE II.

"THORNHILL and ARNOLD.

"Thornhill. Nay, prithee, Jack, no more of that if you love me. What, shall I stop short with the game in full view? Faith, I believe the fellow's turned puritan. What think you of turning methodist, Jack? You have a tolerable good canting countenance, and, if escaped being taken up for a Jesuit, you might make a fortune in Moor-fields.

"Arnold. I was serious, Tom.

"Thorn. Splenetic you mean. Come, fill your glass, and a truce to your preaching. Here's a pretty fellow has let his conscience sleep for these five years, and has now plucked morality from the leaves of his grandmother's bible, beginning to declaim against what he has practised half his life-time. Why, I tell you once more, my schemes are all come to perfection. I am now convinced Olivia loves me—at our last conversation, she said she would rely wholly on my honor.

"Arn. And therefore you would deceive her.

"Thorn. Why no—deceive her?—why—indeed—as to that—but—but, for God's sake, let me hear no more on this subject, for, 'faith, you make me sad, Jack. If you continue your admonitions, I shall begin to think you have yourself an eye on the girl. You have promised me your assistance, and when you came down into the country, were as hot on the scheme as myself: but, since you have been two or three times with me at Primrose's, you have fallen off strangely. No encroachments, Jack, on my little rose-bud—if you have a mind to beat up game in this quarter, there's her sister—but no poaching.

"Arn. I am not insensible to her sister's merit, but have no such views as you have. However, you have promised me that if you find in this lady that real virtue which you so firmly deny to exist in the sex, you will give up the pursuit, and, foregoing the low considerations of fortune, make atonement by marriage.

"Thorn. Such is my serious resolution.

"Arn. I wish you'd forego the experiment. But, you have been so much in raptures with your success, that I have, as yet, had no clear account how you came acquainted in the family.

"Thorn. Oh, I'll tell you immediately. You know Lady Patchet?

"Arn. What, is she here?

"Thorn. It was by her I was first introduced. It seems that, last year, her ladyship's reputation began to suffer a little; so that she thought it prudent to retire for a while, till people learned better manners or got worse memories. She soon became acquainted with this little family, and, as the wife is a prodigious admirer of quality, grew in a short time to be very intimate, and imagining that she may one day make her market of the girls, has much ingratiated herself with them. She introduced me—I drank, and abused this degenerate age with the father—promised wonders to the mother for all her brats—praised her gooseberry wine, and ogled the daughters, by which means in three days I made the progress I related to you.

"Arn. You have been expeditious indeed. I fear where that devil Lady Patchet is concerned there can be no good—but is there not a son?

"Thorn. Oh! the most ridiculous creature in nature. He has been bred in the country a bumpkin all his life, till within these six years, when he was sent to the University, but the misfortunes that have reduced his father falling out, he is returned, the most ridiculous animal you ever saw, a conceited, disputing blockhead. So there is no great matter to fear from his penetration. But come, let us begone, and see this moral family, we shall meet them coming from the field, and you will see a man who was once in affluence, maintaining by hard labor a numerous family.

"Arn. Oh! Thornhill, can you wish to add infamy to their poverty?

"[Exeunt.]"

There also remain among his papers three Acts of a Drama, without a name,—written evidently in haste, and with scarcely any correction,— the subject of which is so wild and unmanageable, that I should not have hesitated in referring it to the same early date, had not the introduction into one of the scenes of "Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh," proved it to have been produced after that pretty song was written.

The chief personages upon whom the story turns are a band of outlaws, who, under the name and disguise of Devils, have taken up their residence in a gloomy wood, adjoining a village, the inhabitants of which they keep in perpetual alarm by their incursions and apparitions. In the same wood resides a hermit, secretly connected with this band, who keeps secluded within his cave the beautiful Reginilla, hid alike from the light of the sun and the eyes of men. She has, however, been indulged in her prison with a glimpse of a handsome young huntsman, whom she believes to be a phantom, and is encouraged in her belief by the hermit, by whose contrivance this huntsman (a prince in disguise) has been thus presented to her. The following is—as well as I can make it out from a manuscript not easily decipherable—the scene that takes place between the fair recluse and her visitant. The style, where style is attempted, shows, as the reader will perceive, a taste yet immature and unchastened:—

"_Scene draws, and discovers_ REGINILLA _asleep in the cave.

"Enter_ PEVIDOR _and other Devils, with the_ HUNTSMAN—_unbind him, and exeunt._

"Hunts. Ha! Where am I now? Is it indeed the dread abode of guilt, or refuge of a band of thieves? it cannot be a dream (sees REGINILLA.) Ha! if this be so, and I do dream, may I never wake— it is—my beating heart acknowledges my dear, gentle Reginilla. I'll not wake her, lest, if it be a phantom, it should vanish. Oh, balmy breath! but for thy soft sighs that come to tell me it is no image, I should believe ... (bends down towards her.) a sigh from her heart!— thus let me arrest thee on thy way. (kisses her.) A deeper blush has flushed her cheek—sweet modesty! that even in sleep is conscious and resentful.—She will not wake, and yet some fancy calls up those frequent sighs—how her heart beats in its ivory cage, like an imprisoned bird—or as if to reprove the hand that dares approach its sanctuary! Oh, would she but wake, and bless this gloom with her bright eyes!—Soft, here's a lute—perhaps her soul will hear the call of harmony.

"Oh yield, fair lids, the treasures of my heart, Release those beams, that make this mansion bright; From her sweet sense, Slumber! tho' sweet thou art, Begone, and give the air she breathes in light.

"Or while, oh Sleep, thou dost those glances hide, Let rosy slumbers still around her play, Sweet as the cherub Innocence enjoy'd, When in thy lap, new-born, in smiles he lay.

"And thou, oh Dream, that com'st her sleep to cheer, Oh take my shape, and play a lover's part; Kiss her from me, and whisper in her ear, Till her eyes shine, 'tis night within my heart.

[Footnote: I have taken the liberty here of supplying a few rhymes and words that are wanting in the original copy of the song. The last line of all runs thus in the manuscript:—

"Till her eye shines I live in darkest night,"

which, not rhyming as it ought, I have ventured to alter as above.]

"Reg. (waking.) The phantom, father! (seizes his hand.) ah, do not, do not wake me then. (rises.)

"Hunts. (kneeling to her.) Thou beauteous sun of this dark world, that mak'st a place, so like the cave of death, a heaven to me, instruct me how I may approach thee—how address thee and not offend.

"Reg. Oh how my soul would hang upon those lips! speak on—and yet, methinks, he should not kneel so—why are you afraid, Sir? indeed, I cannot hurt you.

"Hunts. Sweet innocence, I'm sure thou would'st not.

"Reg. Art thou not he to whom I told my name, and didst thou not say thine was—

"Hunts. Oh blessed be the name that then thou told'st—it has been ever since my charm, and kept me from distraction. But, may I ask how such sweet excellence as thine could be hid in such a place?

"Reg. Alas, I know not—for such as thou I never saw before, nor any like myself.

"Hunts. Nor like thee ever shall—but would'st thou leave this place, and live with such as I am?

"Reg. Why may not you live here with such as I?

"Hunts. Yes—but I would carry thee where all above an azure canopy extends, at night bedropt with gems, and one more glorious lamp, that yields such bashful light as love enjoys—while underneath, a carpet shall be spread of flowers to court the pressure of thy step, with such sweet whispered invitations from the leaves of shady groves or murmuring of silver streams, that thou shalt think thou art in Paradise.

"Reg. Indeed!

"Hunts. Ay, and I'll watch and wait on thee all day, and cull the choicest flowers, which while thou bind'st in the mysterious knot of love, I'll tune for thee no vulgar lays, or tell thee tales shall make thee weep yet please thee—while thus I press thy hand, and warm it thus with kisses.

"Reg. I doubt thee not—but then my Governor has told me many a tale of faithless men who court a lady but to steal her peace and fame, and then to leave her.

"Hunts. Oh never such as thou art—witness all....

"Reg. Then wherefore couldst thou not live here? For I do feel, tho' tenfold darkness did surround this spot, I could be blest, would you but stay here; and, if it made you sad to be imprison'd thus, I'd sing and play for thee, and dress thee sweetest fruits, and though you chid me, would kiss thy tear away and hide my blushing face upon thy bosom—indeed, I would. Then what avails the gaudy day, and all the evil things I'm told inhabit there, to those who have within themselves all that delight and love, and heaven can give.

"Hunts. My angel, thou hast indeed the soul of love.

"Reg. It is no ill thing, is it?

"Hunts. Oh most divine—it is the immediate gift of heaven, which steals into our breast ... 'tis that which makes me sigh thus, look thus—fear and tremble for thee.

"Reg. Sure I should learn it too, if you would teach me.

(Sound of horn without—Huntsman starts.)

"Reg. You must not go—this is but a dance preparing for my amusement—oh we have, indeed, some pleasures here—come, I will sing for you the while.

"Song.

"Wilt thou then leave me? canst thou go from me, To woo the fair that love the gaudy day? Yet, e'en among those joys, thou'lt find that she, Who dwells in darkness, loves thee more than they. For these poor hands, and these unpractised eyes, And this poor heart is thine without disguise.

But, if thou'lt stay with me, my only care Shall be to please and make thee love to stay, With music, song, and dance * * * * * But, if you go, nor music, song, nor dance, * * * * *

If thou art studious, I will read Thee tales of pleasing woe— If thou art sad, I'll kiss away The tears.... that flow.

If thou would'st play, I'll kiss thee till I blush, Then hide that blush upon thy breast, If thou would'st sleep.... Shall rock thy aching head to rest.

"Hunts. My soul's wonder, I will never leave thee.

"(The Dance.—Allemande by two Bears.)

"Enter PEVIDOR.

"Pev. So fond, so soon! I cannot bear to see it. What ho, within (Devils enter.) secure him. (Seize and bind the Huntsman.)"

The Duke or sovereign of the country, where these events are supposed to take place, arrives at the head of a military force, for the purpose of investing the haunted wood, and putting down, as he says, those "lawless renegades, who, in infernal masquerade, make a hell around him." He is also desirous of consulting the holy hermit of the wood, and availing himself of his pious consolations and prayers—being haunted with remorse for having criminally gained possession of the crown by contriving the shipwreck of the rightful heir, and then banishing from the court his most virtuous counsellors. In addition to these causes of disquietude, he has lately lost, in a mysterious manner, his only son, who, he supposes, has fallen a victim to these Satanic outlaws, but who, on the contrary, it appears, has voluntarily become an associate of their band, and is amusing himself, heedless of his noble father's sorrow, by making love, in the disguise of a dancing bear, to a young village coquette of the name of Mopsa. A short specimen of the manner in which this last farcical incident is managed, will show how wide even Sheridan was, at first, of that true vein of comedy, which, on searching deeper into the mine, he so soon afterwards found:—

"SCENE.—The Inside of the Cottage.—MOPSA, LUBIN (her father), and COLIN (her lover), discovered.

"Enter PEVIDOR, leading the Bear, and singing.

"And he dances, dances, dances, And goes upright like a Christian swain, And he shows you pretty fancies, Nor ever tries to shake off his chain.

"Lubin. Servant, master. Now, Mopsa, you are happy—it is, indeed, a handsome creature. What country does your bear come from?

"Pev. Dis bear, please your worship, is of de race of dat bear of St. Anthony, who was the first convert he made in de woods. St. Anthony bade him never more meddle with man, and de bear observed de command to his dying day.

"Lub. Wonderful!

"Pev. Dis generation be all de same—all born widout toots.

"Colin. What, can't he bite? (puts his finger to the Bear's mouth, who bites him.) Oh Lord, no toots! why you ——

"Pev. Oh dat be only his gum. (Mopsa laughs.)

"Col. For shame, Mopsa—now, I say Maister Lubin, mustn't she give me a kiss to make it well?

"Lub. Ay, kiss her, kiss her, Colin.

"Col. Come, Miss. (Mopsa runs to the Bear, who kisses her.)"

The following scene of the Devils drinking in their subterraneous dwelling, though cleverly imagined, is such as, perhaps, no cookery of style could render palatable to an English audience.

"SCENE.—The Devils' Cave.

"1st Dev. Come, Urial, here's to our resurrection.

"2d Dev. It is a toast I'd scarcely pledge—by my life, I think we're happier here.

"3d Dev. Why, so think I—by Jove, I would despise the man, who could but wish to rise again to earth, unless we were to lord there. What! sneaking pitiful in bondage, among vile money-scrapers, treacherous friends, fawning flatterers—or, still worse, deceitful mistresses. Shall we who reign lords here, again lend ourselves to swell the train of tyranny and usurpation? By my old father's memory, I'd rather be the blindest mole that ever skulked in darkness, the lord of one poor hole, where he might say, 'I'm master here.'

"2d Dev. You are too hot—where shall concord be found, if even the devils disagree?—Come fill the glass, and add thy harmony—while we have wine to enlighten us, the sun be hanged! I never thought he gave so fine a light for my part—and then, there are such vile inconveniences— high winds and storms, rains, &c.—oh hang it! living on the outside of the earth is like sleeping on deck, when one might, like us, have a snug berth in the cabin.

"1st Dev. True, true,—Helial, where is thy catch?

"In the earth's centre let me live, There, like a rabbit will I thrive, Nor care if fools should call my life infernal; While men on earth crawl lazily about, Like snails upon the surface of the nut, We are, like maggots, feasting in the kernel.

"1st Dev. Bravo, by this glass. Meli, what say you?

"3d Dev. Come, here's to my Mina—I used to toast her in the upper regions.

"1st Dev. Ay, we miss them here.

"Glee.

"What's a woman good for? Rat me, sir, if I know. * * * * * She's a savor to the glass, An excuse to make it pass. * * * * *

"1st Dev. I fear we are like the wits above, who abuse women only because they can't get them,—and, after all, it must be owned they are a pretty kind of creatures.

"All. Yes, yes.

"Catch.

"'Tis woman after all Is the blessing of this ball, 'Tis she keeps the balance of it even. We are devils, it is true, But had we women too, Our Tartarus would turn to a Heaven!"

A scene in the Third Act, where these devils bring the prisoners whom they have captured to trial, is an overcharged imitation of the satire of Fielding, and must have been written, I think, after a perusal of that author's Satirical Romance, "A Journey from this World to the Next,"—the first half of which contains as much genuine humor and fancy as are to be found in any other production of the kind. The interrogatories of Minos in that work suggested, I suspect, the following scene:—

"Enter a number of Devils.—Others bring in LUDOVICO.

"1st Dev. Just taken, in the wood, sir, with two more.

"Chorus of Devils.

"Welcome, welcome

* * * * *

"Pev. What art thou?

"Ludov. I went for a man in the other world.

"Pev. What sort of a man?

"Ludov. A soldier at your service.

"Pev. Wast thou in the battle of—?

"Ludov. Truly I was.

"Pev. What was the quarrel?

"Ludov. I never had time to ask. The children of peace, who make our quarrels, must be Your Worship's informants there.

"Pev. And art thou not ashamed to draw the sword for thou know'st not what—and to be the victim and food of others' folly?

"Ludov. Vastly.

"Pev. (to the Devils.) Well, take him for to-day, and only score his skin and pepper it with powder—then chain him to a cannon, and let the Devils practise at his head—his be the reward who hits it with a single ball.

"Ludov. Oh mercy, mercy!

"Pev. Bring Savodi.

"(A Devil brings in SAVODI.)

"Chorus as before.

"Welcome, welcome, &c.

"Pev. Who art thou?

"Sav. A courtier at Your Grace's service.

"Pev. Your name?

"Sav. Savodi, an' please Your Highnesses.

"Pev. Your use?

"Sav. A foolish utensil of state—a clock kept in the waiting- chamber, to count the hours.

"Pev. Are you not one of those who fawn and lie, and cringe like spaniels to those a little higher, and take revenge by tyranny on all beneath?

"Sav. Most true, Your Highnesses.

"Pev. Is't not thy trade to promise what thou canst not do,—to gull the credulous of money, to shut the royal door on unassuming merit —to catch the scandal for thy master's ear, and stop the people's voice....

"Sav. Exactly, an' please Your Highnesses' Worships.

"Pev. Thou dost not now deny it?

"Sav. Oh no, no, no.

"Pev. Here—baths of flaming sulphur!—quick—stir up the cauldron of boiling lead—this crime deserves it.

"1st Dev. Great Judge of this infernal place, allow him but the mercy of the court.

"Sav. Oh kind Devil!—yes, Great Judge, allow.

"1st Dev. The punishment is undergone already—truth from him is something.

"Sav. Oh, most unusual—sweet devil!

"1st Dev. Then, he is tender, and might not be able to endure—

"Sav. Endure! I shall be annihilated by the thoughts of it—dear devil.

"1st Dev. Then let him, I beseech you, in scalding brimstone be first soaked a little, to inure and prepare him for the other.

"Sav. Oh hear me, hear me.

"Pev. Well, be it so.

"(Devils take him out and bring in PAMPHILES.)

"Pev. This is he we rescued from the ladies—a dainty one, I warrant.

"Pamphil. (affectedly.) This is Hell certainly by the smell.

"Pev. What, art thou a soldier too?

"Pamphil. No, on my life—a Colonel, but no soldier—innocent even of a review, as I exist.

"Pev. How rose you then? come, come—the truth.

"Pamphil. Nay, be not angry, sir—if I was preferred it was not my fault—upon my soul, I never did anything to incur preferment.

"Pev. Indeed! what was thy employment then, friend?

"Pamphil. Hunting—

"Pev. 'Tis false.

"Pamphil. Hunting women's reputations.

"Pev. What, thou wert amorous?

"Pamphil. No, on my honor, sir, but vain, confounded vain—the character of bringing down my game was all I wished, and, like a true sportsman, I would have given my birds to my pointers.

"Pev. This crime is new—what shall we do with him?" &c. &c.

This singular Drama does not appear to have been ever finished. With respect to the winding up of the story, the hermit, we may conclude, would have turned out to be the banished counsellor, and the devils, his followers; while the young huntsman would most probably have proved to be the rightful heir of the dukedom.

In a more crude and unfinished state are the fragments that remain of his projected opera of "The Foresters." To this piece (which appears to have been undertaken at a later period than the preceding one) Mr. Sheridan often alluded in conversation—particularly when any regret was expressed at his having ceased to assist Old Drury with his pen,—"wait (he would say smiling) till I bring out my Foresters." The plot, as far as can be judged from the few meagre scenes that exist, was intended to be an improvement upon that of the Drama just described—the Devils being transformed into Foresters, and the action commencing, not with the loss of a son, but the recovery of a daughter, who had fallen by accident into the hands of these free-booters. At the opening of the piece the young lady has just been restored to her father by the heroic Captain of the Foresters, with no other loss than that of her heart, which she is suspected of having left with her preserver. The list of the Dramatis Personae (to which however he did not afterwards adhere) is as follows:—

Old Oscar.

Young Oscar.

Colona.

Morven.

Harold.

Nico.

Miza.

Malvina.

Allanda.

Dorcas.

Emma.

To this strange medley of nomenclature is appended a memorandum— "Vide Petrarch for names."

The first scene represents the numerous lovers of Malvina rejoicing at her return, and celebrating it by a chorus; after which Oscar, her father, holds the following dialogue with one of them:—

"Osc. I thought, son, you would have been among the first and most eager to see Malvina upon her return.

"Colin. Oh, father, I would give half my flock to think that my presence would be welcome to her.

"Osc. I am sure you have never seen her prefer any one else.

"Col. There's the torment of it—were I but once sure that she loved another better, I think I should be content—at least she should not know but that I was so. My love is not of that jealous sort that I should pine to see her happy with another—nay, I could even regard the man that would make her so.

"Osc. Haven't you spoke with her since her return?

"Col. Yes, and I think she is colder to me than ever. My professions of love used formerly to make her laugh, but now they make her weep—formerly she seemed wholly insensible; now, alas, she seems to feel—but as if addressed by the wrong person," &c. &c.

In a following scene are introduced two brothers, both equally enamored of the fair Malvina, yet preserving their affection unaltered towards each other. With the recollection of Sheridan's own story fresh in our minds, we might suppose that he meant some reference to it in this incident, were it not for the exceeding niaiserie that he has thrown into the dialogue. For instance:—

"Osc. But we are interrupted—here are two more of her lovers— brothers, and rivals, but friends.

"Enter NICO and LUBIN.

"So, Nico—how comes it you are so late in your inquiries after your mistress?

"Nico. I should have been sooner; but Lubin would stay to make himself fine—though he knows that he has no chance of appearing so to Malvina.

"Lubin. No, in truth—Nico says right—I have no more chance than himself.

"Osc. However, I am glad to see you reconciled, and that you live together, as brothers should do.

"Nico. Yes, ever since we found your daughter cared for neither of us, we grew to care for one another. There is a fellowship in adversity that is consoling; and it is something to think that Lubin is as unfortunate as myself.

"Lub. Yes, we are well matched—I think Malvina dislikes him, if possible, more than me, and that's a great comfort.

"Nico. We often sit together, and play such woeful tunes on our pipes, that the very sheep are moved at it.

"Osc. But why don't you rouse yourselves, and, since you can meet with no requital of your passion, return the proud maid scorn for scorn?

"Nico. Oh mercy, no—we find a great comfort in our sorrow—don't we, Lubin?

"Lubin. Yes, if I meet no crosses, I shall be undone in another twelve-month—I let all go to wreck and ruin.

"Osc. But suppose Malvina should be brought to give you encouragement.

"Nico. Heaven forbid! that would spoil all.

"Lubin. Truly I was almost assured within this fortnight that she was going to relax.

"Nico. Ay, I shall never forget how alarmed we were at the appearance of a smile one day," &c. &c.

Of the poetical part of this opera, the only specimens he has left are a skeleton of a chorus, beginning "Bold Foresters we are," and the following song, which, for grace and tenderness, is not unworthy of the hand that produced the Duenna:—

"We two, each other's only pride, Each other's bliss, each other's guide, Far from the world's unhallow'd noise, Its coarse delights and tainted joys, Through wilds will roam and deserts rude— For, Love, thy home is solitude.

"There shall no vain pretender be, To court thy smile and torture me, No proud superior there be seen, But nature's voice shall hail thee, queen.

"With fond respect and tender awe, I will receive thy gentle law, Obey thy looks, and serve thee still, Prevent thy wish, foresee thy will, And, added to a lover's care, Be all that friends and parents are."

But, of all Mr. Sheridan's unfinished designs, the Comedy which he meditated on the subject of Affectation is that of which the abandonment is most to be regretted. To a satirist, who would not confine his ridicule to the mere outward demonstrations of this folly, but would follow and detect it through all its windings and disguises, there could hardly perhaps be a more fertile theme. Affectation, merely of manner, being itself a sort of acting, does not easily admit of any additional coloring on the stage, without degenerating into farce; and, accordingly, fops and fine ladies—with very few exceptions—are about as silly and tiresome in representation as in reality. But the aim of the dramatist, in this comedy, would have been far more important and extensive;—and how anxious he was to keep before his mind's eye the whole wide horizon of folly which his subject opened upon him, will appear from the following list of the various species of Affectation, which I have found written by him, exactly as I give it, on the inside cover of the memorandum-book, that contains the only remaining vestiges of this play:—

"An Affectation of Business. of Accomplishments, of Love of Letters and "Wit Music. of Intrigue. of Sensibility. of Vivacity. of Silence and Importance. of Modesty. of Profligacy. of Moroseness."

In this projected comedy he does not seem to have advanced as far as even the invention of the plot or the composition of a single scene. The memorandum-book alluded to—on the first leaf of which he had written in his neatest hand (as if to encourage himself to begin) "Affectation"— contains, besides the names of three of the intended personages, Sir Babble Bore, Sir Peregrine Paradox, and Feignwit, nothing but unembodied sketches of character, and scattered particles of wit, which seem waiting, like the imperfect forms and seeds in chaos, for the brooding of genius to nurse them into system and beauty.

The reader will not, I think, be displeased at seeing some of these curious materials here. They will show that in this work, as well as in the School for Scandal, he was desirous of making the vintage of his wit as rich as possible, by distilling into it every drop that the collected fruits of his thought and fancy could supply. Some of the jests are far- fetched, and others, perhaps, abortive—but it is pleasant to track him in his pursuit of a point, even when he misses. The very failures of a man of real wit are often more delightful than the best successes of others—the quick-silver, even in escaping from his grasp, shines; "it still eludes him, but it glitters still."

I shall give the memorandums as I find them, with no other difference, than that of classing together those that have relation to the same thought or subject.

"Character—Mr. BUSTLE.

"A man who delights in hurry and interruption—will take any one's business for them—leaves word where all his plagues may follow him— governor of all hospitals, &c.—share in Ranelagh—speaker every where, from the Vestry to the House of Commons—'I am not at home—gad, now he heard me and I must be at home.'—'Here am I so plagued, and there is nothing I love so much as retirement and quiet.'—'You never sent after me.'—Let servants call in to him such a message as 'Tis nothing but the window tax,' he hiding in a room that communicates.—A young man tells him some important business in the middle of fifty trivial interruptions, and the calling in of idlers; such as fidlers, wild-beast men, foreigners with recommendatory letters, &c.—answers notes on his knee, 'and so your uncle died?—for your obliging inquiries—and left you an orphan—to cards in the evening.'

"Can't bear to be doing nothing.—'Can I do anything for any body any where?'—'Have been to the Secretary—written to the Treasury.'—'Must proceed to meet the Commissioners, and write Mr. Price's little boy's exercise.'—The most active idler and laborious trifler.

"He does not in reality love business—only the appearance of it. 'Ha! ha! did my Lord say that I was always very busy? What, plagued to death?'

"Keeps all his letters and copies—' Mem. to meet the Hackney-coach Commissioners—to arbitrate between,' &c. &c.

"Contrast with the man of indolence, his brother.—'So, brother, just up! and I have been,' &c. &c.—one will give his money from indolent generosity, the other his time from restlessness—' 'Twill be shorter to pay the bill than look for the receipt.'—Files letters, answered and unanswered—'Why, here are more unopened than answered!'

* * * * *

"He regulates every action by a love for fashion—will grant annuities though he doesn't want money—appear to intrigue, though constant; to drink, though sober—has some fashionable vices—affects to be distressed in his circumstances, and, when his new vis-a-vis comes out, procures a judgment to be entered against him—wants to lose, but by ill-luck wins five thousand pounds.

* * * * *

"One who changes sides in all arguments the moment any one agrees with him.

"An irresolute arguer, to whom it is a great misfortune that there are not three sides to a question—a libertine in argument; conviction, like enjoyment, palls him, and his rakish understanding is soon satiated with truth—more capable of being faithful to a paradox—'I love truth as I do my wife; but sophistry and paradoxes are my mistresses—I have a strong domestic respect for her, but for the other the passion due to a mistress.'

"One, who agrees with every one, for the pleasure of speaking their sentiments for them—so fond of talking that he does not contradict only because he can't wait to hear people out.

"A tripping casuist, who veers by others' breath, and gets on to information by tacking between the two sides—like a hoy, not made to go straight before the wind.

"The more he talks, the further he is off the argument, like a bowl on a wrong bias.

* * * * *

"What are the affectations you chiefly dislike?

"There are many in this company, so I'll mention others.—To see two people affecting intrigue, having their assignations in public places only; he affecting a warm pursuit, and the lady, acting the hesitation of retreating virtue—'Pray, ma'am, don't you think,' &c.—while neither party have words between 'em to conduct the preliminaries of gallantry, nor passion to pursue the object of it.

"A plan of public flirtation—not to get beyond a profile.

* * * * *

"Then I hate to see one, to whom heaven has given real beauty, settling her features at the glass of fashion, while she speaks—not thinking so much of what she says as how she looks, and more careful of the action of her lips than of what shall come from them.

* * * * *

"A pretty woman studying looks and endeavoring to recollect an ogle, like Lady ——, who has learned to play her eyelids like Venetian blinds. [Footnote: This simile is repeated in various shapes through his manuscripts—"She moves her eyes up and down like Venetian blinds"— "Her eyelids play like a Venetian blind," &c &c.]

"An old woman endeavoring to put herself back to a girl.

* * * * *

"A true-trained wit lays his plan like a general—foresees the circumstances of the conversation—surveys the ground and contingencies —detaches a question to draw you into the palpable ambuscade of his ready-made joke.

* * * * *

"A man intriguing, only for the reputation of it—to his confidential servant: 'Who am I in love with now?'—'The newspapers give you so and so—you are laying close siege to Lady L., in the Morning Post, and have succeeded with Lady G. in the Herald—Sir F. is very jealous of you in the Gazetteer.'—'Remember to-morrow the first thing you do, to put me in love with Mrs. C.'

"'I forgot to forget the billet-doux at Brooks's'—'By the bye, an't I in love with you?'—'Lady L. has promised to meet me in her carriage to- morrow—where is the most public place?'

"'You were rude to her!'—'Oh, no, upon my soul, I made love to her directly.'

"An old man, who affects intrigue, and writes his own reproaches in the Morning Post, trying to scandalize himself into the reputation of being young, as if he could obscure his age by blotting his character—though never so little candid as when he's abusing himself.

* * * * *

"'Shall you be at Lady ——'s? I'm told the Bramin is to be there, and the new French philosopher.'—'No—it will be pleasanter at Lady ——'s conversazione—the cow with two heads will be there.'

* * * * *

"'I shall order my valet to shoot me the very first thing he does in the morning.'

"'You are yourself affected and don't know it—you would pass for morose.'

"He merely wanted to be singular, and happened to find the character of moroseness unoccupied in the society he lived with.

"He certainly has a great deal of fancy and a very good memory; but with a perverse ingenuity he employs these qualities as no other person does —for he employs his fancy in his narratives, and keeps his recollections for his wit—when he makes his jokes you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and 'tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination. [Footnote: The reader will find how much this thought was improved upon afterwards.]

* * * * *

"A fat woman trundling into a room on castors—in sitting can only lean against her chair—rings on her fingers, and her fat arms strangled with bracelets, which belt them like corded brawn—rolling and heaving when she laughs with the rattles in her throat, and a most apoplectic ogle— you wish to draw her out, as you would an opera-glass.

* * * * *

"A long lean man with all his limbs rambling—no way to reduce him to compass, unless you could double him like a pocket rule—with his arms spread, he'd lie on the bed of Ware like a cross on a Good Friday bun— standing still, he is a pilaster without a base—he appears rolled out or run up against a wall—so thin that his front face is but the moiety of a profile—if he stands cross-legged, he looks like a caduceus, and put him in a fencing attitude, you will take him for a piece of chevaux- de-frise—to make any use of him, it must be as a spontoon or a fishing- rod—when his wife's by, he follows like a note of admiration—see them together, one's a mast, and the other all hulk—she's a dome and he's built like a glass-house—when they part, you wonder to see the steeple separate from the chancel, and were they to embrace, he must hang round her neck like a skein of thread on a lace-maker's bolster—to sing her praise you should choose a rondeau, and to celebrate him you must write all Alexandrines.

"I wouldn't give a pin to make fine men in love with me—every coquette can do that, and the pain you give these creatures is very trifling. I love out-of-the-way conquests; and as I think my attractions are singular, I would draw singular objects.

"The loadstone of true beauty draws the heaviest substances—not like the fat dowager, who frets herself into warmth to get the notice of a few papier mache fops, as you rub Dutch sealing-wax to draw paper.

* * * * *

"If I were inclined to flatter I would say that, as you are unlike other women, you ought not to be won as they are. Every woman can be gained by time, therefore you ought to be by a sudden impulse. Sighs, devotion, attention weigh with others; but they are so much your due that no one should claim merit from them....

"You should not be swayed by common motives—how heroic to form a marriage for which no human being can guess the inducement—what a glorious unaccountableness! All the world will wonder what the devil you could see in me; and, if you should doubt your singularity, I pledge myself to you that I never yet was endured by woman; so that I should owe every thing to the effect of your bounty, and not by my own superfluous deserts make it a debt, and so lessen both the obligation and my gratitude. In short, every other woman follows her inclination, but you, above all things, should take me, if you do not like me. You will, besides, have the satisfaction of knowing that we are decidedly the worst match in the kingdom—a match, too, that must be all your own work, in which fate could have no hand, and which no foresight could foresee.

* * * * *

"A lady who affects poetry.—'I made regular approaches to her by sonnets and rebusses—a rondeau of circumvallation—her pride sapped by an elegy, and her reserve surprised by an impromptu—proceeding to storm with Pindarics, she, at last, saved the further effusion of ink by a capitulation.'

* * * * *

"Her prudish frowns and resentful looks are as ridiculous as 'twould be to see a board with notice of spring-guns set in a highway, or of Steel- traps in a common—because they imply an insinuation that there is something worth plundering where one would not, in the least, suspect it.

"The expression of her face is at once a denial of all love-suit, and a confession that she never was asked—the sourness of it arises not so much from her aversion to the passion, as from her never having had an opportunity to show it.—Her features are so unfortunately formed that she could never dissemble or put on sweetness enough to induce any one to give her occasion to show her bitterness.—I never saw a woman to whom you would more readily give credit for perfect chastity.

"Lady Clio. 'What am I reading?'—'have I drawn nothing lately?— is the work-bag finished?—how accomplished I am!—has the man been to untune the harpsichord?—does it look as if I had been playing on it?

"'Shall I be ill to-day?—shall I be nervous?'—'Your La'ship was nervous yesterday.'—'Was I?—then I'll have a cold—I haven't had a cold this fortnight—a cold is becoming—no—I'll not have a cough; that's fatiguing—I'll be quite well.'—'You become sickness—your La'ship always looks vastly well when you're ill.'

"'Leave the book half read and the rose half finished—you know I love to be caught in the fact.'

* * * * *

"One who knows that no credit is ever given to his assertions has the more right to contradict his words.

"He goes the western circuit, to pick up small fees and impudence.

* * * * *

"A new wooden leg for Sir Charles Easy.

* * * * *

"An ornament which proud peers wear all the year round—chimneysweepers only on the first of May.

* * * * *

"In marriage if you possess any thing very good, it makes you eager to get every thing else good of the same sort.

* * * * *

"The critic when he gets out of his carriage should always recollect, that his footman behind is gone up to judge as well as himself.

* * * * *

"She might have escaped in her own clothes, but I suppose she thought it more romantic to put on her brother's regimentals."

The rough sketches and fragments of poems, which Mr. Sheridan left behind him, are numerous; but those among them that are sufficiently finished to be cited, bear the marks of having been written when he was very young, and would not much interest the reader—while of the rest it is difficult to find four consecutive lines, that have undergone enough of the toilette of composition to be presentable in print. It was his usual practice, when he undertook any subject in verse, to write down his thoughts first in a sort of poetical prose,—with, here and there, a rhyme or a metrical line, as they might occur—and then, afterwards to reduce with much labor, this anomalous compound to regular poetry. The birth of his prose being, as we have already seen, so difficult, it may be imagined how painful was the travail of his verse. Indeed, the number of tasks which he left unfinished are all so many proofs of that despair of perfection, which those best qualified to attain it are always most likely to feel.

There are some fragments of an Epilogue apparently intended to be spoken in the character of a woman of fashion, which give a lively notion of what the poem would have been, when complete. The high carriages, that had just then come into fashion, are thus adverted to:—

"My carriage stared at!—none so high or fine— Palmer's mail-coach shall be a sledge to mine. * * * * * No longer now the youths beside us stand, And talking lean, and leaning press the hand; But ogling upward, as aloft we sit, Straining, poor things, their ankles and their wit, And, much too short the inside to explore, Hang like supporters, half way up the door."

The approach of a "veteran husband," to disturb these flirtations and chase away the lovers, is then hinted at:—

"To persecuted virtue yield assistance, And for one hour teach younger men their distance, Make them, in very spite, appear discreet, And mar the public mysteries of the street."

The affectation of appearing to make love, while talking on different matters, is illustrated by the following simile:

"So when dramatic statesmen talk apart, With practis'd gesture and heroic start, The plot's their theme, the gaping galleries guess, While Hull and Fearon think of nothing less."

The following lines seem to belong to the same Epilogue:—

"The Campus Martius of St. James's Street, Where the beau's cavalry pace to and fro, Before they take the field in Rotten Row; Where Brooks' Blues and Weltze's Light Dragoons Dismount in files and ogle in platoons."

He had also begun another Epilogue, directed against female gamesters, of which he himself repeated a couplet or two to Mr. Rogers a short time before his death, and of which there remain some few scattered traces among his papers:—

"A night of fretful passion may consume All that thou hast of beauty's gentle bloom, And one distemper'd hour of sordid fear Print on thy brow the wrinkles of a year. [Footnote: These four lines, as I have already remarked, are taken—with little change of the words, but a total alteration of the sentiment—from the verses which he addressed to Mrs. Sheridan in the year 1773. See page 83.]

* * * * *

Great figure loses, little figure wins.

* * * * *

Ungrateful blushes and disorder'd sighs, Which love disclaims nor even shame supplies.

* * * * *

Gay smiles, which once belong'd to mirth alone, And startling tears, which pity dares not own."

The following stray couplet would seem to have been intended for his description of Corilla:—

"A crayon Cupid, redd'ning into shape, Betrays her talents to design and scrape."

The Epilogue, which I am about to give, though apparently finished, has not, as far as I can learn, yet appeared in print, nor am I at all aware for what occasion it was intended.

"In this gay month when, through the sultry hour, The vernal sun denies the wonted shower, When youthful Spring usurps maturer sway, And pallid April steals the blush of May, How joys the rustic tribe, to view displayed The liberal blossom and the early shade! But ah! far other air our soil delights; Here 'charming weather' is the worst of blights. No genial beams rejoice our rustic train, Their harvest's still the better for the rain. To summer suns our groves no tribute owe, They thrive in frost, and flourish best in snow. When other woods resound the feather'd throng, Our groves, our woods, are destitute of song. The thrush, the lark, all leave our mimic vale, No more we boast our Christmas nightingale; Poor Rossignol—the wonder of his day, Sung through the winter—but is mute in May. Then bashful spring, that gilds fair nature's scene, O'ercasts our lawns, and deadens every green; Obscures our sky, embrowns the wooden shade, And dries the channel of each tin cascade! Oh hapless we, whom such ill fate betides, Hurt by the beam which cheers the world besides! Who love the ling'ring frost, nice, chilling showers, While Nature's Benefit—is death to ours; Who, witch-like, best in noxious mists perform, Thrive in the tempest, and enjoy the storm. O hapless we—unless your generous care Bids us no more lament that Spring is fair, But plenteous glean from the dramatic soil, The vernal harvest of our winter's toil. For April suns to us no pleasure bring— Your presence here is all we feel of Spring; May's riper beauties here no bloom display, Your fostering smile alone proclaims it May."

A poem upon Windsor Castle, half ludicrous and half solemn, appears, from the many experiments which he made upon it, to have cost him considerable trouble. The Castle, he says,

"Its base a mountain, and itself a rock, In proud defiance of the tempests' rage, Like an old gray-hair'd veteran stands each shock— The sturdy witness of a nobler age."

He then alludes to the "cockney" improvements that had lately taken place, among which the venerable castle appears, like

"A helmet on a Macaroni's head— Or like old Talbot, turn'd into a fop, With coat embroider'd and scratch wig at top."

Some verses, of the same mixed character, on the short duration of life and the changes that death produces, thus begin:—

"Of that same tree which gave the box, Now rattling in the hand of FOX, Perhaps his coffin shall be made.—"

He then rambles into prose, as was his custom, on a sort of knight- errantry after thoughts and images:—"The lawn thou hast chosen for thy bridal shift—thy shroud may be of the same piece. That flower thou hast bought to feed thy vanity—from the same tree thy corpse may be decked. Reynolds shall, like his colors, fly; and Brown, when mingled with the dust, manure the grounds he once laid out. Death is life's second childhood; we return to the breast from whence we came, are weaned,...."