Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume II Part 28

In what are called _Ver de Societie_, or drawing-room verses, he took great delight; and there remain among his papers several sketches of these trifles. I once heard him repeat in a ballroom, some verses which he had lately written on Waltzing, and of which I remember the following:

"With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance, Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance.

In such sweet posture our first Parents mov'd, While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they rov'd; Ere yet the Devil, with promise foul and false, Turn'd their poor heads and taught them how to _Walse_.

One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip-- * * * * *

For so the Law's laid down by Baron Trip."

[Footnote: This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as legal authority on the subject of Waltzing, was at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles.]

He had a sort of hereditary fancy for difficult trifling in poetry;--particularly for that sort, which consists in rhyming to the same word through a long string of couplets, till every rhyme that the language supplies for it is exhausted, [Footnote: Some verses by General Fitzpatrick on Lord Holland's father are the best specimen that I know of this sort of _Scherzo_.] The following are specimens from a poem of this kind, which he wrote on the loss of a lady's trunk:--

"MY TRUNK!

"(_To Anne_.)

"Have you heard, my deer Anne, how my spirits are sunk?

Have you heard of the cause? Oh, the loss of my _Trunk_!

From exertion or firmness I've never yet slunk; But my fort.i.tude's gone with the loss of my _Trunk_!

Stout Lucy, my maid, is a damsel of s.p.u.n.k; Yet she weeps night and day for the loss of my _Trunk_!

I'd better turn nun, and coquet with a monk; For with whom can I flirt without aid from my _Trunk_!

Accurs'd be the thief, the old rascally hunks; Who rifles the fair, and lays hands on their _Trunks_!

He, who robs the King's stores of the least bit of junk, Is hang'd--while he's safe, who has plunder'd my _Trunk_!

There's a phrase amongst lawyers, when _nune's_ put for _tune_; But, tune and nune both, must I grieve for my _Trunk_!

Huge leaves of that great commentator, old Brunck, Perhaps was the paper that lin'd my poor _Trunk_!

But my rhymes are all out;--for I dare not use st--k; [1]

'Twould shock Sheridan more than the loss of my _Trunk_!"

[Footnote 1: He had a particular horror of this word.]

From another of these trifles, (which, no doubt, produced much gaiety at the breakfast-table,) the following extracts will be sufficient:--

"Muse, a.s.sist me to complain, While I grieve for Lady _Jane_.

I ne'er was in so sad a vein, Deserted now by Lady _Jane_.

Lord Petre's house was built by Payne-- No mortal architect made _Jane_.

If hearts had windows, through the pane Of mine you'd see sweet Lady _Jane_.

At breakfast I could scarce refrain From tears at missing lovely _Jane_, Nine rolls I eat, in hopes to gain The roll that might have fall'n to _Jane_," &c.

Another written on a Mr. _Bigg_, contains some ludicrous couplets:--

"I own he's not fam'd for a reel or a jig, Tom Sheridan there surpa.s.ses Tom _Bigg_.-- For lam'd in one thigh, he is obliged to go zig- Zag, like a crab--for no dancer is _Bigg_.

Those who think him a c.o.xcomb, or call him a prig, How little they know of the mind of my _Bigg_!

Tho' he ne'er can be mine, Hope will catch a twig-- Two Deaths--and I yet may become Mrs. _Bigg_.

Oh give me, with him, but a cottage and pig, And content I would live on Beans, Bacon, and _Bigg_."

A few more of these light productions remain among his papers, but their wit is gone with those for whom they were written;--the wings of Time "eripuere _jocos_."

Of a very different description are the following striking and spirited fragments, (which ought to have been mentioned in a former part of this work,) written by him, apparently, about the year 1794, and addressed to the Naval heroes of that period, to console them for the neglect they experienced from the Government, while ribands and t.i.tles were lavished on the Whig Seceders:--

"Never mind them, brave black d.i.c.k, Though they've played thee such a trick-- d.a.m.n their ribands and their garters, Get you to your post and quarters.

Look upon the azure sea, There's a Sailor's Taffety!

Mark the Zodiac's radiant bow, That's a collar fit for HOWE!-- And, then P--tl--d's brighter far, The Pole shall furnish you a Star! [1]

d.a.m.n their ribands and their garters, Get you to your post and quarters, Think, on what things are ribands showered-- The two Sir Georges--Y---- and H---!

Look to what rubbish Stars will stick, To d.i.c.ky H----n and Johnny D----k!

Would it be for your country's good, That you might pa.s.s for Alec. H----d, Or, perhaps,--and worse by half-- To be mistaken for Sir R----h!

Would you, like C----, pine with spleen, Because your bit of silk was green?

Would you, like C----, change your side, To have your silk new dipt and dyed?-- Like him exclaim, 'My riband's hue Was green--and now, by Heav'ns! 'tis blue,'

And, like him--stain your honor too?

d.a.m.n their ribands and their garters, Get you to your post and quarters.

On the foes of Britain close, While B----k garters his Dutch hose, And cons, with spectacles on nose, (While to battle _you_ advance,) His '_Honi soit qui mal y pense_.'"

[Footnote 1: This reminds me of a happy application which he made, upon a subsequent occasion, of two lines of Dryden:--

"When men like Erskine go astray, The stars are more in fault than they."]

It has been seen, by a letter of his sister already given, that, when young, he was generally accounted handsome; but, in later years, his eyes were the only testimonials of beauty that remained to him. It was, indeed, in the upper part of his face that the Spirit of the man chiefly reigned;--the dominion of the world and the Senses being rather strongly marked out in the lower. In his person, he was above the middle size, and his general make was, as I have already said, robust and well proportioned. It is remarkable that his arms, though of powerful strength, were thin, and appeared by no means muscular. His hands were small and delicate; and the following couplet, written on a cast from one of them, very livelily enumerates both its physical and moral qualities:--

"Good at a Fight, but better at a Play, G.o.dlike in giving, but--the Devil to Pay!"

Among his habits, it may not be uninteresting to know that his hours of composition, as long as he continued to be an author, were at night, and that he required a profusion of lights around him while he wrote. Wine, too, was one of his favorite helps to inspiration;--"If the thought, (he would say,) is slow to come, a gla.s.s of good wine encourages it, and, when it _does_ come, a gla.s.s of good wine rewards it."

Having taken a cursory view of his Literary, Political, and Social qualities, it remains for me to say a few words upon that most important point of all, his Moral character.

There are few persons, as we have seen, to whose kind and affectionate conduct, in some of the most interesting relations of domestic life, so many strong and honorable testimonies remain. The pains he took to win back the estranged feelings of his father, and the filial tenderness with which he repaid long years of parental caprice, show a heart that had, at least, set out by the right road, however, in after years, it may have missed the way. The enthusiastic love which his sister bore him, and retained unblighted by distance or neglect, is another proof of the influence of his amiable feelings, at that period of life when he was as yet unspoiled by the world. We have seen the romantic fondness which he preserved towards the first Mrs. Sheridan, even while doing his utmost, and in vain, to extinguish the same feeling in her. With the second wife, a course, nearly similar, was run;--the same "scatterings and eclipses"

of affection, from the irregularities and vanities, in which he continued to indulge, but the same hold kept of each other's hearts to the last.

Her early letters to him breathe a pa.s.sion little short of idolatry, and her devoted attentions beside his death-bed showed that the essential part of the feeling still remained.

To claim an exemption for frailties and irregularities on the score of genius, while there are such names as Milton and Newton on record, were to be blind to the example which these and other great men have left, of the grandest intellectual powers combined with the most virtuous lives.

But, for the bias given early to the mind by education and circ.u.mstances, even the least charitable may be inclined to make large allowances. We have seen how idly the young days of Sheridan were wasted--how soon he was left, (in the words of the Prophet,) "to dwell carelessly ," and with what an undisciplined temperament he was thrown upon the world, to meet at every step that never-failing spring of temptation, which, like the fatal fountain in the Garden of Armida, sparkles up for ever in the pathway of such a man:--

"Un fonte sorge in lei, che vaghe e monde Ha l'acque si, che i riguardanti a.s.seta, Ma dentro ai freddi suoi cristalli asconde Di tosco estran malvagita secreta."

Even marriage, which is among the sedatives of other men's lives, but formed a part of the romance of his. The very attractions of his wife increased his danger, by doubling, as it were the power of the world over him, and leading him astray by her light as well as by his own. Had his talents, even then, been subjected to the _manege_ of a profession, there was still a chance that business, and the round of regularity which it requires, might have infused some spirit of order into his life. But the Stage--his glory and his ruin--opened upon him; and the property of which it made him master was exactly of that treacherous kind which not only deceives a man himself, but enables him to deceive others, and thus combined all that a person of his carelessness and ambition had most to dread. An uncertain income, which, by eluding calculation, gives an excuse for improvidence, [Footnote: How feelingly aware he was of this great source of all his misfortunes appears from a pa.s.sage in the able speech which he delivered before the Chancellor, as Counsel in his own case, in the year 1799 or 1800:--

"It is a great disadvantage, relatively speaking, to any man, and especially to a very careless, and a very sanguine man, to have possessed an uncertain and fluctuating income. That disadvantage is greatly increased, if the person so circ.u.mstanced has conceived himself to be in some degree ent.i.tled to presume that, by the exertion of his own talents, he may at pleasure increase that income--thereby becoming induced to make promises to himself which he may afterwards fail to fulfil.

"Occasional excess and frequent unpunctuality will be the natural consequences of such a situation. But, my Lord, to exceed an ascertained and limited income, I hold to be a very different matter. In that situation I have placed myself, (not since the present unexpected contention arose, for since then I would have adopted no arrangements,) but months since, by my Deed of Trust to Mr. Adam, and in that situation I shall remain until every debt on earth, in which the Theatre or I am concerned, shall be fully and fairly discharged. Till then I will live on what remains to me--preserving that spirit of undaunted independence, which, both as a public and a private man, I trust, I have hitherto maintained."] and, still more fatal, a facility of raising money, by which the lesson, that the pressure of distress brings with it, is evaded till it comes too late to be of use--such was the dangerous power put into his hands, in his six-and-twentieth year, and amidst the intoxication of as deep and quick draughts of fame as ever young author quaffed. Scarcely had the zest of this excitement begun to wear off, when he was suddenly transported into another sphere, where successes still more flattering to his vanity awaited him. Without any increase of means, he became the companion and friend of the first n.o.bles and Princes, and paid the usual tax of such unequal friendships, by, in the end, losing them and ruining himself. The vicissitudes of a political life, and those deceitful vistas into office that were for ever opening on his party, made his hopes as fluctuating and uncertain as his means, and encouraged the same delusive calculations on both. He seemed, at every new turn of affairs, to be on the point of redeeming himself; and the confidence of others in his resources was no less fatal to him than his own, as it but increased the facilities of ruin that surrounded him.

Such a career as this--so shaped towards wrong, so inevitably devious--it is impossible to regard otherwise than with the most charitable allowances. It was one long paroxysm of excitement--no pause for thought--no inducements to prudence--the attractions all drawing the wrong way, and a Voice, like that which Bossuet describes, crying inexorably from behind him "On, on!" [Footnote: "La loi est p.r.o.noncee; il faut avancer toujours. Je voudrois retourner sur mes pas; 'Marche, Marche!' Un poids invincible nous entraine; il faut sans cesse avancer vers le precipice. On se console pourtant, parce que de tems en tems on rencontre des objets qui nous divertissent, des eaux courantes, des fleurs qui pa.s.sent. On voudroit arreter; 'Marche, Marche!'"--_Sermon sur la Resurrection_.] Instead of wondering at the wreck that followed all this, our only surprise should be, that so much remained uninjured through the trial,--that his natural good feelings should have struggled to the last with his habits, and his sense of all that was right in conduct so long survived his ability to practise it.

Numerous, however, as were the causes that concurred to disorganize his moral character, in his pecuniary embarra.s.sment lay the source of those blemishes, that discredited him most in the eyes of the world. He might have indulged his vanity and his pa.s.sions, like others, with but little loss of reputation, if the consequence of these indulgences had not been obtruded upon observation in the forbidding form of debts and distresses.

So much did his friend Richardson, who thoroughly knew him, consider his whole character to have been influenced by the straitened circ.u.mstances in which he was placed, that he used often to say, "If an enchanter could, by the touch of his wand, endow Sheridan suddenly with fortune, he would instantly transform him into a most honorable and moral man." As some corroboration of this opinion, I must say that, in the course of the inquiries which my task of biographer imposed upon me, I have found all who were ever engaged in pecuniary dealings with him, not excepting those who suffered most severely by his irregularities, (among which cla.s.s I may cite the respected name of Mr. Hammersley,) unanimous in expressing their conviction that he always _meant_ fairly and honorably; and that to the inevitable pressure of circ.u.mstances alone, any failure that occurred in his engagements was to be imputed.

There cannot, indeed, be a stronger exemplification of the truth, that a want of regularity [Footnote: His improvidence in every thing connected with money was most remarkable. He would frequently be obliged to stop on his journies, for want of the means of getting on, and to remain living expensively at an inn, till a remittance could reach him. His letters to the treasurer of the theatre on these occasions were generally headed with the words "Money-bound." A friend of his told me, that one morning, while waiting for him in his study, he cast his eyes over the heap of unopened letters that lay upon the table, and, seeing one or two with coronets on the seals, said to Mr. Westley, the treasurer, who was present, "I see we are all treated alike." Mr. Westley then informed him that he had once found, on looking over this table, a letter which he had himself sent, a few weeks before, to Mr. Sheridan, enclosing a ten-pound note, to release him from some inn, but which Sheridan, having raised the supplies in some other way, had never thought of opening. The prudent treasurer took away the letter, and reserved the enclosure for some future exigence.

Among instances of his inattention to letters, the following is mentioned. Going one day to the banking-house, where he was accustomed to receive his salary, as Receiver of Cornwall, and where they sometimes accommodated him with small sums before the regular time of payment, he asked, with all due humility, whether they could oblige him with the loan of twenty pounds. "Certainly, Sir," said the clerk,--"would you like any more--fifty, or a hundred?" Sheridan, all smiles and grat.i.tude, answered that a hundred pounds would be of the greatest convenience to him.