"I shall only add, that, I think, if I know myself, had our lots been reversed, and I had seen you in my situation, and had left Lady E. in that of my wife, I would have risked 600_l_. rather than have left you so—although I had been in no way accessory in bringing you into that condition.
"S. Whitbread. Esq.
"R. B. SHERIDAN."
Even in this situation the sanguineness of his disposition did not desert him; for he was found by Mr. Whitbread, on his visit to the spunging-house, confidently calculating on the representation for Westminster, in which the proceedings relative to Lord Cochrane at that moment promised a vacancy. On his return home, however, to Mrs. Sheridan, (some arrangements having been made by Whitbread for his release,) all his fortitude forsook him, and he burst into a long and passionate fit of weeping at the profanation, as he termed it, which his person had suffered.
He had for some months had a feeling that his life was near its close; and I find the following touching passage in a letter from him to Mrs. Sheridan, after one of those differences which will sometimes occur between the most affectionate companions, and which, possibly, a remonstrance on his irregularities and want of care of himself occasioned:—"Never again let one harsh word pass between us, during the period, which may not perhaps be long, that we are in this world together, and life, however clouded to me, is mutually spared to us. I have expressed this same sentiment to my son, in a letter I wrote to him a few days since, and I had his answer—a most affecting one, and, I am sure, very sincere—and have since cordially embraced him. Don't imagine that I am expressing an interesting apprehension about myself, which I do not feel."
Though the new Theatre of Drury-Lane had now been three years built, his feelings had never allowed him to set his foot within its walls. About this time, however, he was persuaded by his friend, Lord Essex, to dine with him and go in the evening to His Lordship's box, to see Kean. Once there, the "genius loci" seems to have regained its influence over him; for, on missing him from the box, between the Acts, Lord Essex, who feared that he had left the House, hastened out to inquire, and, to his great satisfaction, found him installed in the Green-room, with all the actors around him, welcoming him back to the old region of his glory, with a sort of filial cordiality. Wine was immediately ordered, and a bumper to the health of Mr. Sheridan was drank by all present, with the expression of many a hearty wish that he would often, very often, re-appear among them. This scene, as was natural, exhilarated his spirits, and, on parting with Lord Essex that night, at his own door, in Saville-Row, he said triumphantly that the world would soon hear of him, for the Duke of Norfolk was about to bring him into Parliament. This, it appears, was actually the case; but Death stood near as he spoke. In a few days after his last fatal illness began.
Amid all the distresses of these latter years of his life, he appears but rarely to have had recourse to pecuniary assistance from friends. Mr. Peter Moore, Mr. Ironmonger, and one or two others, who did more for the comfort of his decline than any of his high and noble associates, concur in stating that, except for such an occasional trifle as his coach-hire, he was by no means, as has been sometimes asserted, in the habit of borrowing. One instance, however, where he laid himself under this sort of obligation, deserves to be mentioned. Soon after the return of Mr. Canning from Lisbon, a letter was put into his hands, in the House of Commons, which proved to be a request from his old friend Sheridan, then lying ill in bed, that he would oblige him with the loan of a hundred pounds. It is unnecessary to say that the request was promptly and feelingly complied with; and if the pupil has ever regretted leaving the politics of his master, it was not at that moment, at least, such a feeling was likely to present itself.
There are, in the possession of a friend of Sheridan, copies of a correspondence in which he was engaged this year with two noble Lords and the confidential agent of an illustrious Personage, upon a subject, as it appears, of the utmost delicacy and importance. The letters of Sheridan, it is said, (for I have not seen them,) though of too secret and confidential a nature to meet the public eye, not only prove the great confidence reposed in him by the parties concerned, but show the clearness and manliness of mind which he could still command, under the pressure of all that was most trying to human intellect.
The disorder, with which he was now attacked, arose from a diseased state of the stomach, brought on partly by irregular living, and partly by the harassing anxieties that had, for so many years, without intermission, beset him. His powers of digestion grew every day worse, till he was at length unable to retain any sustenance. Notwithstanding this, however, his strength seemed to be but little broken, and his pulse remained, for some time, strong and regular. Had he taken, indeed, but ordinary care of himself through life, the robust conformation of his frame, and particularly, as I have heard his physician remark, the peculiar width and capaciousness of his chest, seemed to mark him out for a long course of healthy existence. In general Nature appears to have a prodigal delight in enclosing her costliest essences in the most frail and perishable vessels:—but Sheridan was a signal exception to this remark; for, with a spirit so "finely touched," he combined all the robustness of the most uninspired clay.
Mrs. Sheridan was, at first, not aware of his danger; but Dr. Bain—whose skill was now, as it ever had been, disinterestedly at the service of his friend, [Footnote: A letter from Sheridan to this amiable man, (of which I know not the date,) written in reference to a caution which he had given Mrs. Sheridan, against sleeping in the same bed with a lady who was consumptive, expresses feelings creditable alike to the writer and his physician:—