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No: 26.

On the Genius of Sheridan.

"While powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind-as various in their change,
While eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth,
That humbler harmonist of care on earth,
Survive within our souls-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merits proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him, which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but once such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan."

Lord Byron,

Fox, Burke, Pitt and Sheridan, when shall such a quartette again be found in the world? In the three first we all only admire, in the latter there is pity combined with admiration. Perhaps no man ever contained such a versatility of genius, as Sheridan, and he is the only instance we read of in history, of one who was highly distinguished in the theatre and the senate. Patriotism held despotic sway over his heart, and England was to him as a sister or a brother. How strange it is then that such a man, adored by the great, the companion of Royalty, should at length have perished "on the lap of charity," as if he had been sent into the world stored with all the

powers

of pleasing, to prove the ungrateful spirit which reigns in the sons of men. Much has been written about this celebrated man, and the chief reason for my writing a paper concerning his genius, is, he must be so well known to the English inhabitants of India from his famous speech regarding the Princesses of Oude, or the Begum charge, in April, 1787, at the impeachment of Warren Hastings then ex-Governor General of India; of this speech says Lord Brougham; "nothing can exceed the accounts left us, of its unprecedented success. Not only the practice then first began, which has gradually increased till it greets every good speech, of cheering, on the speaker resuming his seat, but the minister besought the house to adjourn the decision of the question, as being incapacitated from forming a just judgment under the influence of such powerful eloquence; while all men, on all sides vied with each other in extolling so wonderful a performance." Moore in his life of Sheridan says, "Mr. Burke declared it to be "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition." Mr. Fox said, "All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun;" and Mr.

Pitt acknowledged "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed every thing that genius or art could furnish to agitate and controul the human mind;" but by far the finest panegyric on Sheridan is the following by Mr. Burke, which as a piece of beautiful writing, I do not think is excelled in the language. I think it is Cicero that says of Plato, "when sleeping in his cradle, the bees settled on his lips, to make honey there." This is applicable to our great orator Edmund Burke. "He has this day (said Burke) surprised thousands, who hung with rapture on his accents, by such an array of talent, such an exhibition of capacity, such a display of powers, as are unparalleled in the annals of oratory; a display that reflects 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 this day heard in Westminster Hall. No holy seer of religion, no states

man, no orator, no man of any literary 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." The Begums or Princesses of Oude (it may be as well to state for the information of those who have not read on the subject) were very wealthy, an immense sum having been left them by Sujah Dowlah ; the Company required money, and Warren Hastings determined to seize it from the wealthy Princesses, rather an ungallant action, and which was the subject of the speech on which the above praise has been lavished. Several times, I have seen the performance of the "School for Scandal,” which is considered the best comedy in our language and wondered, even doubted, that the orator Sheridan should be the lessee and the dramatist; there is something so totally opposite in the two vocations; the Duenna, one of the

best operas in the English language, and the Rivals, how many delighted audiences have those pieces collected, and how many of those, over whose misery he caused a light to shine, neglected him in " the last scene of all."

Sheridan was born in October 1751, (was the friend of Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Gibbon, Colman, Pitt, Fox, and the Prince of Wales, (afterwards George the Fourth), and died in July 1816. In this short paper concerning Sheridan, I have viewed the sunny side of his career; when great men die, biographers frequently run to find out all the faults they have committed, in fact they place in the shadows of the painting and forget the lights. In Sheridan's character the lights cancel the shadows.

"Cést a vous a juger de son crime,

Condamnez, epargnez, ou frappez la victime."

Saturday, March 2, 1844,

Vollaire.

POLYPHILUS.

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