Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume II Part 7

Yet even into transactions of this nature, little as they are akin to mirth, the following letter of Richardson will show that these brother wits contrived to infuse a portion of gaiety:

"DEAR SHERIDAN,

"_Ess.e.x-Street, Sat.u.r.day evening._

"I had a terrible long batch with Bobby this morning, after I wrote to you by Francois. I have so far succeeded that he has agreed to continue the day of trial as _we_ call it (that is, in vulgar, unlearned language, to put it off) from Tuesday till Sat.u.r.day. He demands, as preliminaries, that Wright's bill of 500_l_. should be given up to him, as a prosecution had been commenced against him, which, however, he has stopped by an injunction from the Court of Chancery. This, if the transaction be as he states it, appears reasonable enough. He insists, besides, that the bill should undergo the most rigid examination; that you should transmit your objections, to which he will send answers, (for the point of a personal interview has not been yet carried,) and that the whole amount at last, whatever it may be, should have your clear and satisfied approbation:--nothing to be done without this--almighty honor!

"All these things being done, I desired to know what was to be the result at last:--'Surely, after having carried so many points, you will think it only common decency to relax a little as to the time of payment? You will not cut your pound of flesh the nearest from the merchant's heart?' To this Bobides, 'I must have 2000_l_. put in a shape of practicable use, and payment immediately;--for the rest I will accept security.' This was strongly objected to by me, as Jewish in the extreme; but, however, so we parted. You will think with me, I hope, that something has been done, however, by this meeting. It has opened an access to a favorable adjustment, and time and trust may do much. I am to see him again on Monday morning at two, so pray don't go out of town to-morrow without my seeing you. The matter is of immense consequence. I never knew till to-day that the process had been going on so long. I am convinced he could force you to trial next Tuesday with all your infirmities green upon your head; so pray attend to it.

"_R. B. Sheridan, Esq._

"Yours ever,

"_Lower Grosvenor-Street_.

"J. RICHARDSON."

This letter was written in the year 1792, when Sheridan's involvements had begun to thicken around him more rapidly. There is another letter, about the same date, still more characteristic,--where, after beginning in evident anger and distress of mind, the writer breaks off, as if irresistibly, into the old strain of playfulness and good humor.

"DEAR SHERIDAN,

"_Wednesday, Ess.e.x-Street, July 30_.

"I write to you with more unpleasant feelings than I ever did in my life.

Westly, after having told me for the last three weeks that nothing was wanting for my accommodation but your consent, having told me so, so late as Friday, sends me word on Monday that he would not do it at all. In four days I have a _cognovit_ expires for 200_l_. I can't suffer my family to be turned into the streets if I can help it. I have no resource but my abilities, such as they are. I certainly mean to write something in the course of the summer. As a matter of business and bargain I _can_ have no higher hope about it than that you won't suffer by it. However, if you won't take it somebody else _must_, for no human consideration will induce me to leave any means untried, that may rescue my family from this impending misfortune.

"For the sake of convenience you will probably give me the importance of construing this into an incendiary letter. I wish to G.o.d you may, and order your treasurer to deposit the acceptance accordingly; for nothing can be so irksome to me as that the nations of the earth should think there had been any interruption of friendship between you and me; and though that would not be the case in fact, both being influenced, I must believe, by a necessity which we could not control, yet the said nations would so interpret it. If I don't hear from you before Friday, I shall conclude that you leave me in this dire sc.r.a.pe to shift for myself.

"_R. B. Sheridan, Esq._

"Yours ever,

"_Isleworth, Middles.e.x._

"J. RICHARDSON."

_Diben, Friday, 22d._

CHAPTER IV.

FRENCH REVOLUTION.--MR. BURKE.--HIS BREACH WITH MR.

SHERIDAN.--DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.--MR. BURKE AND MR. FOX.--RUSSIAN ARMAMENT.--ROYAL SCOTCH BOROUGHS.

We have now to consider the conduct and opinions of Mr. Sheridan, during the measures and discussions consequent upon the French Revolution,--an event, by which the minds of men throughout all Europe were thrown into a state of such feverish excitement, that a more than usual degree of tolerance should be exercised towards the errors and extremes into which all parties were hurried during the paroxysm. There was, indeed, no rank or cla.s.s of society, whose interests and pa.s.sions were not deeply involved in the question. The powerful and the rich, both of State and Church, must naturally have regarded with dismay the advance of a political heresy, whose path they saw strewed over with the broken talismans of rank and authority. Many, too, with a disinterested reverence for ancient inst.i.tutions, trembled to see them thus approached by rash hands, whose talents for ruin were sufficiently certain, but whose powers of reconstruction were yet to be tried. On the other hand, the easy triumph of a people over their oppressors was an example which could not fail to excite the hopes of the many as actively as the fears of the few. The great problem of the natural rights of mankind seemed about to be solved in a manner most flattering to the majority; the zeal of the lover of liberty was kindled into enthusiasm, by a conquest achieved for his cause upon an arena so vast; and many, who before would have smiled at the doctrine of human perfectibility, now imagined they saw, in what the Revolution performed and promised, almost enough to sanction the indulgence of that splendid dream. It was natural, too, that the greater portion of that unemployed, and, as it were, homeless talent, which, in all great communities, is ever abroad on the wing, uncertain where to settle, should now swarm round the light of the new principles,--while all those obscure but ambitious spirits, who felt their aspirings clogged by the medium in which they were sunk, would as naturally welcome such a state of political effervescence, as might enable them, like enfranchised air, to mount at once to the surface.

Amidst all these various interests, imaginations, and fears, which were brought to life by the dawn of the French Revolution, it is not surprising that errors and excesses, both of conduct and opinion, should be among the first products of so new and sudden a movement of the whole civilized world;--that the friends of popular rights, presuming upon the triumph that had been gained, should, in the ardor of pursuit, push on the vanguard of their principles, somewhat farther than was consistent with prudence and safety; or that, on the other side, Authority and its supporters, alarmed by the inroads of the Revolutionary spirit, should but the more stubbornly intrench themselves in established abuses, and make the dangers they apprehended from liberty a pretext for a.s.sailing its very existence.

It was not long before these effects of the French Revolution began to show themselves very strikingly in the politics of England; and, singularly enough, the two extreme opinions, to which, as I have just remarked, that disturbing event gave rise, instead of first appearing, as might naturally be expected, the one on the side of Government, and the other on that of the Opposition, both broke out simultaneously in the very heart of the latter body.

On such an imagination as that of Burke, the scenes now pa.s.sing in France were every way calculated to make a most vivid impression. So susceptible was he, indeed, of such impulses, and so much under the control of the imaginative department of his intellect, that, whatever might have been the accidental mood of his mind, at the moment when this astounding event first burst upon him, it would most probably have acted as a sort of mental catalepsy, and fixed his reason in the very att.i.tude in which it found it. He had, however, been prepared for the part which he now took by much more deep and grounded causes. It was rather from circ.u.mstances than from choice, or any natural affinity, that Mr. Burke had ever attached himself to the popular party in politics. There was, in truth, nothing democratic about him but his origin;--his tastes were all on the side of the splendid and the arbitrary. The chief recommendation of the cause of India to his fancy and his feeling was that it involved the fate of ancient dynasties, and invoked retribution for the downfall of thrones and princedoms, to which his imagination, always most affected by objects at a distance, lent a state and splendor that did not, in sober reality, belong to them. Though doomed to make Whiggism his habitual haunt, he took his perch at all times on its loftiest branches, as far as possible away from popular contact; and, upon most occasions, adopted a sort of baronial view of liberty, as rather a question lying between the Throne and the Aristocracy, than one in which the people had a right to any efficient voice or agency. Accordingly, the question of Parliamentary Reform, from the first moment of its agitation, found in him a most decided opponent.

This inherent repugnance to popular principles became naturally heightened into impatience and disgust, by the long and fruitless warfare which he had waged under their banner, and the uniform ill success with which they had blasted all his struggles for wealth and power. Nor was he in any better temper with his a.s.sociates in the cause,--having found that the ascendancy, which he had formerly exercised over them, and which, in some degree, consoled him for the want of official dominion, was of late considerably diminished, if not wholly transferred to others. Sheridan, as has been stated, was the most prominent object of his jealousy;--and it is curious to remark how much, even in feelings of this description, the aristocratical bias of his mind betrayed itself. For, though Mr. Fox, too, had overtaken and even pa.s.sed him in the race, a.s.suming that station in politics which he himself had previously held, yet so paramount did those claims of birth and connection, by which the new leader came recommended, appear in his eyes, that he submitted to be superseded by him, not only without a murmur, but cheerfully. To Sheridan, however, who had no such hereditary pa.s.sport to pre-eminence, he could not give way without heart burning and humiliation; and to be supplanted thus by a rival son of earth seemed no less a shock to his superst.i.tious notions about rank, than it was painful to his feelings of self-love and pride.

Such, as far as can be ascertained by a distant observer of those times, was the temper in which the first events of the Revolution found the mind of this remarkable man;--and, powerfully as they would, at any time, have appealed to his imagination and prejudices, the state of irritability to which he had been wrought by the causes already enumerated peculiarly predisposed him, at this moment, to give way to such impressions without restraint, and even to welcome as a timely relief to his pride, the mighty vent thus afforded to the "_splendida bilis_" with which it was charged.

There was indeed much to animate and give a zest to the new part which he now took. He saw those principles, to which he owed a deep grudge, for the time and the talents he had wasted in their service, now embodied in a shape so wild and alarming, as seemed to justify him, on grounds of public safety, in turning against them the hole powers of his mind, and thus enabled him, opportunely, to dignify desertion, by throwing the semblance of patriotism and conscientiousness round the reality of defection and revenge. He saw the party, too, who, from the moment they had ceased to be ruled by him, were a.s.sociated only in his mind with recollections of unpopularity and defeat, about to adopt a line of politics which his long knowledge of the people of England, and his sagacious foresight of the consequences of the French Revolution, fully convinced him would lead to the same barren and mortifying results. On the contrary, the cause to which he proffered his alliance, would, he was equally sure, by arraying on its side all the rank, riches, and religion of Europe, enable him at length to feel that sense of power and triumph, for which his domineering spirit had so long panted in vain. In this latter hope, indeed, of a speedy triumph over Jacobinism, his temperament, as was often the case, outran his sagacity; for, while he foresaw clearly that the dissolution of social order in France would at last harden into a military tyranny, he appeared not to be aware that the violent measures which he recommended against her would not only hasten this formidable result, but bind the whole ma.s.s of the people into union and resistance during the process.

Lastly--To these attractions, of various kinds, with which the cause of Thrones was now encircled in the eyes of Burke, must be added one, which, however it may still further disenchant our views of his conversion, cannot wholly be omitted among the inducements to his change,--and this was the strong claim upon the grat.i.tude of government, which his seasonable and powerful advocacy in a crisis so difficult established for him, and which the narrow and embarra.s.sed state of his circ.u.mstances rendered an object by no means of secondary importance in his views.

Unfortunately,--from a delicate wish, perhaps, that the reward should not appear to come in too close coincidence with the service,--the pension bestowed upon him arrived too late to admit of his deriving much more from it than the obloquy by which it was accompanied.

The consequence, as is well known, of the new course taken by Burke was that the speeches and writings which he henceforward produced, and in which, as usual, his judgment was run away with by his temper, form a complete contrast, in spirit and tendency, to all that he had put on record in the former part of his life. He has, indeed, left behind him two separate and distinct armories of opinion, from which both Whig and Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the most highly tempered, that ever Genius and Eloquence have condescended to bequeath to Party. He has thus too, by his own personal versatility, attained, in the world of politics, what Shakspeare, by the versatility of his characters, achieved for the world in general,--namely, such a universality of application to all opinions and purposes, that it would be difficult for any statesman of any party to find himself placed in any situation, for which he could not select some golden sentence from Burke, either to strengthen his position by reasoning or ill.u.s.trate and adorn it by, fancy. While, therefore, our respect for the man himself is diminished by this want of moral ident.i.ty observable through his life and writings, we are but the more disposed to admire that unrivalled genius, which could thus throw itself out in so many various directions with equal splendor and vigor. In general, political deserters lose their value and power in the very act, and bring little more than their treason to the new cause which they espouse:--

_"Fortis in armis Caesaris Labienus erat; nunc transfuga vilis."_

But Burke was mighty in either camp; and it would have taken _two_ great men to effect what he, by this division of himself achieved. His mind, indeed, lies parted asunder in his works, like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature,--each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility with each other.

It was during the discussions on the Army Estimates, at the commencement of the session of 1790, that the difference between Mr. Burke and his party in their views of the French Revolution first manifested itself.

Mr. Fox having taken occasion to praise the late conduct of the French Guards in refusing to obey the dictates of the Court, and having declared that he exulted, "both from feelings and from principles," in the political change that had been brought about in that country, Mr. Burke, in answering him, entered fully, and, it must be owned, most luminously into the question,--expressing his apprehension, lest the example of France, which had, at a former period, threatened England with the contagion of despotism, should now be the means of introducing among her people the no less fatal taint of Democracy and Atheism. After some eloquent tributes of admiration to Mr. Fox, rendered more animated, perhaps, by the consciousness that they were the last offerings thrown into the open grave of their friendship, he proceeded to deprecate the effects which the language of his Right Honorable Friend might have, in appearing to countenance the disposition observable among "some wicked persons" to "recommend an imitation of the French spirit of Reform," and then added a declaration, equally remarkable for the insidious charge which it implied against his own party, and the notice of his approaching desertion which it conveyed to the other,--that "so strongly opposed was he to any the least tendency towards the _means_ of introducing a democracy like that of the French, as well as to the _end_ itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if such a thing should be attempted, and that any friend of his could concur in such measures (he was far, very far, from believing they could), he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end."

It is pretty evident, from these words, that Burke had already made up his mind as to the course he should pursue, and but delayed his declaration of a total breach, in order to prepare the minds of the public for such an event, and, by waiting to take advantage of some moment of provocation, make the intemperance of others responsible for his own deliberate schism. The reply of Mr. Fox was not such as could afford this opportunity;--it was, on the contrary, full of candor and moderation, and repelled the implied charge of being a favorer of the new doctrines of France in the most decided, but, at the same time, most conciliatory terms.

"Did such a declaration," he asked, "warrant the idea that he was a friend to Democracy? He declared himself equally the enemy of all absolute forms of government, whether an absolute Monarchy, an absolute Aristocracy, or an absolute Democracy. He was adverse to all extremes, and a friend only to a mixed government like our own, in which, if the Aristocracy, or indeed either of the three branches of the Const.i.tution, were destroyed, the good effect of the whole, and the happiness derived under it would, in his mind, be at an end."

In returning, too, the praises bestowed upon him by his friend, he made the following memorable and n.o.ble acknowledgment of all that he himself had gained by their intercourse:--

"Such (he said) was his sense of the judgment of his Right Honorable Friend, such his knowledge of his principles, such the value which he set upon them, and such the estimation in which he held his friendship, that if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from books, all which he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the improvement which he had derived from his Right Honorable Friend's instruction and conversation were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to which to give the preference."

This, from a person so rich in acquirements as Mr. Fox, was the very highest praise,--nor, except in what related to the judgment and principles of his friend, was it at all exaggerated. The conversation of Burke must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step--occasionally, perhaps, mingling the low Fescennine jest with the lofty music of its march, but glittering all over with the spoils of the whole ransacked world.

Mr. Burke, in reply, after reiterating his praises of Mr. Fox, and the full confidence which he felt in his moderation and sagacity, professed himself perfectly satisfied with the explanations that had been given.

The conversation would thus have pa.s.sed off without any explosion, had not Sheridan, who was well aware that against him, in particular, the charge of a tendency to the adoption of French principles was directed, risen immediately after, and by a speech warmly in favor of the Revolution and of the National a.s.sembly, at once lighted the train in the mind of Burke, and brought the question, as far as regarded themselves, to an immediate issue.

"He differed," he said, "decidedly, from his Right Honorable Friend in almost every word that be had uttered respecting the French Revolution.

He conceived it to be as just a Revolution as ours, proceeding upon as sound a principle and as just a provocation. He vehemently defended the general views and conduct of the National a.s.sembly. He could not even understand what was meant by the charges against them of having overturned the laws, the justice, and the revenues of their country. What were their laws? the arbitrary mandates of capricious despotism. What their justice? the partial adjudications of venal magistrates. What their revenues? national bankruptcy. This he thought the fundamental error of his Right Honorable Friend's argument, that he accused the National a.s.sembly of creating the evils, which they had found existing in full deformity at the first hour of their meeting. The public creditor had been defrauded; the manufacturer was without employ; trade was languishing; famine clung upon the poor; despair on all. In this situation, the wisdom and feelings of the nation were appealed to by the government; and was it to be wondered at by Englishmen, that a people, so circ.u.mstanced, should search for the cause and source of all their calamities, or that they should find them in the arbitrary const.i.tution of their government, and in the prodigal and corrupt administration of their revenues? For such an evil when proved, what remedy could be resorted to, but a radical amendment of the frame and fabric of the Const.i.tution itself? This change was not the object and wish of the National a.s.sembly only; it was the claim and cry of all France, united as one man for one purpose."

All this is just and unanswerable--as indeed was the greater part of the sentiments which he uttered. But he seems to have failed, even more signally than Mr. Fox, in endeavoring to invalidate the masterly view which Burke had just taken of the Revolution of 1688, as compared, in its means and object, with that of France. There was, in truth, but little similarity between them,--the task of the former being to preserve liberty, that of the latter to destroy tyranny; the one being a regulated movement of the Aristocracy against the Throne for the Nation, the other a tumultuous rising of the whole Nation against both for itself.

The reply of Mr. Burke was conclusive and peremptory,--such, in short, as might be expected from a person who came prepared to take the first plausible opportunity of a rupture. He declared that "henceforth, his Honorable Friend and he were separated in politics,"--complained that his arguments had been cruelly misrepresented, and that "the Honorable Gentleman had thought proper to charge him with being the advocate of despotism." Having endeavored to defend himself from such an imputation, he concluded by saying,--

"Was that a fair and candid mode of treating his arguments? or was it what he ought to have expected _in the moment of departed friendship?_ On the contrary, was it not evident that the Honorable Gentleman had made a sacrifice of his friendship, for the sake of catching some momentary popularity? If the fact were such, even greatly as he should continue to admire the Honorable Gentleman's talents, he must tell him that his argument was chiefly an argument _ad invidiam_, and all the applause for which he could hope from clubs was scarcely worth the sacrifice which he had chosen to make for so insignificant an acquisition."

I have given the circ.u.mstances of this Debate somewhat in detail, not only on account of its own interest and of the share which Mr. Sheridan took in it, but from its being the first scene of that great political schism, which in the following year a.s.sumed a still more serious aspect, and by which the policy of Mr. Pitt at length acquired a predominance, not speedily to be forgotten in the annals of this country.