There is in the second stanza here a close resemblance to one of the madrigals of Montreuil, a French poet, to whom Sir J. Moore was indebted for the point of his well known verses, "If in that breast, so good, so pure." [Footnote:
The grief that on my quiet preys,
That rends my heart and checks my tongue,
I fear will last me all my days,
And feel it will not last me long.
It is thus in Montreuil:
C'est un mal que j'aurai tout le terns de ma vie
Mais je ne l'aurai pas long-tems.]
Mr. Sheridan, however, knew nothing of French, and neglected every opportunity of learning it, till, by a very natural process, his ignorance of the language grew into hatred of it. Besides, we have the immediate source from which he derived the thought of this stanza, in one of the essays of Hume, who, being a reader of foreign literature, most probably found it in Montreuil. [Footnote: Or in an Italian song of Menage, from which Montreuil, who was accustomed to such thefts, most probably stole it. The point in the Italian is, as far as I can remember it, expressed thus:
In van, o Filli, tu chiedi
Se lungamente durera Pardore
* * * * *
Chi lo potrebbe dire?
Incerta, o Filli, e l'ora del morire.]
The passage in Hume (which Sheridan has done little more than versify) is as follows:—"Why so often ask me, How long my love shall yet endure? Alas, my Caelia, can I resolve the question? Do I know how long my life shall yet endure?" [Footnote: The Epicurean]
The pretty lines, "Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue?" were written not upon Miss Linley, as has been generally stated, but upon Lady Margaret Fordyce, and form part of a poem which he published in 1771, descriptive of the principal beauties of Bath, entitled "Clio's Protest, or the Picture varnished,"—being an answer to some verses by Mr. Miles Peter Andrews, called "The Bath Picture," in which Lady Margaret was thus introduced: