That this habit of premeditation was not altogether owing to a want of quickness, appears from the power and liveliness of his replies in Parliament, and the vivacity of some of his retorts in conversation. [Footnote: His best bon mots are in the memory of every one. Among those less known, perhaps, is his answer to General T——, relative to some difference of opinion between them on the War in Spain:—"Well, T——, are you still on your high horse?"—"If I was on a horse before, I am upon an elephant now." "No, T——, you were upon an ass before, now you are upon a mule."
Some mention having been made in his presence of a Tax upon Milestones. Sheridan said, "such a tax would be unconstitutional,—as they were a race that could not meet to remonstrate."
As an instance of his humor, I have been told that, in some country-house where he was on a visit, an elderly maiden lady having set her heart on being his companion in a walk, he excused himself at first on account of the badness of the weather. Soon afterwards, however, the lady intercepted him in an attempt to escape without her:—"Well," she said, "it has cleared up, I see." "Why, yes," he answered, "it has cleared up enough for one, but not for two.">[ The labor, indeed, which he found necessary for his public displays, was, in a great degree, the combined effect of his ignorance and his taste;—the one rendering him fearful of committing himself on the matter of his task, and the other making him fastidious and hesitating as to the manner of it. I cannot help thinking, however, that there must have been, also, a degree of natural slowness in the first movements of his mind upon any topic; and, that, like those animals which remain gazing upon their prey before they seize it, he found it necessary to look intently at his subject for some time, before he was able to make the last, quick spring that mastered it.
Among the proofs of this dependence of his fancy upon time and thought for its development, may be mentioned his familiar letters, as far as their fewness enables us to judge. Had his wit been a "fruit, that would fall without shaking," we should, in these communications at least, find some casual windfalls of it. But, from the want of sufficient time to search and cull, he seems to have given up, in despair, all thoughts of being lively in his letters; and accordingly, as the reader must have observed in the specimens that have been given, his compositions in this way are not only unenlivened by any excursions beyond the bounds of mere matter of fact, but, from the habit or necessity of taking a certain portion of time for correction, are singularly confused, disjointed, and inelegant in their style.
It is certain that even his bon-mots in society were not always to be set down to the credit of the occasion; but that frequently, like skilful priests, he prepared the miracle of the moment before-hand. Nothing, indeed, could be more remarkable than the patience and tact, with which he would wait through a whole evening for the exact moment, when the shaft which he had ready feathered, might be let fly with effect. There was no effort, either obvious or disguised, to lead to the subject—no "question detached, (as he himself expresses it,) to draw you into the ambuscade of his ready-made joke"—and, when the lucky moment did arrive, the natural and accidental manner in which he would let this treasured sentence fall from his lips, considerably added to the astonishment and the charm. So bright a thing, produced so easily, seemed like the delivery of Wieland's [Footnote: See Sotheby's admirable Translation of Oberon, Canto 9.] Amanda in a dream;—and his own apparent unconsciousness of the value of what he said might have deceived dull people into the idea that there was really nothing in it.
The consequence of this practice of waiting for the moment of effect was, (as all, who have been much in his society, must have observed,) that he would remain inert in conversation, and even taciturn, for hours, and then suddenly come out with some brilliant sally, which threw a light over the whole evening, and was carried away in the memories of all present. Nor must it be supposed that in the intervals, either before or after these flashes, he ceased to be agreeable; on the contrary, he had a grace and good nature in his manner, which gave a charm to even his most ordinary sayings,—and there was, besides, that ever-speaking lustre in his eye, which made it impossible, even when he was silent, to forget who he was.
A curious instance of the care with which he treasured up the felicities of his wit, appears in the use he made of one of those epigrammatic passages, which the reader may remember among the memorandums for his Comedy of Affectation, and which, in its first form, ran thus:—"He certainly has a great deal of fancy, and a very good memory; but, with a perverse ingenuity, he employs these qualities as no other person does—for he employs his fancy in his narratives, and keeps his recollection for his wit:—when he makes his jokes, you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and 'tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination." After many efforts to express this thought more concisely, and to reduce the language of it to that condensed and elastic state, in which alone it gives force to the projectiles of wit, he kept the passage by him patiently some years,—till at length he found an opportunity of turning it to account, in a reply, I believe, to Mr. Dundas, in the House of Commons, when, with the most extemporaneous air, he brought it forth, in the following compact and pointed form:—"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts."
His Political Character stands out so fully in these pages, that it is needless, by any comments, to attempt to raise it into stronger relief. If to watch over the Rights of the Subject, and guard them against the encroachments of Power, be, even in safe and ordinary times, a task full of usefulness and honor, how much more glorious to have stood sentinel over the same sacred trust, through a period so trying as that with which Sheridan had to struggle—when Liberty itself had become suspected and unpopular—when Authority had succeeded in identifying patriotism with treason, and when the few remaining and deserted friends of Freedom were reduced to take their stand on a narrowing isthmus, between Anarchy on one side, and the angry incursions of Power on the other. How manfully he maintained his ground in a position so critical, the annals of England and of the Champions of her Constitution will long testify. The truly national spirit, too, with which, when that struggle was past, and the dangers to liberty from without seemed greater than any from within, he forgot all past differences, in the one common cause of Englishmen, and, while others "gave but the left hand to the Country," [Footnote: His own words] proffered her both of his, stamped a seal of sincerity on his public conduct, which, in the eyes of all England, authenticated it as genuine patriotism.
To his own party, it is true, his conduct presented a very different phasis; and if implicit partisanship were the sole merit of a public man, his movements, at this and other junctures, were far too independent and unharnessed to lay claim to it. But, however useful may be the bond of Party, there are occasions that supersede it; and, in all such deviations from the fidelity which it enjoins, the two questions to be asked are—were they, as regarded the Public, right? were they, as regarded the individual himself, unpurchased? To the former question, in the instance of Sheridan, the whole country responded in the affirmative; and to the latter, his account with the Treasury, from first to last, is a sufficient answer.
Even, however, on the score of fidelity to Party, when we recollect that he more than once submitted to some of the worst martyrdoms which it imposes—that of sharing in the responsibility of opinions from which he dissented, and suffering by the ill consequences of measures against which he had protested;—when we call to mind, too, that during the Administration of Mr. Addington, though agreeing wholly with the Ministry and differing with the Whigs, he even then refused to profit by a position so favorable to his interests, and submitted, like certain religionists, from a point of honor, to suffer for a faith in which he did not believe—it seems impossible not to concede that even to the obligations of Party he was as faithful as could be expected from a spirit that so far outgrew its limits, and, in paying the tax of fidelity while he asserted the freedom of dissent, showed that he could sacrifice every thing to it, except his opinion. Through all these occasional variations, too, he remained a genuine Whig to the last; and, as I have heard one of his own party happily express it, was "like pure gold, that changes color in the fire, but comes out unaltered."