Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume II Part 15

Among the eminent persons summoned as witnesses on the Trial of Horne Tooke, which took place in November of this year, was Mr. Sheridan; and, as his evidence contains some curious particulars, both with regard to himself and the state of political feeling in the year 1790, I shall here transcribe a part of it:--

"He, (Mr. Sheridan,) said he recollects a meeting to celebrate the establishment of liberty in France in the year 1790. Upon that occasion he moved a Resolution drawn up the day before by the Whig club. Mr. Horne Tooke, he says, made no objection to his motion, but proposed an amendment. Mr. Tooke stated that an unqualified approbation of the French Revolution, in the terms moved, might produce an ill effect out of doors, a disposition to a revolution in this country, or, at least, be misrepresented to have that object; he adverted to the circ.u.mstance of their having all of them national c.o.c.kades in their hats; he proposed to add some qualifying expression to the approbation of the French Revolution, a declaration of attachment to the principles of our own Const.i.tution; he said Mr. Tooke spoke in a figurative manner of the former Government of France; he described it as a vessel so foul and decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, that in contrasting our state with that, he said, thank G.o.d, the main timbers of our Const.i.tution are sound; he had before observed, however, that some reforms might be necessary; he said that sentiment was received with great disapprobation, and with very rude interruption, insomuch that Lord Stanhope, who was in the chair, interfered; he said it had happened to him, in many public meetings, to differ with and oppose the prisoner, and that he has frequently seen him received with very considerable marks of disapprobation, but he never saw them affect him much; he said that he himself objected to Mr. Tooke's amendment; he thinks he withdrew his amendment, and moved it as a separate motion; he said it was then carried as unanimously as his own motion had been; that original motion and separate motion are in these words:--'That this meeting does most cordially rejoice in the establishment and confirmation of liberty in France; and it beholds with peculiar satisfaction the sentiments of amity and good will which appear to pervade the people of that country towards this kingdom, especially at a time when it is the manifest interest of both states that nothing should interrupt the harmony which at present subsists between them, and which is so essentially necessary to the freedom and happiness, not only of the French nation, but of all mankind.'

"Mr. Tooke wished to add to his motion some qualifying clause, to guard against misunderstanding and misrepresentation:--that there was a wide difference between England and France; that in France the vessel was so foul and decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, whereas, in England, we had a n.o.ble and stately vessel, sailing proudly on the bosom of the ocean; that her main timbers were sound, though it was true, after so long a course of years, she might want some repairs. Mr. Tooke's motion was,--'That we feel equal satisfaction that the subjects of England, by the virtuous exertions of their ancestors, have not so arduous a task to perform as the French have had, but have only to maintain and improve the Const.i.tution which their ancestors have transmitted to them.'--This was carried unanimously."

The trial of Warren Hastings still "dragged its slow length along," and in the May of this year Mr. Sheridan was called upon for his Reply on the Begum Charge. It was usual, on these occasions, for the Manager who spoke to be a.s.sisted by one of his brother Managers, whose task it was to carry the bag that contained his papers, and to read out whatever Minutes might be referred to in the course of the argument. Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor was the person who undertook this office for Sheridan; but, on the morning of the speech, upon his asking for the bag that he was to carry, he was told by Sheridan that there was none--neither bag nor papers.

They must manage, he said, as well as they could without them;--and when the papers were called for, his friend must only put the best countenance he could upon it. As for himself "he would abuse Ned Law--ridicule Plumer's long orations--make the Court laugh--please the women, and, in short, with Taylor's aid would get triumphantly through his task." His opening of the case was listened to with the profoundest attention; but when he came to contrast the evidence of the Commons with that adduced by Hastings, it was not long before the Chancellor interrupted him, with a request that the printed Minutes to which he referred should be read.

Sheridan answered that his friend Mr. Taylor would read them; and Mr.

Taylor affected to send for the bag, while the orator begged leave, in the meantime, to proceed. Again, however, his statements rendered a reference to the Minutes necessary, and again he was interrupted by the Chancellor, while an outcry after Mr. Sheridan's bag was raised in all directions. At first the blame was laid on the solicitor's clerk--then a messenger was dispatched to Mr. Sheridan's house. In the meantime, the orator was proceeding brilliantly and successfully in his argument; and, on some further interruption and expostulation from the Chancellor, raised his voice and said, in a dignified tone, "On the part of the Commons, and as a Manager of this Impeachment, I shall conduct my case as I think proper. I mean to be correct, and Your Lords.h.i.+ps, having the printed Minutes before you, will afterwards see whether I am right or wrong."

During the bustle produced by the inquiries after the bag, Mr. Fox, alarmed at the inconvenience which, he feared, the want of it might occasion Sheridan, ran up from the Managers' room, and demanded eagerly the cause of this mistake from Mr. Taylor; who, hiding his mouth with his hand, whispered him, (in a tone of which they alone, who have heard this gentleman relate the anecdote, can feel the full humor,) "The man has no bag!"

The whole of this characteristic contrivance was evidently intended by Sheridan to raise that sort of surprise at the readiness of his resources, which it was the favorite triumph of his vanity to create. I have it on the authority of Mr. William Smythe, that, previously to the delivery of this speech, he pa.s.sed two or three days alone at Wanstead, so occupied from morning till night in writing and reading of papers, as to complain in the evenings that he "had motes before his eyes." This mixture of real labor with apparent carelessness was, indeed, one of the most curious features of his life and character.

Together with the political contests of this stormy year, he had also on his mind the cares of his new Theatre, which opened on the 21st of April, with a prologue, not by himself, as might have been expected, but by his friend General Fitzpatrick. He found time, however, to a.s.sist in the rapid manufacture of a little piece called "The Glorious First of June,"

which was acted immediately after Lord Howe's victory, and of which I have found some sketches [Footnote: One of these is as follows:--

"SCENE I.--Miss _Leake_--Miss _Decamp--Walsh_.

"Short dialogue--Nancy persuading Susan to go to the Fair, where there is an entertainment to be given by the Lord of the Manor--Susan melancholy because Henry, her lover, is at sea with the British Admiral--_Song_ --Her old mother scolds from the cottage--her little brother (_Walsh_) comes from the house, with a message--laughs at his sister's fears and sings--_Trio_.

"SCENE II.--_The Fair_

"Puppet show--dancing bear--bells--hurdy-gurdy--recruiting party--song and chorus.

"_Ballet_--D'Egville.

"Susan says she has no pleasure, and will go and take a solitary walk.

"SCENE III.--_Dark Wood._

"Susan--gipsy--tells her fortune--recitative and ditty.

"SCENE IV.

"SEA-FIGHT--h.e.l.l and the devil!

"Henry and Susan meet--Chorus introducing burden,

"Rule Britannia."

Among other occasional trifles of this kind, to which Sheridan condescended for the advantage of the theatre, was the pantomime of Robinson Crusoe, brought out, I believe, in 1781, of which he is understood to have been the author. There was a practical joke in this pantomime, (where, in pulling off a man's boot, the leg was pulled off with it,) which the famous Delpini laid claim to as his own, and publicly complained of Sheridan's having stolen it from him. The punsters of the day said it was claimed as literary property--being "in usum _Delpini_."

Another of these inglorious tasks of the author of The School for Scandal, was the furnis.h.i.+ng of the first outline or _Programme_ of "The Forty Thieves." His brother in law, Ward, supplied the dialogue, and Mr. Colman was employed to season it with an infusion of jokes. The following is Sheridan's sketch of one of the scenes--

"ALI BABA.

"Bannister called out of the cavern boldly by his son--comes out and falls on the ground a long time, not knowing him--says he would only have taken a little gold to Keep off misery and save his son, &c.

"Afterwards, when he loads his a.s.ses, his son reminds him to be moderate--but it was a promise made to thieves--'it gets nearer the owner, if taken from the stealer'--the son disputes this morality--'they stole it, _ergo_, they have no right to it; and we steal it from the stealer, _ergo_, our t.i.tle is twice as bad as theirs.'"] in Sheridan's hand-writing,--though the dialogue was, no doubt, supplied (as Mr. Boaden says,) "by Cobb, or some other such _pedissequus_ of the Dramatic Muse. This piece was written, rehea.r.s.ed, and acted within three days. The first operation of Mr. Sheridan towards it was to order the mechanist of the theatre to get ready two fleets. It was in vain that objections were started to the possibility of equipping these pasteboard armaments in so short an interval--Lord Chatham's famous order to Lord Anson was not more peremptory. [Footnote: For the expedition to the coast of France, after the Convention of Closter seven. When he ordered the fleet to be equipped, and appointed the time and place of its rendezvous, Lord Anson said it would be impossible to have it prepared so soon. "It may," said Mr. Pitt, "be done, and if the s.h.i.+ps are not ready at the time specified, I shall signify Your Lords.h.i.+p's neglect to the King, and impeach you in the House of Commons." This intimation produced the desired effect--the s.h.i.+ps were ready. See Anecdotes of Lord Chatham, vol. i] The two fleets were accordingly ready at the time, and the Duke of Clarence attended the rehearsal of their evolutions. This mixture of the cares of the Statesman and the Manager is one of those whimsical peculiarities that made Sheridan's own life so dramatic, and formed a compound altogether too singular ever to occur again.

In the spring of the following year, (1795,) we find Mr. Sheridan paying that sort of tribute to the happiness of a first marriage which is implied by the step of entering into a second. The lady to whom he now united himself was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester, and grand-daughter, by the mother's side, of the former Bishop of Winchester. We have here another proof of the ready mine of wealth which the theatre opened,--as in grat.i.tude it ought,--to him who had endowed, it with such imperishable treasures. The fortune of the lady being five thousand pounds, he added to it fifteen thousand more, which he contrived to raise by the sale of Drury-Lane shares; and the whole of the sum was subsequently laid out in the purchase from Sir W. Geary of the estate of Polesden, in Surrey, near Leatherhead. The Trustees of this settlement were Mr. Grey, (now Lord Grey,) and Mr. Whitbread.

To a man at the time of life which Sheridan had now attained--four years beyond that period, at which Petrarch thought it decorous to leave off writing love-verses [Footnote: See his Epistle, "ad Posteritatem," where, after lamenting the many years which he had devoted to love, he adds: "Mox vero ad _quadragesimum annum_ appropinquans, dum adhuc et caloris satis esset," &c.]--a union with a young and accomplished girl, ardently devoted to him, must have been like a renewal of his own youth; and it is, indeed, said by those who were in habits of intimacy with him at this period, that they had seldom seen his spirits in a state of more buoyant vivacity. He pa.s.sed much of his time at the house of his father-in-law near Southampton;--and in sailing about with his lively bride on the Southampton river, (in a small cutter called the Phaedria, after the magic boat in the "Fairy Queen,") forgot for a while his debts, his theatre, and his politics. It was on one of these occasions that my friend Mr. Bowles, who was a frequent companion of his parties, [Footnote: Among other distinguished persons present at these excursions were Mr. Joseph Richardson, Dr. Howley, now Bishop of London, and Mrs.

Wilmot, now Lady Dacre, a lady, whose various talents,--not the less delightful for being so feminine,--like the group of the Graces, reflect beauty on each other.] wrote the following verses, which were much admired, as they well deserved to be, by Sheridan, for the sweetness of their thoughts, and the perfect music of their rhythm:--

"Smooth went our boat upon the summer seas, Leaving, (for so it seem'd.) the world behind, Its cares, its sounds, its shadows: we reclin'd Upon the sunny deck, heard but the breeze That o'er us whispering pa.s.s'd or idly play'd With the lithe flag aloft.--A woodland scene On either side drew its slope line of green, And hung the water's s.h.i.+ning edge with shade.

Above the woods, Netley! thy ruins pale Peer'd, as we pa.s.s'd; and Vecta's [1] azure hue Beyond the misty castle [2] met the view; Where in mid channel hung the scarce-seen sail.

So all was calm and suns.h.i.+ne as we went Cheerily o'er the briny element.

Oh! were this little boat to us the world, As thus we wander'd far from sounds of care, Circled with friends and gentle maidens fair, Whilst morning airs the waving pendant curl'd, How sweet were life's long voyage, till in peace We gain'd that haven still, where all things cease!"

[Footnote 1: Isle of Wight]

[Footnote 2: Kelshot Castle]

The events of this year but added fresh impetus to that reaction upon each other of the Government and the People, which such a system of misrule is always sure to produce. Among the worst effects, as I have already remarked, of the rigorous policy adopted by the Minister, was the extremity to which it drove the principles and language of Opposition, and that sanction which the vehement rebound against oppression of such influencing spirits as Fox and Sheridan seemed to hold out to the obscurer and more practical a.s.sertors of freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed in the two Houses of Parliament, to pa.s.s these Bills, in violent opposition to the declared sense of the great majority of the nation, and they should be put in force with all their rigorous provisions,--if his opinion were asked by the people as to their obedience, he should tell them, that it was no longer a question of moral obligation and duty, but of prudence." Mr. Sheridan followed in the bold footsteps of his friend, and said, that "if a degraded and oppressed majority of the people applied to him, he would advise them to acquiesce in those bills only as long as resistance was imprudent." This language was, of course, visited with the heavy reprobation of the Ministry;--but their own partisans had already gone as great lengths on the side of absolute power, and it is the nature of such extremes to generate each other. Bishop Horsley had preached the doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience in the House of Lords, a.s.serting that "man's abuse of his delegated authority is to be borne with resignation, like any other of G.o.d's judgments; and that the opposition of the individual to the sovereign power is an opposition to G.o.d's providential arrangements." The promotion of the Right Reverend Prelate that followed, was not likely to abate his zeal in the cause of power; and, accordingly, we find him in the present session declaring, in his place in the House of Lords, that "the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them."

The government, too, had lately given countenance to writers, the absurd slavishness of whose doctrines would have sunk below contempt, but for such patronage. Among the ablest of them was Arthur Young,--one of those renegades from the cause of freedom, who, like the incendiary that set fire to the Temple with the flame he had stolen from its altar, turn the fame and the energies which they have acquired in _defence_ of liberty _against_ her. This gentleman, to whom his situation as Secretary to the Board of Agriculture afforded facilities for the circulation of his political heresies, did not scruple, in one of his pamphlets, roundly to a.s.sert, that unequal representation, rotten boroughs, long parliaments, extravagant courts, selfish Ministers, and corrupt majorities, are not only intimately interwoven with the practical freedom of England, but, in a great degree, the causes of it.

But the most active and notorious of these patronized advocates of the Court was Mr. John Reeves,--a person who, in his capacity of President of the a.s.sociation against Republicans and Levellers, had acted as a sort of Sub-minister of Alarm to Mr. Burke. In a pamphlet, ent.i.tled "Thoughts on the English Government," which Mr. Sheridan brought under the notice of the House, as a libel on the Const.i.tution, this pupil of the school of Filmer advanced the startling doctrine that the Lords and Commons of England derive their existence and authority from the King, and that the Kingly government could go on, in all its functions, without them. This pitiful paradox found an apologist in Mr. Windham, whose chivalry in the new cause he had espoused left Mr. Pitt himself at a wondering distance behind. His speeches in defence of Reeves, (which are among the proofs that remain of that want of equipoise observable in his fine, rather than solid, understanding,) have been with a judicious charity towards his memory, omitted in the authentic collection by Mr. Amyot.

When such libels against the Const.i.tution were not only promulgated, but acted upon, on one side, it was to be expected, and hardly, perhaps, to be regretted, that the repercussion should be heard loudly and warningly from the other. Mr. Fox, by a subsequent explanation, softened down all that was most menacing in his language; and, though the word "Resistance," at full length, should, like the hand-writing on the wall, be reserved for the last intoxication of the Belshazzars of this world, a letter or two of it may, now and then, glare out upon their eyes, without producing any thing worse than a salutary alarm amid their revels. At all events, the high and const.i.tutional grounds on which Mr. Fox defended the expressions he had hazarded, may well reconcile us to any risk incurred by their utterance. The tribute to the house of Russell, in the grand and simple pa.s.sage beginning, "Dear to this country are the descendants of the ill.u.s.trious Russell," is as applicable to that n.o.ble family now as it was then; and will continue to be so, I trust, as long as a single vestige of a race, so pledged to the cause of liberty, remains.

In one of Mr. Sheridan's speeches on the subject of Reeves's libel, there are some remarks on the character of the people of England, not only candid and just, but, as applied to them at that trying crisis, interesting:--

"Never was there," he said, "any country in which there was so much absence of public principle, and at the same time so many instances of private worth. Never was there so much charity and humanity towards the poor and the distressed; any act of cruelty or oppression never failed to excite a sentiment of general indignation against its authors. It was a circ.u.mstance peculiarly strange, that though luxury had arrived to such a pitch, it had so little effect in depraving the hearts and destroying the morals of people in private life; and almost every day produced some fresh example of generous feelings and n.o.ble exertions of benevolence.

Yet amidst these phenomena of private virtue, it was to be remarked, that there was an almost total want of public spirit, and a most deplorable contempt of public principle.

"When Great Britain fell, the case would not be with her as with Rome in former times. When Rome fell, she fell by the weight of her own vices.

The inhabitants were so corrupted and degraded, as to be unworthy of a continuance of prosperity, and incapable to enjoy the blessings of liberty; their minds were bent to the state in which a reverse of fortune placed them. But when Great Britain falls, she will fall with a people full of private worth and virtue; she will be ruined by the profligacy of the governors, and the security of her inhabitants,--the consequence of those pernicious doctrines which have taught her to place a false confidence in her strength and freedom, and not to look with distrust and apprehension to the misconduct and corruption of those to whom she has trusted the management of her resources."

To this might have been added, that when Great Britain falls, it will not be from either ignorance of her rights, or insensibility to their value, but from that want of energy to a.s.sert them which a high state of civilization produces. The love of ease that luxury brings along with it,--the selfish and compromising spirit, in which the members of a polished society countenance each other, and which reverses the principle of patriotism, by sacrificing public interests to private ones,--the subst.i.tution of intellectual for moral excitement, and the repression of enthusiasm by fastidiousness and ridicule,--these are among the causes that undermine a people,--that corrupt in the very act of enlightening them; till they become, what a French writer calls "_esprits exigeans et caracteres complaisans_," and the period in which their rights are best understood may be that in which they most easily surrender them. It is, indeed, with the advanced age of free States, as with that of individuals,--they improve in the theory of their existence as they grow unfit for the practice of it; till, at last, deceiving themselves with the semblance of rights gone by, and refining upon the forms of their inst.i.tutions after they have lost the substance, they smoothly sink into slavery, with the lessons of liberty on their lips.

Besides the Treason and Sedition Bills, the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was another of the momentous questions which, in this as well as the preceding Session, were chosen as points of a.s.sault by Mr.

Sheridan, and contested with a vigor and reiteration of attack, which, though unavailing against the ma.s.sy majorities of the Minister, yet told upon public opinion so as to turn even defeats to account.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick having taken place in the spring of this year, it was proposed by His Majesty to Parliament, not only to provide an establishment for their Royal Highnesses, but to decide on the best manner of liquidating the debts of the Prince, which were calculated at 630,000_l_. On the secession of the leading Whigs, in 1792, His Royal Highness had also separated himself from Mr. Fox, and held no further intercourse either with him or any of his party,--except, occasionally, Mr. Sheridan,--till so late, I believe, as the year 1798. The effects of this estrangement are sufficiently observable in the tone of the Opposition throughout the debates on the Message of the King. Mr. Grey said, that he would not oppose the granting of an establishment to the Prince equal to that of his ancestors; but neither would he consent to the payment of his debts by Parliament. A refusal, he added, to liberate His Royal Highness from his embarra.s.sments would certainly prove a mortification; but it would, at the same time, awaken a just sense of his imprudence. Mr. Fox asked, "Was the Prince well advised in applying to that House on the subject of his debts, after the promise made in 1787?"--and Mr. Sheridan, while he agreed with his friends that the application should not have been made to Parliament, still gave it as his "positive opinion that the debts ought to be paid immediately, for the dignity of the country and the situation of the Prince, who ought not to be seen rolling about the streets, in his state-coach, as an insolvent prodigal." With respect to the promise given in 1787, and now violated, that the Prince would not again apply to Parliament for the payment of his debts, Mr. Sheridan, with a communicativeness that seemed hardly prudent, put the House in possession of some details of the transaction, which, as giving an insight into Royal character, are worthy of being extracted.

"In 1787, a pledge was given to the House that no more debts should be contracted. By that pledge the Prince was bound as much as if he had given it knowingly and voluntarily. To attempt any explanation of it now would be unworthy of his honor,--as if he had suffered it to be wrung from him, with a view of afterwards pleading that it was against his better judgment, in order to get rid of it. He then advised the Prince not to make any such promise, because it was not to be expected that he could himself enforce the details of a system of economy; and, although he had men of honor and abilities about him, he was totally unprovided with men of business, adequate to such a task. The Prince said he could not give such a pledge, and agree at the same time to take back his establishment. He (Mr. Sheridan) drew up a plan of retrenchment, which was approved of by the Prince, and afterwards by His Majesty; and the Prince told him that the promise was not to be insisted upon. In the King's Message, however, the promise was inserted,--by whose advice he knew not. He heard it read with surprise, and, on being asked next day by the Prince to contradict it in his place, he inquired whether the Prince had seen the Message before it was brought down. Being told that it had been read to him, but that he did not understand it as containing a promise, he declined contradicting it, and told the Prince that he must abide by it in whatever way it might have been obtained. By the plan then settled, Ministers had a check upon the Prince's expenditure, which they never exerted, nor enforced adherence to the plan.

"While Ministers never interfered to check expenses, of which they could not pretend ignorance, the Prince had recourse to means for relieving himself from his embarra.s.sments, which ultimately tended to increase them. It was attempted to raise a loan for him in foreign countries, a measure which he thought unconst.i.tutional, and put a stop to; and, after a consultation with Lord Loughborough, all the bonds were burnt, although with a considerable loss to the Prince. After that, another plan of retrenchment was proposed, upon which he had frequent consultations with Lord Thurlow, who gave the Prince fair, open, and manly advice. That n.o.ble Lord told the Prince, that, after the promise he had made, he must not think of applying to Parliament;--that he must avoid being of any party in politics, but, above all, exposing himself to the suspicion of being influenced in political opinion by his embarra.s.sments;--that the only course he could pursue with honor, was to retire from public life for a time, and appropriate the greater part of his income to the liquidation of his debts. This plan was agreed upon in the autum of 1792.

Why, it might be asked, was it not carried into effect? About that period his Royal Highness began to receive unsolicited advice from another quarter. He was told by Lord Loughborough, both in words and in writing, that the plan savored too much of the advice given to M. Egalite, and he could guess from what quarter it came. For his own part, he was then of opinion, that to have avoided meddling in the great political questions which were then coming to be discussed, and to have put his affairs in a train of adjustment, would have better become his high station, and tended more to secure public respect to it, than the pageantry of state-liveries."

The few occasions on which the name of Mr. Sheridan was again connected with literature, after the final investment of his genius in political speculations, were such as his fame might have easily dispensed with;--and one of them, the forgery of the Shakspeare papers, occurred in the course of the present year. Whether it was that he looked over these ma.n.u.scripts with the eye more of a manager than of a critic, and considered rather to what account the belief in their authenticity might be turned, than how far it was founded upon internal evidence;--or whether, as Mr. Ireland a.s.serts, the standard at which he rated the genius of Shakspeare was not so high as to inspire him with a very watchful fastidiousness of judgment; certain it is that he was, in some degree, the dupe of this remarkable imposture, which, as a lesson to the self-confidence of criticism, and an exposure of the fallibility of taste, ought never to be forgotten in literary history.