Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume I Part 23

Windham began, as we have seen, very early at Bath, and the following letter, addressed to him by that gentleman from Norfolk, in the year 1778, is a curious record not only of the first political movements of a person so celebrated as Mr. Windham, but of the interest with which Sheridan then entered into the public measures of the day:--

"Jan. 5, 1778.

"I fear my letter will greatly disappoint your hopes. [Footnote: Mr.

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

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

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

"Believe me yours most truly,

"W. WlNDHAM.

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

"Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq.,

"Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields."

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

cla.s.s of the community, as Swift's references to Locke, Molyneux, and Sydney, were to the readers for whom he also professed to write:--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without any disparagement of the manly and useful talents, which are at present no where more conspicuous than in the upper ranks of society, it may be owned that for wit, social powers, and literary accomplishments, the political men of the period under consideration formed such an a.s.semblage as it would be flattery to say that our own times can parallel. The natural tendency of the excesses of the French Revolution was to produce in the higher cla.s.ses of England an increased reserve of manner, and, of course, a proportionate restraint on all within their circle, which have been fatal to conviviality and humor, and not very propitious to wit--subduing both manners and conversation to a sort of polished level, to rise above which is often thought almost as vulgar as to sink below it. Of the greater ease of manners that existed some forty or fifty years ago, one trifling, but not the less significant, indication was the habit, then prevalent among men of high station, of calling each other by such familiar names as d.i.c.k, Jack, Tom, &c.

[Footnote: d.i.c.k Sheridan, Ned Burke, Jack Townshend, Tom Grenville, &c.

&c.]--a mode of address that brings with it, in its very sound, the notion of conviviality and playfulness, and, however unrefined, implies, at least, that ease and _sea-room_, in which wit spreads its canvas most fearlessly.

With respect to literary accomplishments, too,--in one branch of which, poetry, almost all the leading politicians of that day distinguished themselves--the change that has taken place in the times, independently of any want of such talent, will fully account for the difference that we witness, in this respect, at present. As the public mind becomes more intelligent and watchful, statesmen can the less afford to trifle with their talents, or to bring suspicion upon their fitness for their own vocation, by the failures which they risk in deviating into others.

Besides, in poetry, the temptation of distinction no longer exists--the commonness of that talent in the market, at present, being such as to reduce the value of an elegant copy of verses very far below the price it was at, when Mr. Hayley enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly of the article.

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

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

"And know, I've bought the best champagne from Brooks; From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill; Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."]

What gratulations thy approach attend!

See Gibbon rap his box-auspicious sign That cla.s.sic compliment and wit combine; See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give what cruel health denies;--

On that auspicious night, supremely grac'd With chosen guests, the pride of liberal taste, Not in contentious heat, nor madd'ning strife, Not with the busy ills, nor cares of life, We'll waste the fleeting hours--far happier themes Shall claim each thought and chase ambition's dreams.

Each _beauty_ that _sublimity_ can boast _He_ best shall tell, who still unites them most.

Of wit, of taste, of fancy we'll debate, If Sheridan, for once, be not too late: But scarce a thought on politics we'll spare, Unless on Polish politics, with Hare.

Good-natur'd Devon! oft shall then appear The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer: Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit and Stanhope's case And Burgoyne's manly sense unite to please.

And while each guest attends our varied feats Of scattered covies and retreating fleets, Me shall they wish some better sport to gain, And Thee more glory, from the next campaign."

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

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

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

The dissolution of parliament that took place in the autumn of this year (1780) afforded at length the opportunity to which his ambition had so eagerly looked forward. It has been said, I know not with what accuracy, that he first tried his chance of election at Honiton--but Stafford was the place destined to have the honor of first choosing him for its representative; and it must have been no small gratification to his independent spirit, that, unfurnished as he was with claims from past political services, he appeared in parliament, not as the nominee of any aristocratic patron, but as member for a borough, which, whatever might be its purity in other respects, at least enjoyed the freedom of choice.

Elected conjointly with Mr. Monckton, to whose interest and exertions he chiefly owed his success, he took his seat in the new parliament which met in the month of October;--and, from that moment giving himself up to the pursuit of politics, bid adieu to the worship of the Dramatic Muse for ever.

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

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

CHAPTER VII.

UNFINISHED PLAYS AND POEMS.

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

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

"SCENE II.

"THORNHILL _and_ ARNOLD.

"_Thornhill._ Nay, prithee, Jack, no more of that if you love me.

What, shall I stop short with the game in full view? Faith, I believe the fellow's turned puritan. What think you of turning methodist, Jack?

You have a tolerable good canting countenance, and, if escaped being taken up for a Jesuit, you might make a fortune in Moor-fields.

"_Arnold._ I was serious, Tom.

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

"_Arn._ And therefore you would deceive her.