The prince was, however, just the man to be the centre of a spirited opposition. In his heart he was Conservative; but the Whigs were his partisans against a father who strongly, and perhaps not too sternly, disapproved of his mode of life and his politics.
The circle around him was as remarkable for their talents, and, in some respects, as infamous for their vices, as any Lord Rochester, or Sedley, or Etherege of the time of the second Charles. In that day, a Protestant Duke of Norfolk took an active part in political affairs, and formed one of the chief supporters of the Whigs. Carlton House, Devonshire House, often received in their state rooms "Jock of Norfolk," as he was called, whose large muscular person, more like that of a grazier or a butcher, was hailed there with delight, for his Grace commanded numerous boroughs. He was one of the most strenuous supporters of Fox, and had displayed in the House of Lords a sort of rude eloquence, characteristic of his mind and body. Nothing, however, but his rank, his wealth, his influences, his Whig opinions, could have rendered this profligate, revolting man endurable. Drunkenness is said to have been inherent in his constitution, and to have been inherited from the Plantagenets. He was known in his youth to have been found sleeping in the streets, intoxicated, on a block of wood; yet he is related to have been so capable of resisting the effects of wine, that, after laying his father, a drunkard like himself, under the table at the Thatched House, St. James's, he has been stated to have repaired to another party, there to finish the convivial rites. He was often under the influence of wine when, as Lord Surrey, he sat in the House of Commons; but was wise enough, on such occasions, to hold his tongue. He was so dirty in his person, that his servants used to take advantage of his fits of intoxication to wash him; when they stripped him as they would have done a corpse, and performed ablutions which were somewhat necessary, as he never made use of water. He was equally averse to a change of linen. One day, complaining to Dudley North that he was a prey to rheumatism, "Pray," cried North, "did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?"
This uncleanly form constituted a great feature of the Whig assemblies. At that time every man wore a queue, every man had his hair powdered; yet "Jack" renounced powder, which he never wore except at court, and cut his hair short. His appearance, therefore, must have been a strange contrast with that of the Prince of Wales, curled and powdered, with faultless ruffles, and an ample snow-white cravat, to say nothing of the coat which looked as if it were sewn on his back. It is to the Duke of Norfolk that the suggestion of putting a tax on hair powder has been ascribed. His life was one series of profligacy. Yet, such was the perverted judgment of the day, that this unworthy descendant of the Plantagenets was as popular as any peer of his time. When sober, he was accessible, conversable, and devoid of pride. When intoxicated, he used half to confess that he was still a Catholic at heart. His conversion to the reformed faith was held not to be very sincere; and his perpetual blue coat of a peculiar shade—a dress he never varied—was said to be a penance imposed on him by his confessor. He did no credit to any Christian church; and the Church of Rome is welcome to his memory.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, at this period in his thirty-third year, was not then wholly degraded by drinking, debt, and, as far as money was concerned, dishonesty. His countenance at this age was full of intelligence, humour, and gaiety: all these characteristics played around his mouth, and aided the effect of his oratory to the ear. His voice was singularly melodious, and a sort of fascination attended all he did and said. His face, as Milton says of the form of the fallen angel,—
"Had not yet lost
All her original brightness."
Yet he lived to be known by the name of "Bardolph,"—to have every fine expression lost in traces of drunkenness. No one could have perceived, in after days, the once joyous spirit of Sheridan in a face covered with eruptions, and beaming no longer with intelligence. He resembled, says Wraxall, at sixty, one of the companions of Ulysses, who, having tasted of Circe's "charmed cup"—
"... lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine."
This extraordinary man was the husband of one of the most beautiful, and, in being his wife, one of the most unfortunate of women. Miss Linley, the daughter of a celebrated musical composer, and called, for her loveliness, the "Maid of Bath," had the calamity of being wooed and won by Sheridan. Never was there a more touching and instructive history than hers. Her beauty was rare, even amid the belles of a period rich in attractive women. Dark masses of hair, drawn back on her brow, fell in curls on a neck of alabaster. Her features were delicate and regular; the expression of her eyes was exquisitely soft and pensive. Her charms have been transmitted to her female descendants, Mrs. Norton, the Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin, whilst they have also inherited her musical talents, and the wit and ability of their grandfather. Mrs. Sheridan, after a life of alternate splendour and privation, died at Clifton, of consumption, before middle age. Her death was saddened, if not hastened, by her carriage, as she was preparing to drive out on the Downs, being seized for her husband's debts. Whilst united to this young and lovely wife, Sheridan was one of the brightest stars in the dissolute sphere of Carlton House; but for domestic life he had neither time nor disposition. His fame was at its climax, when, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he spoke for hours in Westminster Hall, with an eloquence never to be forgotten; then, going to the House of Commons, exhibited there powers of unrivalled oratory. Meantime the theatres were ringing with applause, and his name went from mouth to mouth whilst the "Duenna" was acted at one house, the "School for Scandal" at another. He was, in truth, the most highly gifted man of his time; and he died in the fear of bailiffs taking his bed from under him,—an awestruck, forlorn, despised drunkard!
But of all the party men to whom the young Duchess of Devonshire was introduced, the most able and the most dissolute was Fox. The colouring of political friends, which concealed his vices, or rather which gave them a false hue, has long since faded away. We now know Fox as he was. In the latest journals of Horace Walpole, his inveterate gambling, his open profligacy, his utter want of honour, is disclosed by one of his own opinions. Corrupted ere yet he had left his home, whilst in age a boy, there is, however, the comfort of reflecting that he outlived his vices. Fox, with a green apron tied around his waist, pruning and nailing up his fruit-trees at St. Ann's Hill, or amusing himself innocently with a few friends, is a pleasing object to remember, even whilst his early career recurs forcibly to the mind.
Unhappily, he formed one of the most intimate of those whom Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, admitted to her home. He was soon enthralled among her votaries, yet he was by no means a pleasing object to look at as he advanced in life. He had dark saturnine features, thought by some to resemble those of Charles II, from whom he was descended in the female line; when they relaxed into a smile, they were, it is said, irresistible. Black shaggy eyebrows concealed the workings of his mind, but gave immense expression to his countenance. His figure was broad, and only graceful when his wonderful intellect threw even over that the power of genius, and produced, when in declamation, the most impassioned gestures. Having been a coxcomb in his youth, Fox was now degenerating into the sloven. The blue frock coat and buff waistcoat with which he appeared in the House of Commons were worn and shabby. Like the white rose which distinguished the Stuarts, so were the blue and buff the badge of the American insurgents and of Washington, their chief.