RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
In the whole history of English letters, there can be found no sadder chapter than that which contains the story of Sheridan’s death. The body out of which the breath was fast going, and from which intelligent action had entirely gone, was seized by sheriff’s officers for debt, and only by the threats of attending physicians did it escape being carried to a low sponging-house, wrapped in nothing but the blankets that covered the bed on which it lay. The “life and succor” his friends had begged were denied him, and “Westminster Abbey and a funeral” were all he received. As a French journal said at the time, it only proved that “France is the place for a man of letters to live in, and England the place for him to die in.” Sheridan’s appearance during his last hours was thus depicted by one who saw for himself the havoc made: “His countenance was distorted under the writhings of unutterable anguish. Pain and the effects of pain were visible on that sunken cheek; and on that brow which had never knitted under oppression, or frowned upon the importunities of the unfortunate, pain in its most acute form had contracted there its harsh and forbidding lines.... Still, amid those rigid lines which continuous suffering had indented there, you might perceive the softer and more harmonious tracings of uncomplaining patience, fortitude in its endurance, and resignation in its calmness.” This is the face exhibited here—one of the most unpleasant to look upon which the collection contains, notwithstanding Sheridan’s own boast, not very long before his death, that “his eyes would look up as brightly at his coffin-lid as ever.” His spirits did not fail him so long as consciousness remained, and when asked by the attending surgeons if he had ever before undergone an operation, he replied, “Only when sitting for my portrait, or having my hair cut.” It is to be regretted that this last portrait for which he sat, should be so worn and weary in its expression. Moore, in his Life of Sheridan, did not mention the taking of the mask, although he spoke of the plaster cast of Sheridan’s hand, under which some keen observer had written:
“Good at a fight, better at a play,
God-like in giving—but the devil to pay.”
Concerning Moore’s own appearance, Leigh Hunt wrote: “Moore’s forehead was bony and full of character, with ‘bumps’ of wit large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. His eyes were as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine leaves; his mouth generous, and good-humored with dimples.” Scott said in his Journal, in 1825: “Moore’s countenance is plain, but the expression is very animated, especially in speaking or singing, so that it is far more interesting than the finest features could have rendered it.” In 1833 Gerald Griffin made a visit to Moore at Sloperton, and thus described Moore himself: “A little man, but full of spirits, with eyes, hands, feet, and frame forever in motion.... I am no great observer of proportions, but he seemed to me to be a neat-made little fellow, tidily buttoned up, young as fifteen at heart, though with hair that reminded me of ‘Alps in the sunset’; not handsome, perhaps, but something in the whole cut of him that pleased me.”
THOMAS MOORE