Chapter 12

But his most impudent hoax was that on the Honourable House of Commons itself. Lord Belgrave had made a very telling speech which he wound up with a Greek quotation, loudly applauded. Sheridan had no arguments to meet him with; so rising, he admitted the force of his lordship's quotation (of which he probably did not understand a word), but added that had he gone a little farther, and completed the passage, he would have seen that the context completely altered the sense. He would prove it to the House, he said, and forthwith rolled forth a grand string of majestic gibberish so well imitated that the whole assembly cried, 'Hear, hear!' Lord Belgrave rose again, and frankly admitted that the passage had the meaning ascribed to it by the honourable gentleman, and that he had overlooked it at the moment. At the end of the evening, Fox, who prided himself on his classical lore, came up to and said to him, 'Sheridan, how came you to be so ready with that passage? It is certainly as you say, but I was not aware of it before you quoted it.' Sheridan was wise enough to keep his own counsel for the time, but must have felt delightfully tickled at the ignorance of the would-be savants with whom he was politically associated. Probably Sheridan could not at any time have quoted a whole passage of Greek on the spur of the moment; but it is certain that he had not kept up his classics, and at the time in question must have forgotten the little he ever knew of them.

This facility of imitating exactly the sound of a language without introducing a single word of it is not so very rare, but is generally possessed in greater readiness by those who know no tongue but their own, and are therefore more struck by the strangeness of a foreign one, when hearing it. Many of us have heard Italian songs in which there was not a word of actual Italian sung in London burlesques, and some of us have laughed at Levassor's capital imitation of English; but perhaps the cleverest mimic of the kind I ever heard was M. Laffitte, brother of that famous banker who made his fortune by picking up a pin. This gentleman could speak nothing but French, but had been brought by his business into contact with foreigners of every race at Paris, and when he once began his little trick, it was impossible to believe that he was not possessed of a gift of tongues. His German and Italian were good enough, but his English was so splendidly counterfeited, that after listening to him for a short time, I suddenly heard a roar of laughter from all present, for I had actually unconsciously _answered him_, 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Exactly so,' and 'I quite agree with you!'

Undoubtedly much of Sheridan's depravity must be attributed to his intimacy with a man whom it was a great honour to a youngster then to know, but who would probably be scouted even from a London club in the present day--the Prince of Wales. The part of a courtier is always degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings! What a life for the young poet who had wooed and won the Maid of Bath--for the man of strong domestic affections, who wept over his father's sternness, and loved his son only too well! It was bad enough for such mere worldlings as Captain Hanger or Beau Brummell, but for a man of higher and purer feelings, like Sheridan, who, with all his faults, had some poetry in his soul, such a career was doubly disgraceful.

It was at the house of the beautiful, lively, and adventurous Duchess of Devonshire, the partizan of Charles James Fox, who loved him or his cause--for Fox and Liberalism were often one in ladies' eyes--so well, that she could give Steele, the butcher, a kiss for his vote, that Sheridan first met the prince--then a boy in years, but already more than an adult in vice. No doubt the youth whom Fox, Brummell, Hanger, Lord Surrey, Sheridan, the tailors and the women, combined to turn at once into the finest gentleman and greatest blackguard in Europe, was at that time as fascinating in appearance and manner as any one, prince or not, could be. He was by far the handsomest of the Hanoverians, and had the least amount of their sheepish look. He possessed all their taste and capacity, for gallantry, with apparently none of the German coarseness which certain other Princes of Wales exhibited in their amorous address. _His_ coarseness was of a more sensual, but less imperious kind. He _had_ his redeeming points, which few of his ancestors had, and his liberal hand and warm heart won him friends, where his conduct could win him little else than contempt. Sheridan was introduced to him by Fox, and Mrs. Sheridan by the Duchess of Devonshire. The prince had that which always takes with Englishmen--a readiness of conviviality, and a recklessness of character. He was ready to chat, drink, and bet with Sheridan, or any new comer equally well recommended, and an introduction to young George was always followed by an easy recognition. With all this he managed to keep up a certain amount of royal dignity under the most trying circumstances, but he had none of that easy grace which made Charles II. beloved by his associates. When the George had gone too far, he had no resource but to cut the individual with whom he had hobbed and nobbed, and he was as ungrateful in his enmities as he was ready with his friendship. Brummell had taught him to dress, and Sheridan had given him wiser counsels: he quarrelled with both for trifles, which, if he had had real dignity, would never have occurred, and if he had had real friendship, would easily have been overlooked.

Sheridan's breach with the prince was honourable to him. He could not wholly approve of the conduct of that personage and his ministers, and he told him openly that his life was at his service, but his character was the property of the country. The prince replied that Sheridan 'might impeach his ministers on the morrow--that would not impair their friendship;' yet turned on his heel, and was never his friend again. When, again, the 'delicate investigation' came off, he sent for Sheridan, and asked his aid. The latter replied, 'Your royal highness honours me, but I will never take part against a woman, whether she be right or wrong.' His political courage atones somewhat for the want of moral courage he displayed in pandering to the prince's vices.

Many an anecdote is told of Sheridan and 'Wales'--many, indeed, that cannot be repeated. Their bets were often of the coarsest nature, won by Sheridan in the coarsest manner. A great intimacy sprang up between the two reprobates, and Sheridan became one of the satellites of that dissolute prince. There are few of the stories of their adventures which can be told in a work like this, but we may give one or two specimens of the less disgraceful character:--

The Prince, Lord Surrey, and Sheridan were in the habit of seeking nightly adventures of any kind that suggested itself to their lively minds. A low tavern, still in existence, was the rendezvous of the heir to the crown and his noble and distinguished associates. This was the 'Salutation,' in Tavistock Court, Covent Garden, a night house for gardeners and countrymen, and for the sharpers who fleeced both, and was kept by a certain Mother Butler, who favoured in every way the adventurous designs of her exalted guests. Here wigs, smock-frocks, and other disguises were in readiness; and here, at call, was to be found a ready-made magistrate, whose sole occupation was to deliver the young Haroun and his companions from the dilemmas which their adventures naturally brought them into, and which were generally more or less concerned with the watch. Poor old watch! what happy days, when members of parliament, noblemen, and future monarchs condescended to break thy bob-wigged head! and--blush, Z 350, immaculate constable--to toss thee a guinea to buy plaster with.

In addition to the other disguise, _aliases_ were of course assumed. The prince went by the name of Blackstock, Greystock was my Lord Surrey, and Thinstock Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The treatment of women by the police is traditional. The 'unfortunate'--unhappy creatures!--are their pet aversion; and once in their clutches, receive no mercy. The 'Charley' of old was quite as brutal as the modern Hercules of the glazed hat, and the three adventurers showed an amount of zeal worthy of a nobler cause, in rescuing the drunken Lais from his grasp. On one occasion they seem to have hit on a 'deserving case;' a slight skirmish with the watch ended in a rescue, and the erring creature was taken off to a house of respectability sufficient to protect her. Here she told her tale, which, however improbable, turned out to be true. It was a very old, a very simple one--the common history of many a frail, foolish girl, cursed with beauty, and the prey of a practised seducer. The main peculiarity lay in the fact of her respectable birth, and his position, she being the daughter of a solicitor, he the son of a nobleman. Marriage was promised, of course, as it has been promised a million times with the same intent, and for the millionth time was not performed. The seducer took her from her home, kept her quiet for a time, and when the novelty was gone, abandoned her. The old story went on; poverty--a child--a mother's love struggling with a sense of shame--a visit to her father's house at the last moment, as a forlorn hope. There she had crawled on her knees to one of those relentless parents on whose heads lie the utter loss of their children's souls. The false pride, that spoke of the blot on his name, the disgrace of his house--when a Saviour's example should have bid him forgive and raise the penitent in her misery from the dust--whispered him to turn her from his door. He ordered the footman to put her out. The man, a nobleman in plush, moved by his young mistress's utter misery, would not obey though it cost him his place, and the harder-hearted father himself thrust his starving child into the cold street, into the drizzling rain, and slammed the door upon her cries of agony. The footman slipped out after her, and five shillings--a large sum for him--found its way from his kind hand to hers. Now the common ending might have come; now starvation, the slow, unwilling, recourse to more shame and deeper vice; then the forced hilarity, the unreal smile, which in so many of these poor creatures hides a canker at the heart; the gradual degradation--lower still and lower--oblivion for a moment sought in the bottle--a life of sin and death ended in a hospital. The will of Providence turned the frolic of three voluptuaries to good account; the prince gave his purse-full, Sheridan his one last guinea for her present needs: the name of the good-hearted Plush was discovered, and he was taken into Carlton House, where he soon became known as Roberts, the prince's confidential servant: and Sheridan bestirred himself to rescue for ever the poor lady, whose beauty still remained as a temptation. He procured her a situation, where she studied for the stage, on which she eventually appeared. 'All's well that ends well:' her secret was kept, till one admirer came honourably forward. To him it was confided, and he was noble enough to forgive the one false step of youth. She was well married, and the boy for whom she had suffered so much fell at Trafalgar, a lieutenant in the navy.

To better men such an adventure would have been a solemn warning; such a tale, told by the ruined one herself, a sermon, every word of which would have clung to their memories. What effect, if any, it may have had on Blackstock and his companions must have been very fleeting.

It is not so very long since the Seven Dials and St. Giles' were haunts of wickedness and dens of thieves, into which the police scarcely dared to penetrate. Probably their mysteries would have afforded more amusement to the artist and the student of character than to the mere seeker of adventure, but it was still, I remember, in my early days, a great feat to visit by night one of the noted 'cribs' to which 'the profession' which fills Newgate was wont to resort. The 'Brown Bear,' in Broad Street, St. Giles', was one of these pleasant haunts, and thither the three adventurers determined to go. This style of adventure is out of date, and no longer amusing. Of course a fight ensued, in which the prince and his companions showed immense pluck against terrible odds, and in which, as one reads in the novels of the 'London Journal' or 'Family Herald,' the natural superiority of the well-born of course displayed itself to great advantage. Surely Bulwer has described such scenes too graphically in some of his earlier novels to make a minute description here at all necessary; but the reader who is curious in the matter may be referred to a work which has recently appeared under the title of 'Sheridan and his Times,' professing to be written by an Octogenarian, intimate with the hero. The fray ended with the arrival of the watch, who rescued Blackstock, Greystock, and Thinstock, and with Dogberryan stupidity carried them off to a neighbouring lock-up. The examination which took place was just the occasion for Sheridan's fun to display itself on, and pretending to turn informer, he succeeded in bewildering the unfortunate parochial constable, who conducted it, till the arrival of the magistrate, whose duty was to deliver his friends from durance vile. The whole scene is well described in the book just referred to, with, we presume, a certain amount of idealizing; but the 'Octogenarian' had probably heard the story from Sheridan himself, and the main points must be accepted as correct. The affair ended, as usual, with a supper at the 'Salutation.'

We must now follow Sheridan in his gradual downfall.

One of the causes of this--as far as money was concerned--was his extreme indolence and utter negligence. He trusted far too much to his ready wit and rapid genius. Thus when 'Pizarro' was to appear, day after day went by, and nothing was done. On the night of representation, only four acts out of five were written, and even these had not been rehearsed, the principal performers, Siddons, Charles Kemble and Barrymore, having only just received their parts. Sheridan was up in the prompter's room actually writing the fifth act while the first was being performed, and every now and then appeared in the green-room with a fresh relay of dialogue, and setting all in good humour by his merry abuse of his own negligence. In spite of this, 'Pizarro' succeeded. He seldom wrote except at night, and surrounded by a profusion of lights. Wine was his great stimulant in composition, as it has been to better and worse authors. 'If the thought is slow to come,' he would say, 'a glass of good wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass of good wine rewards it.' Those glasses of good wine, were, unfortunately, even more frequent than the good thoughts, many and merry as they were.

His neglect of letters was a standing joke against him. He never took the trouble to open any that he did not expect, and often left sealed many that he was most anxious to read. He once appeared with his begging face at the Bank, humbly asking an advance of twenty pounds. 'Certainly, sir; would you like any more?--fifty or a hundred?' said the smiling clerk. Sheridan was overpowered. He _would_ like a hundred. 'Two or three?' asked the scribe. Sheridan thought he was joking, but was ready for two or even three--he was always ready for more. But he could not conceal his surprise. 'Have you not received our letter?' the clerk asked, perceiving it. Certainly he had received the epistle, which informed him that his salary as Receiver-General of Cornwall had been paid in, but he had never opened it.

This neglect of letters once brought him into a troublesome lawsuit about the theatre. It was necessary to pay certain demands, and he had applied to the Duke of Bedford to be his security. The duke had consented, and for a whole year his letter of consent remained unopened. In the meantime Sheridan had believed that the duke had neglected him, and allowed the demands to be brought into court.

In the same way he had long before committed himself in the affair with Captain Matthews. In order to give a public denial of certain reports circulated in Bath, he had called upon an editor, requesting him to insert the said reports in his paper in order that he might write him a letter to refute them. The editor at once complied, the calumny was printed and published, but Sheridan forgot all about his own refutation, which was applied for in vain till too late.

Other causes were his extravagance and intemperance. There was an utter want of even common moderation in everything he did. Whenever his boyish spirit suggested any freak, whenever a craving of any kind possessed him, no matter what the consequences here or hereafter, he rushed heedlessly into the indulgence of it. Perhaps the enemy had never an easier subject to deal with. Any sin in which there was a show of present mirth, or easy pleasure, was as easily taken up by Sheridan as if he had not a single particle of conscience or religious feeling, and yet we are not at all prepared to say that he lacked either; he had only deadened both by excessive indulgence of his fancies. The temptation of wealth and fame had been too much for the poor and obscure young man who rose to them so suddenly, and, as so often happens, those very talents which should have been his glory, were, in fact, his ruin.

His extravagance was unbounded. At a time when misfortune lay thick upon him, and bailiffs were hourly expected, he would invite a large party to a dinner, which a prince might have given, and to which one prince sometimes sat down. On one occasion, having no plate left from the pawnbroker's, he had to prevail on 'my uncle' to lend him some for a banquet he was to give. The spoons and forks were sent, and with them two of his men, who, dressed in livery, waited, no doubt with the most vigilant attention, on the party. Such at that period was the host's reputation, when he could not even be trusted not to pledge another man's property. At one time his income was reckoned at £15,000 a year, when the theatre was prosperous. Of this he is said to have spent not more than £5,000 on his household, while the balance went to pay for his former follies, debts, and the interest, lawsuits often arising from mere carelessness and judgments against the theatre! Probably a great deal of it was betted away, drank away, thrown away in one way or another. As for betting, he generally lost all the wagers he made: as he said himself--'I never made a bet upon my own judgment that I did not lose; and I never won but one, which I had made against my judgment.' His bets were generally laid in hundreds; and though he did not gamble, he could of course run through a good deal of money in this way. He betted on every possible trifle, but chiefly, it would seem, on political possibilities; the state of the Funds, the result of an election, or the downfall of a ministry. Horse-races do not seem to have possessed any interest for him, and, in fact, he scarcely knew one kind of horse from another. He was never an adept at field-sports, though very ambitious of being thought a sportsman. Once, when staying in the country, he went out with a friend's gamekeeper to shoot pheasants, and after wasting a vast amount of powder and shot upon the air, he was only rescued from ignominy by the sagacity of his companion, who, going a little behind him when a bird rose, brought it down so neatly that Sheridan, believing he had killed it himself, snatched it up, and rushed bellowing with glee back to the house to show that he _could_ shoot. In the same way, he tried his hand at fishing in a wretched little stream behind the Deanery at Winchester, using, however, a net, as easier to handle than a rod. Some boys, who had watched his want of success a long time, at last bought a few pennyworth of pickled herrings, and throwing them on the stream, allowed them to float down towards the eager disciple of old Izaak. Sheridan saw them coming, rushed in regardless of his clothes, cast his net and in great triumph secured them. When he had landed his prize, however, there were the boys bursting with laughter, and Piscator saw he was their dupe. 'Ah!' cried he, laughing in concert, as he looked at his dripping clothes, 'this is a pretty _pickle_ indeed!'

His extravagance was well known to his friends, as well as to his creditors. Lord Guildford met him one day. 'Well, Sherry, so you've taken a new house, I hear.'--'Yes, and you'll see now that everything will go on like clockwork.'--'Ay,' said my lord, with a knowing leer, '_tick, tick_.' Even his son Tom used to laugh at him for it. 'Tom, if you marry that girl, I'll cut you off with a shilling,'--'Then you must borrow it,' replied the ingenuous youth.[8] Tom sometimes disconcerted his father with his inherited wit--his only inheritance. He pressed urgently for money on one, as on many an occasion. 'I have none,' was the reply, as usual; 'there is a pair of pistols up stairs, a horse in the enable, the night is dark, and Hounslow Heath at hand.'

[8: Another version is that Tom replied: 'You don't happen to have it about you, sir, do you?']

'I understand what you mean,' replied young Tom; 'but I tried that last night, and unluckily stopped your treasurer, Peake, who told me you had been beforehand with him, and robbed him of every sixpence he had in the world.'

So much for the respect of son to father!

Papa had his revenge on the young wit, when Tom, talking of Parliament, announced his intention of entering it on an independent basis, ready to be bought by the highest bidder 'I shall write on my forehead,' said he, "To let."'

'And under that, Tom, "Unfurnished,"' rejoined Sherry the elder. The joke is now stale enough.