"MY DEAR ESTHER, "I have delayed sending the enclosed Resolution of the Drury-Lane Committee to you, because I had hoped to have found a moment to have called upon you, and to have delivered it into your hands. But I see no chance of that, and therefore literally obey my instructions in writing to you. "I had great pleasure in proposing the Resolution, which was cordially and unanimously adopted. I had it always in contemplation,-but to have proposed it earlier would have been improper. I hope you will derive much amusement from your visits to the Theatre, and that you and all of your name will ultimately be pleased with what has been done. I have just had a most satisfactory letter from Tom Sheridan. "I am, "My dear Esther, “Dover-Street, July 4, 1812. "MY DEAR ESTHER, "It has been a great mortification and disappointment to me, to have met the Committee twice, since the offer of the use of a box at the new Theatre was made to you, and that I have not had to report the slightest acknowledgment from you in return. "The Committee meet again to-morrow, and after that there will be no meeting for some time. If I shall be compelled to return the same blank answer I have hitherto done, the inference drawn will naturally be, that what was designed by myself, who moved it, and by those who voted it, as a gratifying mark of attention to Sheridan through you, (as the most gratifying mode of conveying it,) has, for some unaccountable reason, been mistaken and is declined. "But I shall be glad to know before to-morrow, what is your determination on the subject. "I am, dear Esther, 66 'Affectionately yours, "Dover-Street, July 12, 1812. S. WHITBREAD." The failure of Sheridan at Stafford completed his ruin. He was now excluded both from the Theatre and from Parliament: the two anchors by which he held in life were gone, and he was left a lonely and helpless wreck upon the X waters.XThe Prince Regent offered to bring him into Parliament; but the thought of returning to that scene of his triumphs and his freedom, with the Royal owner's mark, as it were, upon him, was more than he could bear—and he declined the offer. Indeed, miserable and insecure as his life was now, when we consider the public humiliations to which he would have been exposed, between his ancient pledge to Whiggism and his attachment and gratitude to Royalty, it is not wonderful that he should have preferred even the alternative of arrests and imprisonments to the risk of bringing upon his political name any further tarnish in such a struggle, Neither could his talents have much longer continued to do themselves justice, amid the pressure of such cares, and the increased indulgence of habits, which, as is usual, gained upon him, as all other indulgences vanished. The ancients, we are told, by a significant device, inscribed on the wreathes they wore at banquets the name of Minerva. Unfortunately, from the festal wreath of Sheridan this name was now but too often effaced; and the same charm, that once had served to give a quicker flow to thought, was now employed to muddy the stream, as it became painful to contemplate what was at the bottom of it. By his exclusion, therefore, from Parliament, he was, perhaps, seasonably saved from affording to that "Folly, which loves the martyrdom of Fame," the spectacle of a great mind, not only surviving itself, but, like the champion in Berni, continuing the combat after life is gone: "Andava combattendo, ed era morto." "And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame." This fine line is in Lord Byron's Monody to his memory. There is another line, equally true and touching, where, alluding to the irregularities of the latter part of Sheridan's life, he says, "And what to them seem'd vice might be but woe." nole In private society, however, he could, even now, (before the Rubicon of the cup was passed,) fully justify his high reputation for agreeableness and wit; and a day which it was my good fortune to spend with him, at the table of Mr. Rogers, has too many mournful, as well as pleasant, associations connected with it, to be easily forgotten by the survivors of the party. The company consisted but of Mr. Rogers himself, Lord Byron, Mr. Sheridan, and the writer of this Memoir. Sheridan knew the admiration his audience felt for him; the presence of the young poet, in particular, seemed to bring back his own youth and wit; and the details he gave of his early life were not less interesting and animating to himself than delightful to us. It was in the course of this evening that, describing to us the poem which Mr. Whitbread had written and sent in, among the other Addresses for the opening of Drury-Lane, and which, like the rest, turned chiefly on allusions to the Phenix, he said, "But Whitbread made more of this bird. than any of them :-he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.; in short, it was a Poulterer's description of a Phenix!" The following extract from a Diary in my possession, kept by Lord Byron during six months of his residence in London, 1812-13, will show the admiration which this great and generous spirit felt for Sheridan : Saturday, December 18, 1813. "Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other 'hommes marquans,' and mine was this: Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy, (School for Scandal,) the best opera, (The Duenna-in my mind far before that St. Giles's lampoon, The Beggar's Opera,) the best farce, (The Critic-it is only too good for an afterpiece,) and the best Address, (Monologue on Garrick,)—– and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration, (the fa mous Begum Speech,) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and on hearing it, he burst into tears!-Poor Brinsley! If they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said those few, but sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or made his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine-humble as it must appear to my elders and my betters."" The distresses of Sheridan now increased every day, and through the short remainder of his life it is a melancholy task to follow him. The sum arising from the sale of his theatrical property was soon exhausted by the various claims upon it, and he was driven to part with all that he most valued, to satisfy further demands and provide for the subsistence of the day. Those books which, as I have already mentioned, were presented to him by various friends, now stood in their splendid bindings,* on the shelves of the pawnbroker. The handsome cup, given him by the electors of Stafford, shared the same fate. Three or four fine pictures by Gainsborough, and one by Morland, were sold for little more than five hundred pounds; and even * In most of them, too, were the names of the givers. The delicacy with which Mr. Harrison of Wardour-Street, (the pawnbroker with whom the books and the cup were deposited,) behaved, after the death of Mr. Sheridan, deserves to be mentioned with praise. Instead of availing himself of the public feeling at that moment, by submitting these precious relics to the competition of a sale, he privately communicated to the family and one or two friends of Sheridan the circumstance of his having such articles in his hands, and demanded nothing more than the sum regularly due on them. -The Stafford cup is in the possession of Mr. Charles Sheridan. In the following extract from a note to his solicitor, he refers to these pictures: "DEAR BURGESS, "I am perfectly satisfied with your account;-nothing can be more clear or fair, or more disinterested on your part;—but I must grieve to think that five or six hundred pounds for my poor pictures are added to the expenditure. However, we shall come through!" the precious portrait of his first wife,* by Reynolds, though not actually sold during his life, vanished away from his eyes into other hands. One of the most humiliating trials of his pride was yet to come. In the spring of this year he was arrested and carried to a spunging-house, where he remained two or three days. This abode, from which the following painful letter to Whitbread was written, formed a sad contrast to those Princely halls, of which he had so lately been the most brilliant and favoured guest, and which were possibly, at that very moment, lighted up and crowded with gay company, unmindful of him within those prison walls: "Tooke's Court, Cursitor-Street, Thursday, past two. "I have done every thing in my power with the solicitors, White and Founes to obtain my release, by substituting a better security for them than their detaining me— but in vain. "Whitbread, putting all false professions of friendship and feeling out of the question, you have no right to keep me here!-for it is in truth your act-if you had not forcibly withheld from me the twelve thousand pounds, in consequence of a threatening letter from a miserable swindler, whose claim YOU in particular knew to be a lie, I should at least have been out of the reach of this state of miserable insult-for that, and that only lost me my seat in Parliament. And I assert that you cannot find a lawyer in the land, that is not either a natural-born fool or a corrupted scoundrel, who will not declare that your conduct in this respect was neither warrantable or legal-but let that pass for the present. "Independently of the 1000/. ignorantly withheld from me on the day of considering my last claim, I require of you to answer the draft I send herewith on the part of the Committee, pledging myself to prove to them on the first As Saint Cecilia. The portrait of Mrs. Sheridan at Knowle, though less ideal than that of Sir Joshua, is, (for this very reason, perhaps, as bearing a closer resemblance to the original,) still more beautiful. |