"Saturday, December 18, 1813.
"Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other 'hommes marquans,' 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 opera, (The Duenna—in my mind far before that St. Giles's lampoon, The Beggar's Opera,) the best farce, (The Critic—it is only too good for an after-piece,) 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.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and on hearing it, he burst into tears!—Poor Brinsley! If they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said those few, but 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.'"
The distresses of Sheridan now increased every day, and through the short remainder of his life it is a melancholy task to follow him. The sum arising from the sale of his theatrical property was soon exhausted by the various claims upon it, and he was driven to part with all that he most valued, to satisfy further demands and provide for the subsistence of the day. Those books which, as I have already mentioned, were presented to him by various friends, now stood in their splendid bindings, [Footnote: In most of them, too, were the names of the givers. The delicacy with which Mr. Harrison of Wardour-Street, (the pawnbroker with whom the books and the cup were deposited,) behaved, after the death of Mr. Sheridan, deserves to be mentioned with praise. Instead of availing himself of the public feeling at that moment, by submitting these precious relics to the competition of a sale, he privately communicated to the family and one or two friends of Sheridan the circumstance of his having such articles in his hands, and demanded nothing more than the sum regularly due on them. The Stafford cup is in the possession of Mr. Charles Sheridan.] on the shelves of the pawnbroker. The handsome cup, given him by the electors of Stafford, shared the same fate. Three or four fine pictures by Gainsborough, and one by Morland, were sold for little more than five hundred pounds; [Footnote: In the following extract from a note to his solicitor, he refers to these pictures:
"DEAR BURGESS,
"I am perfectly satisfied with your account;—nothing can be more clear or fair, or more disinterested on your part;—but I must grieve to think that five or six hundred pounds for my poor pictures are added to the expenditure. However, we shall come through!">[ and even the precious portrait of his first wife, [Footnote: As Saint Cecilia. The portrait of Mrs. Sheridan at Knowle, though less ideal than that of Sir Joshua, is, (for this very reason, perhaps, as bearing a closer resemblance to the original,) still more beautiful.] by Reynolds, though not actually sold during his life, vanished away from his eyes into other hands.
One of the most humiliating trials of his pride was yet to come. In the spring of this year he was arrested and carried to a spunging-house, where he remained two or three days. This abode, from which the following painful letter to Whitbread was written, formed a sad contrast to those Princely halls, of which he had so lately been the most brilliant and favored guest, and which were possibly, at that very moment, lighted up and crowded with gay company, unmindful of him within those prison walls:—
"Tooke's Court, Cursitor-Street, Thursday, past two.
"I have done everything in my power with the solicitors, White and Founes, to obtain my release, by substituting a better security for them than their detaining me—but in vain.
"Whitbread, putting all false professions of friendship and feeling out of the question, you have no right to keep me here!—for it is in truth your act—if you had not forcibly withheld from me the twelve thousand pounds, in consequence of a threatening letter from a miserable swindler, whose claim YOU in particular knew to be a lie, I should at least have been out of the reach of this state of miserable insult—for that, and that only, lost me my seat in Parliament. And I assert that you cannot find a lawyer in the land, that is not either a natural-born fool or a corrupted scoundrel, who will not declare that your conduct in this respect was neither warrantable nor legal—but let that pass for the present.
"Independently of the 1000_l_. ignorantly withheld from me on the day of considering my last claim. I require of you to answer the draft I send herewith on the part of the Committee, pledging myself to prove to them on the first day I can personally meet them, that there are still thousands and thousands due to me, both legally, and equitably, from the Theatre. My word ought to be taken on this subject; and you may produce to them this document, if one, among them could think that, under all the circumstances, your conduct required a justification. O God! with what mad confidence have I trusted your word,—I ask justice from you, and no boon. I enclosed you yesterday three different securities, which had you been disposed to have acted even as a private friend, would have made it certain that you might have done so without the smallest risk. These you discreetly offered to put into the fire, when you found the object of your humane visit satisfied by seeing me safe in prison.