In speaking of Colman, he said, "He was most agreeable and sociable. He can laugh so well, which Sheridan can not. If I could not have them both together, I should like to begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it with Colman."
He praised loudly the eloquence of Grattan:—
"I differ with him in politics, but I agree with all those who admire his eloquence."
As to Sheridan, he never ceased his eulogies:—
"At Lord Holland's the other night, we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other hommes marquants, and mine was this:—'Whatever Sheridan has done, or chosen to do, has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy ("School for Scandal"), the best drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the "Beggars' Opera"), the best farce (the "Critic,"—it is only too good for a farce), and the best address ("Monologue on Garrick"), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous "Begum Speech") ever conceived or heard in this country.'"
His enthusiasm for Sheridan partook even of a kind of tender compassion for his great weaknesses and misfortunes. He wrote in his memoranda, on one occasion, when Sheridan had cried with joy on hearing that Byron had warmly praised him:—
"Poor Brinsley, if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said those few, but most sincere words, than have written the "Iliad," or made his own celebrated "Philippic." Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more, than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to 'my elders, and my betters.'"
And also:—
"Poor, dear Sherry! I shall never forget the day when he, Rogers, Moore, and myself, spent the time from six at night till one o'clock in the morning, without a single yawn; we listening to him, and he talking all the time."
When he speaks of great men recently dead,—of Burke, Pitt, Burns, Goldsmith, and others of his distinguished contemporaries,—he is never-ending in his praise of them. His affectionate admiration for so many went so far, almost, as to frighten him into the belief that it was a weakness: after having said—"I like A——, I like B——. By Mohammed!" he exclaims in his memoranda, "I begin to think I like every body; a disposition not to be encouraged; a sort of social gluttony, that swallows every thing set before it."