soon the general system of the management subsided again into darkness. Sheridan's besetting sin of procrastination increased on him, and grew into a chronic disease too deeply rooted for cure. He delayed answering letters until they accumulated into a hopeless heap, and then he consumed them in one indiscriminate holocaust. Authors could neither obtain a reading nor a restoration of their manuscripts, and complained in loud but unheeded remonstrances that their dialogue, incidents, and arrangements were pilfered and transformed most unmercifully, and so completely that it was almost impossible to recognise them, unless where some unique feature proclaimed the identity. Garrick, not long before his death, began to feel convinced that the theatre was tottering, and that he had mistaken his man. In his last letter to King, he says"Poor old Drury, I feel that it will very soon be in the hands of the Philistines." On the 15th of October, 1778, Sheridan allowed a dramatic entertainment, as it was called in the bills, a farce in reality, under the title of The Camp, to be announced as his. It was a piece de circonstance, founded on a late encampment at Coxheath, and intended as a vehicle for scenery, and to embody some local circumstances which actually took place. Tate Wilkinson, in his "Wandering Patentee," was the first who denied positively that Sheridan had anything to do with this very inferior production, which, in reality, was written by his brother-inlaw, Tickell. What could have induced Sheridan thus to trifle with his reputation it is impossible to divine. The mere connexion by marriage was not a plea of sufficient weight. Had he never soared beyond St. Patrick's Day, the Camp might have passed for his. With slender pretensions, but as a temporary stop-gap, it met with unusual success, and lived for two seasons, attracting good houses, while Shakspeare's best plays were exhibited to empty benches. Who shall attempt to fathom the shifting currents of public taste, or caprice, or extravagance? Moore says "One of the novelties of the year was a musical entertainment, called The Camp, which was falsely attributed to Sheridan at the time, and which has since been inconsiderately admitted into the collection of his works. This unworthy trifle (as appears from a rough copy of it in my possession) was the production of Tickell, and the patience with which his friend submitted to the imputation of having written it, was a sort of martyrdom of fame which few but himself could afford." Garrick died on the 20th of January, 1779. Sheridan wrote a monody on his death, dedicated to the Dowager Lady Spencer, which monody was spoken by Mrs. Yates from the boards of Drury-lane, on the 2nd of March following, and repeated on many successive evenings. But the public thought less of it than Lord Byron, whose praise is absolute. It has undoubted merit, and must be considered a very graceful composition. Perhaps the best passage is that which is general rather than particular, and wherein the ephemeral nature of the actor's fame, whose works die with him, is unfavourably contrasted with the immortality of the painter, sculptor, and poet, who leave behind them undying memorials: Such is their meed; their honours thus secure. The theatre was going rapidly down, when the attention of the play-going public was excited by the production of The Critic, on the 29th of October, 1779. Lord Byron was not wrong when he called this the best burlesque that had ever been written. The proof is, that it retains its attraction, when all local causes and coincidences have ceased. We have no longer Cumberland to be identified with Sir Fretful Plagiary, Thomas Vaughan, the author of The Hotel, with Dangle, or Woodfall to be the target of certain sly hits at the press. The piece is essentially excellent, and as there will never fail to be tumid, bombastic plays, in all ages, it will do just as well for a satire in the present day, as during the reign of the last generation. The drift of this performance, which abounds with easy wit, unaffected exuberant humour, and caustic pungency, is, perhaps, not thoroughly understood. It might not have been written with the single view of procuring full houses during its own run, but as a crafty expe dient to banish empty ones on future occasions. It seems like an advertisement from the manager of Drurylane, to signify his wish that no more modern tragedies might be offered for representation at his theatre. A tragedy, called Zoraida, written by William Hodson, a Cambridge man, of considerable scholarship, was performed within two months after the production of The Critic, and while the burlesque was yet succeeding-a most unhappy propinquity, which proved fatal. The woes of Zoraida being forestalled by Tilburina, were banished after a few fruitless repetitions. Hodson attributed his failure entirely to that cause. He printed his play in indignation, and annexed a postscript of considerable length, containing some general observations on tragedy, which contain sound sense, and are much better worth reading than the play they accompany. The author's Cambridge friends compared him to a man with a dark lantern, casting a light on everybody but himself. Many attempts have been made to show the passages from different plays ridiculed in The Critic; and, by those versed in the dramatic literature of the period, a great number of them may be easily detected. Holcroft once thought of publishing a key, which had been done before, in the case of The Rehearsal. One remarkable illustration may be quoted as a specimen. When Whiskerandos is killed by the pretended beef-eater, he says— "O cursed parry-that last thrust in tierce and so he dies. The beef-eater finishes the word, and says -nity-he would have added, but stern death Cut short his being, and the noun at once." It has been supposed that this was suggested by the conclusion of the terror-stricken dialogue, and the division of words between the Abbess of Andouillet, and the novice, Marguerite, in "Tristram Shandy." But a much closer original is at hand, taken from a dramatic source, to which Sheridan would assuredly resort for his example. In Henry Brooke's Gustavus Vasa, one of the characters relating the death of another (act iii. sc. 1), says "Tell him for once that I have fought like him, And would like him have Conquer'd, he would have said-but there, O! there! Death stopt him short." The resemblance here is too flagrant to be mistaken. Shakspeare supplies an earlier parallel in the death of Hotspur : "Oh! I could prophecy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death The Prince of Wales concludes the "For worms, brave Percy!" Sheridan would hardly have ventured to point at Shakspeare in his parody, although it is quite certain that he had no profound veneration for our immortal bard. Ireland, in his "Confessions" (the only occasion, perhaps, on which he ever spoke the truth), says, that during the Vortigern and Rowena negotiation, his father, Mr. Samuel Ireland, "had very frequent conversations with Mr. Sheridan respecting the transcendent genius of the great dramatist; and one day in particular, after Mr. S. Ireland had been, as usual, lavish of his encomiums, Mr. Sheridan remarked, that, however high Shakspeare might stand in the estimation of the public in general, he did not, for his part, regard him as a poet in that exalted light, although he allowed the brilliancy of his ideas and the penetration of his mind." If we are to believe the same authority, Sheridan was taken in by the forgery, in common with Parr, Warton, Boswell, and many others. When perusing a fair copy of the play, from the supposed original manuscript, he came to one line which was not strictly_metrical; upon which, turning to Ireland sen., he remarked, "This is rather strange; for though you are acquainted with my opinion of Shakspeare, yet, be it as it may, he certainly always wrote poetry." Having read a few laying down the manuscript, spoke to pages further, he again paused, and, the following effect :- There are certainly some bold ideas, but they are crude and undigested. It is very odd: one would be led to think that Shakspeare must have been very young when he wrote the play. As to the doubting whether it be really his or not, who can possibly look at the papers and not believe them ancient?" With the Critic ends the list of Sheridan's original dramatic compositions.* He was then only in his twenty-eighth year; and, judging by what he had done at such an early age, we may conceive what he might have effected in the same walk, had he not turned his thoughts and pursuits into another channel. In 1780, he was returned to the House of Commons as member for Stafford, and thenceforward became an active politician. He attached himself_naturally to the party of his friend, Fox, at that time in opposition. His maiden speech, in defence of his seat, was a failure, and led to a somewhat hasty decision that nature intended him not for an orator. His utterance was thick and indistinct, an imperfection he never entirely subdued. When he had finished, he went to the gallery, where Woodfall was reporting, to ask his opinion. Woodfall frankly told him to stick to his former avocations, for that he had now got beyond his depth. Sheridan, nothing daunted, replied"I know it is in me, and out it shall come." He improved rapidly with successive opportunities, and obtained great credit for a ready reply to Mr. Pitt, in the session of 1783, in a debate on the preliminary articles of peace. Sheridan had warmly seconded Lord John Cavendish, in an amendment of the address, which went to omit the approval of the treaty. Pitt, then even a younger man than himself by several years, already chancellor of the exchequer, and in training for prime minister, took him up in reply, and commenced his speech by the following sarcastic exordium: "No man," he observed, "admired more than he did the abilities of that honourable gentleman, the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his dramatic turns, and his epigrammatic points; and if they were reserved for the proper stage, they would, no doubt, receive, what the honourable gentleman's abilities always did receive, the plaudits of the audience; and it would be his fortune, sui plausu gaudere theatri. But this was not the proper scene for the ex hibition of these elegancies; he therefore called the attention of the house to the question." Pitt lost his temper, while he forgot his politeness, and Sheridan instantaneously answered"On the particular sort of personality which the right honourable gentleman had thought proper to make use of, he need not make any comment; the propriety, the taste, the gentlemanly point of it must have been obvious to the house. But" (continued he), "let me assure the right honourable gentleman, that I do now, and will at any time, when he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more, flattered and encouraged by the right honourable gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if ever I again engage in the compositions to which he alludes, I may be tempted to an act of presumption to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Johnson's best characters, that of the angry boy in The Alchymist." The effect of the application was electrical, and after this it was long before Pitt could divest himself of the epithet of the "Angry Boy," which was applied to him in lampoons, caricatures, and the opposition journals. During the mutations of ministries, Sheridan enjoyed more than one office under his friend and patron, Fox, but they were of short duration. Between 1783 and 1787, he made many masterly speeches, which were listened to with attention and applause by opponents as well as partisans; but on the 7th of February, 1787, he reached the apex of oratorical excellence, in the celebrated discussion on the charge against Warren Hastings, for the spoliation of the Begums. For five hours and a-half he commanded the breathless attention of the house, and when he finished, decorum was forgotten, and long and enthusiastic peals of applause greeted him from every quarter. Such an effect was never produced within the walls of any legislative assembly before or since. Within fourand-twenty hours he was offered one thousand pounds for the copyright, if he would himself correct it for the A pantomime called Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday, was produced at Drurylane, in 1781, and attributed to Sheridan, but it is doubtful whether he had anything to do with it. It was very successful, and the scenery, by Loutherbourg, produced a most extraordinary effect. VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXI. E press; but this was impossible, for he had no copy. An outline only of this marvellous effort of eloquence has reached us, so that it may be considered as lost. The published debates of the session present but a faint adumbration. Moore says that a perfect transcript of the speech is in existence, taken in short-hand by Gurney, some time in possession of the Duke of Norfolk, then in the bands of Sheridan, and afterwards in those of Moore himself. He has given some extracts, but they only whet curiosity, without allaying it. A perfect publication of this speech would find an army of purchasers. We may form some idea of its power from the encomiums of such men as Burke, Fox, and Pitt. Burke said that the honourable member (Mr. Sheridan), "has this day surprised the thousands who hung with rapture on his accents, by such an array of talents, such an exhibition of capacity, such a display of powers, as are unparalleled in the annals of oratory; a display that reflected the highest honour upon himself, lustre upon letters, renown upon parliament, glory upon the country. Of all species of rhetoric, of every kind of eloquence that has been witnessed or recorded, either in ancient or modern times; whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, the solidity of the judgment-seat, and the sacred morality of the pulpit have hitherto furnished, nothing has surpassed, nothing has equalled what we have heard this day in Westminster Hall. No holy seer of religion, no sage, no statesman, no orator, no man of any description whatever, has come up, in the one instance, to the pure sentiments of morality; or in the other, to that variety of knowledge, force of imagination, propriety and vivacity of allusion, beauty and elegance of diction, strength and copiousness of style, pathos and sublimity of conception, to which we have this day listened with ardour and admiration. From poetry up to eloquence, there is not a species of composition of which a complete and perfect specimen might not, from that single speech, be culled and collected." Fox said, "that all he had ever heard or read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun." Pitt joined in with equal admiration, and acknowledged that Sheridan “had surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times, and that his speech on the third charge against Mr. Hastings possessed everything that genius. or art could furnish to agitate or control the human mind." Lord Byron's "Monody" contains these fine lines in allusion to Sheridan's speech. They are a little overstrained in fact, but beautiful in poetry : "When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan Arose to Heaven in her appeal to man, His was the thunder, his the avenging rod, The wrath, the delegated voice of God, Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed, Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised." On the following day a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to prepare articles of impeachment against Warren Hastings, in which Sheridan was included and appointed one of the managers. When it came to his turn to speak again, in the course of the trial, he proved that he had not exhausted his resources in the former effort, and delivered a second speech, which lasted for four successive days, with adjournments, and was by many supposed to be fully equal to the first, although it was impossible to excite the same enthusiasm when the freshness of the subject had become withered. And now, what is the impression of all this marvellous display on the sober minds of unprejudiced posterity? That the whole proceeding was a mistake, and a very grievous one to the principal character in the imposing spectacle; originating in and perpetuated by party faction and personal hostility; and that Warren Hastings, who was ultimately acquitted, but left to pay the expenses of an eight year's process, was comparatively an innocent man, while he was most undoubtedly an injured and persecuted one to the extent of ruining his fortune and embittering the remainder of his days. The splendid eloquence, too, which was then exhibited would not now be listened to, but would be considered waste of time, and empty, ornamental rhetoric. Such is the change which sixty years have produced in the march of practical utiiltarianism as opposed to oratorical display. Sheridan's unprecedented success in the House of Commons interfered sadly with the commercial interests of the theatre. His acquaintance and intimacy with the circle of the great became more extended, and his habits of conviviality and extravagance more Dis irrevocably confirmed. The affairs of Drury-lane fell rapidly into confusion. The salaries of the actors were seldom paid, the tradespeople never. cipline became relaxed, and insurrections were frequent. Even Mrs. Siddons at last refused to go on the stage unless some portion of her large arrears was paid on account. In the midst of all these difficulties, Garrick's theatre had reached the period of age when it was pronounced unsafe. One hundred and fifty thousand pounds were required to build a new one. This sum was raised with ease in three hundred debentures of five hundred pounds each. How to pay the regular interest never entered into the calculation. On the 4th of June, 1791, old Drury-lane closed for ever, and began to be pulled down. The company went first to the Opera House, and from thence to the Haymarket, where they played at advanced prices. On the 4th of September in the same year, the first stone of Holland's magnificent edifice was laid, but many difficulties arose, and a long time elapsed before it was fit to receive the public. In the meantime Sheridan sustained a heavy domestic blow in the loss of his first wife, who died of a lingering decline in 1792, being then only thirty-eight years of age. lle was fondly attached to her, and she was worthy of his love. All who knew her concurred in admiration of her character and extraordinary beauty. Jackson, the composer, said, "That to see her, as she stood singing beside him at the pianoforte, was like looking into the face of a deity." The Bishop of Norwich was accustomed to declare that she seemed to him "the connecting link between woman and angel;" and even the licentious John Wilkes pronounced her "the most modest, pleasing, and delicate flower that ever grew in nature's garden." Her only daughter died soon after, and the loss of this interesting child imprinted an indelible wound on the heart of the bereaved father. On the 21st of April, 1794, the new theatre of Drury-lane opened with Macbeth, the leading characters by John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. An occasional prologue and epilogue were spoken by Kemble and Miss Farren. Á lake of real water was exhibited, and the audience were told that an iron curtain was in preparation to insulate them from any fire that might On this originate behind the scenes. occasion an attempt was made to banish the ghost of Banquo, but the galleries soon insisted on his recall. Charles Kemble made his first appearance as Malcolm. Holland's theatre, the handsomest in the kingdom, was destined to a short existence, being totally burnt down on the night of February the 24th, 1809, when it had stood only fifteen years. The following authentic anecdote in connexion with the building has not before, as we believe, appeared in print. Holland could never obtain a settlement or even an interview on the subject with Sheridan. He hunted him for weeks and months at his own house, at the theatre, at his usual resorts; but he was nowhere to be seen. At last he tracked him to the stage-door, rushed in in spite of the opposition of the burly porter, and found the manager on the stage conversing with a party of gentlemen, whom he had invited to show them the theatre. Sheridan saw Holland approaching, and knowing that escape was this time impossible, put a bold face on the matter. "Ah! my dear fellow," exclaimed he, "you are the very man I wanted to seeyou have come most apropos. I am truly sorry you have had the trouble of calling on me so often, but now we are met, in a few minutes I shall be at liberty; we will then go into my room together and settle our affairs. But first you must decide an important question here. Some of these gentlemen tell me there are complaints, and loud ones, that the transmission of sound is defective in your beautiful theatre. That, in fact, the galleries cannot hear at all, and that is the reason why they have become so noisy of late." "Sound defective! not hear!" reiterated the astonished architect, turning pale, and almost staggering back; "why, it is the most perfect building for sound that ever was erected; I'll stake my reputation on it, the complaint is most groundless." "So I say," retorted Sheridan; "but now we'll bring the question to issue definitively, and then have a paragraph or two in the papers. Do you, Holland, go and place yourself at the back of the upper gallery, while I stand here on the stage and talk to you." "Certainly," said Holland, "with the greatest pleasure." A lantern was provided, with a trusty guide, and away went the architect through a |