Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume I Part 2

We have here some of the very thoughts and words that afterwards contributed to the fortune of Puff; and it is amusing to observe how long this subject was played with by the current of Sheridan's fancy, till at last, like "a stone of l.u.s.tre from the brook," it came forth with all that smoothness and polish which it wears in his inimitable farce, The Critic. Thus it is, too, and but little to the glory of what are called our years of discretion, that the life of the _man_ is chiefly employed in giving effect to the wishes and plans of the _boy_.

Another of their projects was a Periodical Miscellany, the idea of which originated with Sheridan, and whose first embryo movements we trace in a letter to him from Mr. Lewis Kerr, who undertook, with much good nature, the negotiation of the young author's literary concerns in London. The letter is dated 30th of October, 1770: "As to your intended periodical paper, if it meets with success, there is no doubt of profit accruing, as I have already engaged a publisher, of established reputation, to undertake it for the account of the authors. But I am to indemnify him in case it should not sell, and to advance part of the first expense, all which I can do without applying to Mr. Ewart."--"I would be glad to know what stock of papers you have already written, as there ought to be ten or a dozen at least finished before you print any, in order to have time to prepare the subsequent numbers, and ensure a continuance of the work. As to the coffee-houses, you must not depend on their taking it in at first, except you go on the plan of the Tatler, and give the news of the week. For the first two or three weeks the expense of advertising will certainly prevent any profit being made. But when that is over, if a thousand are sold weekly, you may reckon on receiving L5 clear. One paper a week will do better than two. Pray say no more as to our accounts."

The t.i.tle intended by Sheridan for this paper was "Hernan's Miscellany,"

to which his friend Halhed objected, and suggested, "The Reformer," as a newer and more significant name. But though Halhed appears to have sought among his Oxford friends for an auxiliary or two in their weekly labors, this meditated Miscellany never proceeded beyond the first number, which was written by Sheridan, and which I have found among his papers. It is too diffuse and pointless to be given entire; but an extract or two from it will not be unwelcome to those who love to trace even the first, feeblest beginnings of genius:

HERNAN'S MISCELLANY.

No. I.

"'I will sit down and write for the good of the people--for (said I to myself, pulling off my spectacles, and drinking up the remainder of my sixpen'worth) it cannot be but people must be sick of these same rascally politics. All last winter nothing but--G.o.d defend me! 'tis tiresome to think of it.' I immediately flung the pamphlet down on the table, and taking my hat and cane walked out of the coffee-house.

"I kept up as smart a pace as I could all the way home, for I felt myself full of something, and enjoyed my own thoughts so much, that I was afraid of digesting them, lest any should escape me. At last I knocked at my own door.--'So!' said I to the maid who opened it, (for I never would keep a man; not, but what I could afford it--however, the reason is not material now,) 'So!' said I with an unusual smile upon my face, and immediately sent her for a quire of paper and half a hundred of pens--the only thing I had absolutely determined on in my way from the coffee-house. I had now got seated in my arm chair,--I am an infirm old man, and I live on a second floor,--when I began to ruminate on my project. The first thing that occurred to me (and certainly a very natural one) was to examine my common-place book. So I went to my desk and took out my old faithful red-leather companion, who had long discharged the office of treasurer to all my best hints and memorandums: but, how was I surprised, when one of the first things that struck my eyes was the following memorandum, legibly written, and on one of my best sheets of vellum:--'Mem.--_Oct. 20th, 1769, left the Grecian after having read ----'s Poems, with a determined resolution to write a Periodical Paper, in order to reform the vitiated taste of the age; but, coming home and finding my fire out, and my maid gone abroad, was obliged to defer the execution of my plan to another opportunity._'

Now though this event had absolutely slipped my memory, I now recollected it perfectly,--ay, so my fire _was_ out indeed, and my maid _did_ go abroad sure enough.--'Good Heavens!' said I, 'how great events depend upon little circ.u.mstances!' However, I looked upon this as a memento for me no longer to trifle away my time and resolution; and thus I began to reason,--I mean, I _would_ have reasoned, had I not been interrupted by a noise of some one coming up stairs. By the alternate thump upon the steps, I soon discovered it must be my old and intimate friend Rudliche.

"But, to return, in walked Rudliche.--'So, Fred.'--'So, Bob.'--'Were you at the Grecian to-day?'--'I just stepped in.'--'Well, any news?'--'No, no, there was no news.' Now, as Bob and I saw one another almost every day, we seldom abounded in conversation; so, having settled one material point, he sat in his usual posture, looking at the fire and beating the dust out of his wooden leg, when I perceived he was going to touch upon _the_ other subject; but, having by chance cast his eye on my face, and finding (I suppose) something extraordinary in my countenance, he immediately dropped all concern for the weather, and putting his hand into his pocket, (as if he meant to find what he was going to say, under pretence of feeling for his tobacco-box,) 'Hernan! (he began) why, man, you look for all the world as if you had been thinking of something.'-- 'Yes,' replied I, smiling, (that is, not actually smiling, but with a conscious something in my face,) 'I have, indeed, been thinking a little.'--'What, is't a secret?'--'Oh, nothing very material.' Here ensued a pause, which I employed in considering whether I should reveal my scheme to Bob; and Bob in trying to disengage his thumb from the string of his cane, as if he were preparing to take his leave. This latter action, with the great desire I had of disburdening myself, made me instantly resolve to lay my whole plan before him. 'Bob,' said I, (he immediately quitted his thumb,) 'you remarked that I looked as if I had been thinking of something,--your remark is just, and I'll tell you the subject of my thought. You know, Bob, that I always had a strong pa.s.sion for literature:--you have often seen my collection of books, not very large indeed, however I believe I have read every volume of it twice over, (excepting ----'_s Divine Legation of Moses_, and ----'_s Lives of the most notorious Malefactors_,) and I am now determined to profit by them.' I concluded with a very significant nod; but, good heavens! how mortified was I to find both my speech and my nod thrown away, when Rudliche calmly replied, with the true phlegm of ignorance, 'My dear friend, I think your resolution in regard to your books a very prudent one; but I do not perfectly conceive your plan as to the _profit_; for, though your volumes may be very curious, yet you know they are most of them secondhand.'--I was so vexed with the fellow's stupidity that I had a great mind to punish him by not disclosing a syllable more. However, at last my vanity got the better of my resentment, and I explained to him the whole matter.

"In examining the beginning of the Spectators, &c., I find they are all written by a society.--Now I profess to write all myself, though I acknowledge that, on account of a weakness in my eyes, I have got some understrappers who are to write the poetry, &c.... In order to find the different merits of these my subalterns, I stipulated with them that they should let me feed them as I would. This they consented to do, and it is surprising to think what different effects diet has on the writers. The same, who after having been fed two days upon artichokes produced as pretty a copy of verses as ever I saw, on beef was as dull as ditch-water...."

"It is a characteristic of fools," says some one, "to be always beginning,"--and this is not the only point in which folly and genius resemble each other. So chillingly indeed do the difficulties of execution succeed to the first ardor of conception, that it is only wonderful there should exist so many finished monuments of genius, or that men of fancy should not oftener have contented themselves with those first vague sketches, in the production of which the chief luxury of intellectual creation lies. Among the many literary works shadowed out by Sheridan at this time were a Collection of Occasional Poems, and a volume of Crazy Tales, to the former of which Halhed suggests that "the old things they did at Harrow out of Theocritus" might, with a little pruning, form a useful contribution. The loss of the volume of Crazy Tales is little to be regretted, as from its t.i.tle we may conclude it was written in imitation of the clever but licentious productions of John Hall Stephenson. If the same kind oblivion had closed over the levities of other young authors, who, in the season of folly and the pa.s.sions, have made their pages the transcript of their lives, it would have been equally fortunate for themselves and the world.

But whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the translation of Aristaenetus, as I have already stated, was the only fruit of their literary alliance that ever arrived at sufficient maturity for publication. In November, 1770, Halhed had completed and forwarded to Bath his share of the work, and in the following month we find Sheridan preparing, with the a.s.sistance of a Greek grammar, to complete the task. "The 29th ult., (says Mr. Ker, in a letter to him from London, dated Dec. 4, 1770,) I was favored with yours, and have since been hunting for Aristaenetus, whom I found this day, and therefore send to you, together with a Greek grammar. I might have dispatched at the same time some numbers of the Dictionary, but not having got the last two numbers, was not willing to send any without the whole of what is published, and still less willing to delay Aristaenetus's journey by waiting for them." The work alluded to here is the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, to which Sheridan had subscribed, with the view, no doubt, of informing himself upon subjects of which he was as yet wholly ignorant, having left school, like most other young men at his age, as little furnished with the knowledge that is wanted in the world, as a person would be for the demands of a market, who went into it with nothing but a few ancient coins in his pocket.

The pa.s.sion, however, that now began to take possession of his heart was little favorable to his advancement in any serious studies, and it may easily be imagined that, in the neighborhood of Miss Linley, the Arts and Sciences were suffered to sleep quietly on their shelves. Even the translation of Aristaenetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters, that this impatient ally was already counting upon the _spolia opima_ of the campaign, before Sheridan had fairly brought his Greek grammar into the field. The great object of the former was a visit to Bath, and he had set his heart still more anxiously upon it, after a second meeting with Miss Linley at Oxford. But the profits expected from their literary undertakings were the only means to which he looked for the realizing of this dream; and he accordingly implores his friend, with the most comic piteousness, to drive the farce on the stage by main force, and to make Aristaenetus sell whether he will or not. In the November of this year we find them discussing the propriety of prefixing their names to the work--Sheridan evidently not disinclined to venture, but Halhed recommending that they should wait to hear how "Sumner and the wise few of their acquaintance"

would talk of the book, before they risked anything more than their initials. In answer to Sheridan's inquiries as to the extent of sale they may expect in Oxford, he confesses that, after three coffee-houses had bought one a-piece, not two more would be sold.

That poverty is the best nurse of talent has long been a most humiliating truism; and the fountain of the Muses, bursting from a barren rock, is but too apt an emblem of the hard source from which much of the genius of this world has issued. How strongly the young translators of Aristaenetus were under the influence of this sort of inspiration appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters, and might easily, indeed, be concluded of Sheridan, from the very limited circ.u.mstances of his father, who had nothing besides the pension of L200 a year, conferred upon him in consideration of his literary merits, and the little profits he derived from his lectures in Bath, to support with decency himself and his family. The prospects of Halhed were much more golden, but he was far too gay and mercurial to be prudent; and from the very scanty supplies which his father allowed him, had quite as little of "le superflu, chose si necessaire," as his friend. But whatever were his other desires and pursuits, a visit to Bath,--to that place which contained the two persons he most valued in friendship and in love,--was the grand object of all his financial speculations; and among other ways and means that, in the delay of the expected resources from Aristaenetus, presented themselves, was an exhibition of L20 a year, which the college had lately given him, and with five pounds of which he thought he might venture "adire Corinthum."

Though Sheridan had informed his friend that the translation was put to press some time in March, 1771, it does not appear to have been given into the hands of Wilkie, the publisher, till the beginning of May, when Mr. Ker writes thus to Bath: "Your Aristaenetus is in the hands of Mr.

Wilkie, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and to put you out of suspense at once, will certainly make his appearance about the first of June next, in the form of a neat volume, price 3s or 3s 6d, as may best suit his size, &c., which cannot be more nearly determined at present, I have undertaken the task of correcting for the press.... Some of the Epistles that I have perused seem to me elegant and poetical; in others I could not observe equal beauty, and here and there I could wish there was some little amendment. You will pardon this liberty I take, and set it down to the account of old-fashioned friendship." Mr. Ker, to judge from his letters, (which, in addition to their other laudable points, are dated with a precision truly exemplary,) was a very kind, useful, and sensible person, and in the sober hue of his intellect exhibited a striking contrast to the sparkling vivacity of the two sanguine and impatient young wits, whose affairs he so good naturedly undertook to negotiate.

At length in August, 1771, Aristaenetus made its appearance--contrary to the advice of the bookseller, and of Mr. Ker, who represented to Sheridan the unpropitiousness of the season, particularly for a first experiment in authorship, and advised the postponement of the publication till October. But the translators were too eager for the rich harvest of emolument they had promised themselves, and too full of that pleasing but often fatal delusion--that calenture, under the influence of which young voyagers to the sh.o.r.es of Fame imagine they already see her green fields and groves in the treacherous waves around them--to listen to the suggestions of mere calculating men of business.

The first account they heard of the reception of the work was flattering enough to prolong awhile this dream of vanity. "It begins (writes Mr.

Ker, in about a fortnight after the publication,) to make some noise, and is fathered on Mr. Johnson, author of the English Dictionary, &c.

See to-day's Gazetteer. The critics are admirable in discovering a concealed author by his style, manner, &c."

Their disappointment at the ultimate failure of the book was proportioned, we may suppose, to the sanguineness of their first expectations. But the reluctance with which an author yields to the sad certainty of being unread, is apparent in the eagerness with which Halhed avails himself of every encouragement for a rally of his hopes.

The Critical Reviewers, it seems, had given the work a tolerable character, and quoted the first Epistle. [Footnote: In one of the Reviews I have seen it thus spoken of:--"No such writer as Aristaenetus ever existed in the cla.s.sic era; nor did even the unhappy schools, after the destruction of the Eastern empire, produce such a writer. It was left to the latter times of monkish imposition to give such trash as this, on which the translator has ill spent his time. We have been as idly employed in reading it, and our readers will in proportion lose their time in perusing this article."] The Weekly Review in the Public Ledger had also spoken well of it, and cited a specimen. The Oxford Magazine had transcribed two whole Epistles, without mentioning from whence they were taken. Every body, he says, seemed to have read the book, and one of those _hawking booksellers_ who attend the coffeehouses a.s.sured him it was written by Dr. Armstrong, author of the Oeconomy of Love. On the strength of all this he recommends that another volume of the Epistles should be published immediately--being of opinion that the readers of the first volume would be sure to purchase the second, and that the publication of the second would put it in the heads of others to buy the first. Under a sentence containing one of these sanguine antic.i.p.ations, there is written, in Sheridan's hand, the word "Quixote!"

They were never, of course, called upon for the second part, and, whether we consider the merits of the original or of the translation, the world has but little to regret in the loss. Aristaenetus is one of those weak, florid sophists, who flourished in the decline and degradation of ancient literature, and strewed their gaudy flowers of rhetoric over the dead muse of Greece. He is evidently of a much later period than Alciphron, to whom he is also very inferior in purity of diction, variety of subject, and playfulness of irony. But neither of them ever deserved to be wakened from that sleep, in which the commentaries of Bergler, De Pauw, and a few more such industrious scholars have shrouded them.

The translators of Aristaenetus, in rendering his flowery prose into verse, might have found a precedent and model for their task in Ben Jonson, whose popular song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," is, as Mr. c.u.mberland first remarked, but a piece of fanciful mosaic, collected out of the love-letters of the sophist Philostratus. But many of the narrations in Aristaenetus are incapable of being elevated into poetry; and, unluckily, these familiar parts seem chiefly to have fallen to the department of Halhed, who was far less gifted than his coadjutor with that artist-like touch, which polishes away the mark of vulgarity, and gives an air of elegance even to poverty. As the volume is not in many hands, the following extract from one of the Epistles may be acceptable --as well from the singularity of the scene described, as from the specimen it affords of the merits of the translation:

"Listen--another pleasure I display, That help'd delightfully the time away.

From distant vales, where bubbles from its source A crystal rill, they dug a winding course: See! thro' the grove a narrow lake extends, Crosses each plot, to each plantation bends; And while the fount in new meanders glides, The forest brightens with refreshing tides.

Tow'rds us they taught the new-born stream to flow, Tow'rds us it crept, irresolute and slow; Scarce had the infant current crickled by, When lo! a wondrous fleet attracts our eye; Laden with draughts might greet a monarch's tongue, The mimic navigation swam along.

Hasten, ye ship-like goblets, down the vale, [Footnote: "In the original, this luxurious image is pursued so far that the very leaf which is represented as the sail of the vessel, is particularized as of a medicinal nature, capable of preventing any ill effects the wine might produce."--_Note by the Translator.]

Your freight a flagon, and a leaf your sail; O may no envious rush thy course impede, Or floating apple stop thy tide-born speed.

His mildest breath a gentle zephyr gave; The little vessels trimly stem'd the wave: Their precious merchandise to land they bore, And one by one resigned the balmy store.

Stretch but a hand, we boarded them, and quaft With native luxury the tempered draught.

For where they loaded the nectareous fleet, The goblet glow'd with too intense a heat; Cool'd by degrees in these convivial ships, With nicest taste it met our thirsty lips."

As a scholar, such as Halhed, could hardly have been led into the mistake, of supposing [Greek: pa Medika phuxa phullon] to mean "a leaf of a medicinal nature," we may, perhaps, from this circ.u.mstance not less than from the superior workmanship of the verses, attribute the whole of this Epistle and notes to Sheridan.

There is another Epistle, the 12th, as evidently from the pen of his friend, the greater part of which is original, and shows, by its raciness and vigor, what difference there is between "the first sprightly runnings" of an author's own mind, and his cold, vapid transfusion of the thoughts of another. From stanza 10th to the end is all added by the translator, and all spirited--though full of a bold defying libertinism, as unlike as possible to the effeminate lubricity of the poor sophist, upon whom, in a grave, treacherous note, the responsibility of the whole is laid. But by far the most interesting part of the volume is the last Epistle of the book, "From a Lover resigning his Mistress to his Friend,"--in which Halhed has contrived to extract from the unmeaningness of the original a direct allusion to his own fate; and, forgetting Aristaenetus and his dull personages, thinks only of himself, and Sheridan, and Miss Linley.

"Thee, then, my friend,--if yet a wretch may claim A last attention by that once dear name,-- Thee I address:--the cause you must approve; I yield you--what I cannot cease to love.

Be thine the blissful lot, the nymph be thine: I yield my love,--sure, friendship may be mine.

Yet must no thought of me torment thy breast; Forget me, if my griefs disturb thy rest, Whilst still I'll pray that thou may'st never know The pangs of baffled love, or feel my woe.

But sure to thee, dear, charming--fatal maid!

(For me thou'st charmed, and me thou hast betray'd,) This last request I need not recommend-- Forget the lover thou, as he the friend.

Bootless such charge! for ne'er did pity move A heart that mock'd the suit of humble love.

Yet, in some thoughtful hour--if such can be, Where love, Timocrates, is join'd with thee-- In some lone pause of joy, when pleasures pall, And fancy broods o'er joys it can't recall, Haply a thought of me, (for thou, my friend, May'st then have taught that stubborn heart to bend,) A thought of him whose pa.s.sion was not weak, May dash one transient blush upon her cheek; Haply a tear--(for I shall surely then Be past all power to raise her scorn again--) Haply, I say, one self-dried tear may fall:-- One tear she'll give, for whom I yielded all!

My life has lost its aim!--that fatal fair Was all its object, all its hope or care: She was the goal, to which my course was bent, Where every wish, where every thought was sent; A secret influence darted from her eyes,-- Each look, attraction, and herself the prize.

Concentred there, I liv'd for her alone; To make her glad and to be blest was one.

Adieu, my friend,--nor blame this _sad_ adieu, Though sorrow guides my pen, it blames not you.

Forget me--'tis my pray'r; nor seek to know The fate of him whose portion must be woe, Till the cold earth outstretch her friendly arms, And Death convince me that he _can_ have charms."

But Halhed's was not the only heart that sighed deeply and hopelessly for the young Maid of Bath, who appears, indeed, to have spread her gentle conquests to an extent almost unparalleled in the annals of beauty. Her personal charms, the exquisiteness of her musical talents, and the full light of publicity which her profession threw upon both, naturally attracted round her a crowd of admirers, in whom the sympathy of a common pursuit soon kindled into rivalry, till she became at length an object of vanity as well as of love. Her extreme youth, too,--for she was little more than sixteen when Sheridan first met her,--must have removed, even from minds the most fastidious and delicate, that repugnance they might justly have felt to her profession, if she had lived much longer under its tarnishing influence, or lost, by frequent exhibitions before the public, that fine gloss of feminine modesty, for whose absence not all the talents and accomplishments of the whole s.e.x can atone.

She had been, even at this early age, on the point of marriage with Mr.

Long, an old gentleman of considerable fortune in Wiltshire, who proved the reality of his attachment to her in a way which few young lovers would be romantic enough to imitate. On her secretly representing to him that she never could be happy as his wife, he generously took upon himself the whole blame of breaking off the alliance, and even indemnified the father, who was proceeding to bring the transaction into court, by settling L3000 upon his daughter. Mr. Sheridan, who owed to this liberal conduct not only the possession of the woman he loved, but the means of supporting her during the first years of their marriage, spoke invariably of Mr. Long, who lived to a very advanced age, with all the kindness and respect which such a disinterested character merited.

It was about the middle of the year 1770 that the Sheridans took up their residence in King's Mead [Footnote: They also lived, during a part of their stay at Bath, in New King Street.] Street, Bath, where an acquaintance commenced between them and Mr. Linley's family, which the kindred tastes of the young people soon ripened into intimacy. It was not to be expected,--though parents, in general, are as blind to the first approach of these dangers as they are rigid and unreasonable after they have happened,--that such youthful poets and musicians [Footnote: Dr. Burney, in his Biographical Sketch of Mr. Linley, written for Rees'

Cyclopaedia, calls the Linley family "a nest of nightingales." The only surviving member of this accomplished family is Mr. William Linley, whose taste and talent, both in poetry and music, most worthily sustain the reputation of the name that he bears.]--should come together without Love very soon making one of the party. Accordingly the two brothers became deeply enamored of Miss Linley. Her heart, however, was not so wholly un-preoccupied as to yield at once to the pa.s.sion which her destiny had in store for her. One of those transient preferences, which in early youth are mistaken for love, had already taken lively possession of her imagination; and to this the following lines, written at that time by Mr. Sheridan, allude:

TO THE RECORDING ANGEL.

Cherub of Heaven, that from my secret stand Dost note the follies of each mortal here, Oh, if Eliza's steps employ thy hand, Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear.

Nor when she errs, through pa.s.sion's wild extreme, Mark then her course, nor heed each trifling wrong; Nor, when her sad attachment is her theme, Note down the transports of her erring tongue.

But, when she sighs for sorrows not her own, Let that dear sigh to Mercy's cause be given; And bear that tear to her Creator's throne, Which glistens in the eye upraised to Heaven!

But in love, as in everything else, the power of a mind like Sheridan's must have made itself felt through all obstacles and difficulties. He was not long in winning the entire affections of the young "Syren,"

though the number and wealth of his rivals, the ambitious views of her father, and the temptations to which she herself was hourly exposed, kept his jealousies and fears perpetually on the watch. He is supposed, indeed, to have been indebted to self-observation for that portrait of a wayward and morbidly sensitive lover, which he has drawn so strikingly in the character of Falkland.

With a mind in this state of feverish wakefulness, it is remarkable that he should so long have succeeded in concealing his attachment from the eyes of those most interested in discovering it. Even his brother Charles was for some time wholly unaware of their rivalry, and went on securely indulging in a pa.s.sion which it was hardly possible, with such opportunities of intercourse, to resist, and which survived long after Miss Linley's selection of another had extinguished every hope in his heart, but that of seeing her happy. Halhed, too, who at that period corresponded constantly with Sheridan, and confided to him the love with which he also had been inspired by this enchantress, was for a length of time left in the same darkness upon the subject, and without the slightest suspicion that the epidemic had reached his friend, whose only mode of evading the many tender inquiries and messages with which Halhed's letters abounded, was by referring to answers which had by some strange fatality miscarried, and which, we may conclude, without much uncharitableness, had never been written.