THIS MARBLE IS THE TRIBUTE OF AN ATTACHED
FRIEND,
PETER MOORE."
Seldom has there been seen such an array of rank as graced this Funeral. [Footnote: It was well remarked by a French Journal, in contrasting the penury of Sheridan's latter years with the splendor of his Funeral, that "France is the place for a man of letters to live in, and England the place for him to die in.">[ The Pall-bearers were the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, the Lord Bishop of London, Lord Holland, and Lord Spencer. Among the mourners were His Royal Highness the Duke of York, His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Argyle, the Marquisses of Anglesea and Tavistock; the Earls of Thanet, Jersey, Harrington, Besborough, Mexborough, Rosslyn, and Yarmouth; Lords George Cavendish and Robert Spencer; Viscounts Sidmouth, Granville, and Duncannon; Lords Rivers, Erskine, and Lynedoch; the Lord Mayor; Right Hon. G. Canning and W. W. Pole, &c., &c. [Footnote: In the train of all this phalanx of Dukes, Marquisses, Earls, Viscounts, Barons, Honorables, and Right Honorables, Princes of the Blood Royal, and First Officers of the State, it was not a little interesting to see, walking humbly, side by side, the only two men whose friendship had not waited for the call of vanity to display itself—Dr. Bain and Mr. Rogers.]
Where were they all, these Royal and Noble persons, who now crowded to "partake the gale" of Sheridan's glory—where were they all while any life remained in him? Where were they all, but a few weeks before, when their interposition might have saved his heart from breaking,—or when the zeal, now wasted on the grave, might have soothed and comforted the death-bed? This is a subject on which it is difficult to speak with patience. If the man was unworthy of the commonest offices of humanity while he lived, why all this parade of regret and homage over his tomb?
There appeared some verses at the time, which, however intemperate in their satire and careless in their style, came, evidently, warm from the heart of the writer, and contained sentiments to which, even in his cooler moments, he needs not hesitate to subscribe:—
"Oh it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
And friendships so false in the great and high-born;—
To think what a long line of Titles may follow
The relics of him who died, friendless and lorn!
"How proud they can press to the funeral array
Of him whom they shunn'd, in his sickness and sorrow—
How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,
Whose pall shall be held up by Nobles to-morrow!"
The anonymous writer thus characterizes the talents of Sheridan:—
"Was this, then, the fate of that high-gifted man,
The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall—
The orator, dramatist, minstrel,—who ran
Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all.