main 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.'-P. 203,4. The period of Sheridan's political debut, in 1780, is thus eloquently pictured by his biographer: The period at which Mr. Sheridan entered upon his political career was, in every respect, remarkable. A persevering and vindictive war against America, with the folly and guilt of which the obstinacy of the court and the acquiescence of the people are equally chargeable, was fast approaching that crisis which every unbiassed spectator of the contest had long foreseen, and at which, however humiliating to the haughty pretensions of England, every friend to the liberties of the human race rejoiced. It was, perhaps, as difficult for this country to have been long and virulently opposed to such principles as the Americans asserted in this contest, without being herself corrupted by the cause which she maintained, as it was for the French to have fought in the same conflict, by the side of the oppressed, without catching a portion of that enthusiasm for liberty which such an alliance was calculated to inspire. Accordingly, while the voice of philosophy was heard along the neighbouring shores, speaking aloud those oracular warnings which preceded the death of the great Pan of despotism, the courtiers and lawyers of England were, with an emulous spirit of servility, advising and sanctioning such strides of power as would not have been unworthy of the most dark and slavish times. Not only were the public events, in which Mr. Sheridan was now called to take a part, of a nature more extraordinary and awful than had often been exhibited on the theatre of politics, but the leading actors in the scene were of that loftier order of intellect which Nature seems to keep in reserve for the ennoblement of such great occasions. Two of these, Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox, were already in the full maturity of their fame and talent,while the third, Mr. Pitt, was just upon the point of entering, with the most auspicious promise, into the same splendid career :— "Nunc cuspide patris Inclytus, Herculeas olim moture sagittas.” His first speech was a failure. It was on this night, as Woodfall used to relate, that Mr. Sheridan, after he had spoken, came up to him in the gallery, and asked, with much anxiety, what he thought of his first attempt. The answer of Woodfall, as he had the courage afterwards to own, was, "I am sorry to say I do not think that this is your line-you had much better have stuck to your former pursuits;" on hearing which, Sheridan rested his head upon his hand for a few minutes, and then vehemently exclaimed, "It is in me, however, and, by` G-, it shall come out!" It appears, indeed, that upon many persons, besides Mr. Wood fall, the im pression produced by this first essay of his oratory was far from answerable to the expectations that had been formed. The chief detect remarked in him was a thick and indistinct mode of delivery, which, though he afterwards greatly corrected it, was never entirely removed.' 'Not only,' says our author, were the occasions very few and select, on which he offered himself to the attention of the House, at this period, but, whenever he did speak, it was concisely and unpretendingly, with the manner of a person who came to learn a new road to fame,-not of one who laid claim to notice upon the credit of the glory he brought with him. Mr. Fox used to say that he considered his conduct in this respect as a most strik ing proof of his sagacity and good taste;such rare and unassuming displays of his talents being the only effectual mode he could have adopted, to win on the attention of his audience and gradually esta blish himself in their favour. He had, indeed, many difficulties and disadvantages to encounter, of which his own previous reputation was not the least. Not only did he risk a perilous comparison between his powers as a speaker and his fame as a writer, but he had also to contend with that feeling of monopoly, which pervades the more worldly classes of talent, and which would lead politicians to regard as an intruder upon their craft, a man of genius thus aspiring to a station among them, without the usual qualifications of either birth or apprenticeship to entitle him to it. In an assembly too, whose deference for rank and property is such as to render it lucky that these instruments of influence are so often united with honesty and talent, the son of an actor and proprietor of a theatre had, it must be owned, most fearful odds against him, in entering into competition with the sons of Lord Holland and Lord Chatham. With the same discretion that led him to obtrude himself but seldom on the House, he never spoke at this period but after careful and even verbal preparation. Like most of our great orators at the commencement of their careers, he was in the habit of writing out his speeches before he delivered them; and, though subsequently he scribbled these preparatory sketches upon detached sheets, I find that he began by using for this purpose the same sort of copy-books, which he had employed in the first rough draughts of his plays.'-P. 266,7. In 1785, however, Sheridan became a more frequent speaker; and one occasion on which he exerted his eloquence is introduced by the patriotic pen of his biographer. "If the surrender of any part of her le gislative power could have been expected from Ireland in that proud moment, when her new-born Independencewas but just beginning to smile in her lap, the acceptance of the terms then proffered by the Minister might have averted much of the evils of which she was afterwards the victim. The proposed plan being, in itself, (as Mr. Grattan called it,) "an incipient and creeping Union," would have prepared the way less violently for the completion of that fated measure, and spared at least the corruption and the blood which were the preliminaries of its perpetration at last. But the pride, so natural and honourable to the Irish-had fate but placed them in a situation to assert it with any permanent effect-repelled the idea of being bound even by the commercial regulations of England. The wonderful eloquence of Grattan, which, like an eagle guarding her young, rose grandly in defence of the freedom to which itself had given birth, would alone have been sufficient to determine a whole nation to his will. Accordingly, such demonstrations of resistance were made both by people and parliament, that the Commercial Propositions were given up by the minister, and this apparition of a Union withdrawn from the eyes of Ireland for the present-merely to come again, in another shape, with many a "mortal murder on its crown, and push her from her stool." Mr. Sheridan took a strong interest in this question, and spoke at some length on every occasion when it was brought before the House.'-P. 307. * There is an anecdote strongly illustrative of this observation, quoted by Lord John Russell in his able and lively work "On the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht."-Mr. Steele (in alluding to Sir Thomas Hanmer's opposition to the Commercial Treaty in 1714) said, "I rise to do him honour"-on which many members who had before tried to interrupt him, called out Tatler, Tatler;' and, as he went down the House, several said It is not so easy a thing to speak in the House;' 'He fancies, because he can scribble, &c. &c.'-Slight circumstances, indeed, (adds Lord John,) but which show at once the indisposition of the House to the Whig party, and the natural envy of mankind, long ago remarked by Cicero, towards all who attempt to gain more than one kind of pre-eminente." In 1787 he exerted himself so much on Irish questions that he was tauntingly designated the 'Self-appointed Representative of Ireland.' Perhaps we cannot do better than give here a short extract from this memoir, in which the author expresses his own attachment to the land of his birth. I am aware that, on the subject of Ireland and her wrongs, I can ill trust myself with the task of expressing what I feel, or preserve that moderate historical tone, which it has been my wish to maintain through the political opinions of this work. On every other point, my homage to the high character of England, and of her institutions, is prompt and cordial;-on this topic alone my feelings towards her have been taught to wear "the badge of bitterness." As a citizen of the world I would point to England as its brightest ornament ;-but as a disfranchised Irishman, I blush to belong to her.' tionality remained with him warmly through life, and he was, to the last, both fond and proud of his country. The zeal with which he entered, at this period, into Irish politics, may be judged of from some letters, addressed to him in the year 1785, by Mr. Isaac Corry, who was at that time a member of the Irish opposition, and combated the Commercial Propositions as vigorously as he afterwards, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, defended their "consummate flower," the Union.' During the four months of the Rockingham administration, in 1782, Sheridan was appointed Secretary of the Treasury; which he lost, of course, on the discomfiture of his party. The Whigs,' says Mr. Moore, who had now every reason to be convinced of the aversion with which they were regarded at court, had lately been, in some degree, compensated for this misfortune by the accession to their party of the Heir Apparent, who had, since the year 1783, been in the enjoyment of a separate establishment, and taken his seat in the House of Peers, as Duke of Cornwall. That a young prince fond of pleasure, and impatient of restraint, should have thrown himself into the arms of those who were most likely to be indulgent to his errors, is nothing surprising, either in politics or ethics. But that mature and enlightened statesmen, with the lessons of all history before their eyes, should have been equally ready to embrace such a rash alliance, or should count upon it as any more than a temporary instrument of faction, is, to say the least of it, one of those self-delusions of the wise, which show how vainly the voice of the Past may speak amid the loud appeals and temptations of the Present. The last Prince of Wales, it is true, by whom the popular cause was espoused, had left the lesson imperfect, by dying before he came to the throne. But this deficiency has since been amply made up; and future Whigs, who may be placed in similar circumstances, will have, at least, one historical warning before their eyes, which ought to be enough to satisfy the most unreflecting and credulous. In some points, the breach, that now took place between the Prince and the King, bore a close resemblance to that which had disturbed the preceding reign. In both cases, the Royal parents were harsh and obstinate-in both cases, money was the chief source of dissension-and in both cases, the genius, wit, and accomplishments of those with whom the Heir Apparent connected himself, threw a splendour round the political bond between them, which prevented even themselves from perceiving its looseness and fragility. In the late question of Mr. Fox's India Bill, the Prince of Wales had voted with his political friends in the first division. But, upon finding afterwards the King was hostile to the measure, his Royal Highness took the prudent step (and with Mr. Fox's full concurrence) of absenting himself entirely from the second discussion, when the Bill, as it is known, was finally defeated. This circumstance, occurring thus early in their intercourse, might have proved to each of the parties in this ill-sorted alliance, how difficult it was for them to remain long and creditably united. On the one side, there was a character to be maintained with the people, which a too complacent toleration of the errors of royalty might—and, as it happened did-compromise; while, on the other side, there were the obligations of filial duty, which, as in this instance of the India Bill, made desertion decorous, at a time when co-operation would have been most friendly and desirable. There was also the perpetual consciousness of being destined to a higher station, in which, while duty would perhaps demand an independence of all party whatever, convenience would certainly dictate a release from the restraints of Whiggism.' The calm security into which Mr. Pitt's administration had settled, after the victory which the Tory alliance of king and people had gained for him, left but little to excite the activity of party-spirit, or to call forth those grand explosions of eloquence, which a more electric state of the political world produces. The orators of Opposition might soon have been reduced, like Philoctetes wasting his arrows upon geese at Lemnos, to expend the armoury of their wit upon the Grahams and Rolles of the Treasury bench. But a subject now presented itself—the impeachment of Warren Hastings-which, by em bodying the cause of a whole country in one individual, and thus combining the extent and grandeur of a national question with the direct aim and singleness of a personal attack, opened as wide a field for display as the most versatile talents could require, and to Mr. Sheridan, in particular, afforded one of those precious opportunities, of which, if Fortune but rarely offers them to genius, it is genius alone that can fully and triumphantly avail itself.' P. 317. It arose from a variety of circumstances that the prosecution of Mr. Hastings, even after the accession of the minister, excited but a slight and wavering interest; and, without some extraordinary appeal to the sympathies of the House and the country, some startling touch to the chord of public feeling, it was questionable whether the inquiry would not end as abortively as all the other Indian inquests that had preceded it. In this state of the proceeding, Mr. Sheridan brought forward, on the 7th of February, in the House of Commons, the charge relative to the Begum Princesses of Oude, and delivered that celebrated speech, whose effect upon its hearers has no parallel in the annals of ancient or modern eloquence. When we recollect the men by whom the House of Commons was at that day adorned, and the conflict of high passions and interests in which they had been so lately engaged when we see them all, of all parties, brought (as Mr. Pitt expressed it) "under the wand of the enchanter," and only vying with each other in their description of the fascination by which they were bound-when we call to mind, too, that he whom the first statesman of the age thus lauded, had but lately descended among them from a more aerial region of intellect, bringing trophies falsely supposed to be incompatible with political prowessit is impossible to imagine a moment of more entire and intoxicating triumph. The only alloy that could mingle with such complete success must be the fear that it was too perfect ever to come again; that his fame had then reached the meridian point, and from that consummate moment must date its decline. "Of this remarkable speech there exists no report; for it would be absurd to dignify with that appellation the meagre and lifeless sketch, the "Tenuem sine viribus ubram In faciem Æneæ," which is given in the Annual RegisIts fame, therefore, remains like an ters and Parliamentary Debates. empty shrine-a cenotaph still crowned and honoured, though the inmate is wanting.' His subsequent speech on the trial of Hastings was equally as felicitous; and it is delightful to read the testimonies which Mr. Moore has given of the pride which all the members of his family took in his triumph. 'Taking into account all the various circumstances that concurred to glorify this period of Sheridan's life, we may allow ourselves, I think, to pause upon it as the apex of the pyramid, and, whether we consider his fame, his talents, or his happiness, may safely say, "Here is their highest point." The new splendour which his recent triumphs in eloquence had added to a reputation already so illustrious,-the power which he seemed to have acquired over Mr. Moore has the following singular remark, at page 374,5. It is also, I think, a mistake, however flattering to my country, to call the school of oratory, to which Burke belongs, Irish. That Irishmen are naturally more gifted with those stores of fancy, from which the illumination of this high order of the art must be supplied, the names of Burke, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, Canning, and Plunkett, abundantly testify. Yet had Lord Chatham, before any of these great speakers were heard, led the way, in the same animated and figured strain of oratory; while another Englishman, Lord Bacon, by making Fancy the handmaid of Philosophy, had long since set an example of that union of the imaginative and the solid, which, both in writing and in speaking, forms the characteristic distinction of this school.' Mr. Moore is, we think, unfortunate in adducing Bacon as an example; and, if Chatham's speeches are examined, it will be found that they have less claim to Irish than the speeches of Henley, in America. A solitary exception, however, proves little or nothing, even were it unexceptionable; and the peculiarities of Irish oratory are to be found in Irish speeches long before Chatham was born. the future destinies of the country, by his acknowledged influence in the councils of the heir apparent, and the tribute paid to him, by the avowal both of friends and foes, that he had used this influence, in the late trying crisis of the regency, with a judgment and delicacy that proved him worthy of it, all these advantages, both brilliant and solid, which subsequent circumstances but too much tended to weaken, at this moment surrounded him in their newest lustre and promise. 'He was just now, too, in the first enjoyment of a feeling, of which habit must have afterwards dulled the zest, namely, the proud consciousness of having surmounted the disadvantages of birth and station, and placed himself on a level with the highest and noblest of the land. This footing in the society of the great he could only have attained by parliamentary eminence; as a mere writer, with all his genius, he never would have been thus admitted ad eundem among them. Talents, in literature or science, unassisted by the advantages of birth, may lead to association with the great, but rarely to equality; it is a passport through the well-guarded frontier, but no title to naturalization within. By him, who has not been born among them, this can only be achieved by politics. In that arena, which they look upon as their own, the legislature of the land, let a man of genius, like Sheridan, but assert his supremacy, at once all these barriers of reserve and pride give way, and he takes, by storm, a station at their side, which a Shakspeare or a Newton would but have enjoyed by courtesy. In fixing upon this period of Sheridan's life, as the most shining era of his talents as well as his fame, it is not meant to be denied that in his subsequent warfare with the minister, during the stormy time of the French Revolution, he exhibited a prowess of oratory no less suited to that actual service, than his eloquence on the trial of Hastings had been to such lighter tilts and tournaments of peace. But the effect of his talents was far less striking; -the current of feeling through England was against him;-and, however greatly this added to the merit of his efforts, it deprived him of that echo from the public heart, by which the voice of the orator is endued with a sort of multiplied life, and, as it were, survives itself. In the panic, too, that followed the French Revolution, all eloquence, but that from the lips of Power, was disregarded, and the voice of him at the helm was the only one listened to in the storm.'-P. 434-6. During the Regency question, in 1789, Mr. Sheridan acted a conspicuVOL. I.-No. 9. ous part. Mr. Moore at first attri butes the Prince's celebrated letter to Mr. Pitt, to him; but is subsequently obliged to give the honour of that composition to Burke. He allows his former opinion to stand as a proof of uncertainty in similar cases. It is, however, now made manifest that the Prince was not the author of any public document at this time. Mr. Sheridan has the honour of having written most of them. The conduct of Mr. Sheridan on the breaking out of the mutiny at the Nore is too well known and appreciated to require any illustration here. It is placed to his credit on the page of history, and was one of the happiest impulses of good feeling and good sense combined, that ever public man acted upon in a situation demanding so much of both. The patriotic promptitude of his interference was even more striking than it appears in the record of his parliamentary labours; for, as I have heard at but one remove from his own authority, while the ministry were yet hesi tating as to the steps they should take, he went to Mr. Dundas and said,-" My advice is that you cut the buoys on the river-send Sir Charles Grey down to the coast, and set a price on Parker's head. If the administration take this advice instantly, they will save the country-if not, they will lose it; and, on their refusal, I will impeach them in the House of Commons this very evening." 'Without dwelling on the contrast which is so often drawn-less with a view to elevate Sheridan than to depreciate his party-between the conduct of himself and his friends at this fearful crisis, it is impossible not to concede that, on the scale of public spirit, he rose as far superior to them as the great claims of the general safety transcend all personal considerations and all party ties. It was, indeed, a rare triumph of temper and sagacity. With less temper, he would have seen in this awful peril but an occasion of triumph over the minister whom he had so long been struggling to overturn-and, with less sagacity, he would have thrown away the golden opportunity of establishing himself for ever in the affections and the memories of Englishmen, as one whose heart was in the common-weal, whatever might be his opinions, and who, in the moment of peril, could sink the partisan in the patriot.'-P. 569, 70. The only question upon which he spoke this year (1800) was the important measure of the Union,which he strenuously and at great length opposed. Like every other measure, professing to be for the 3 E |