"Half-past nine, Mount Ephraim.
"After you had been gone an hour or two I got moped damnably. Perhaps there is a sympathy between the corporeal and the mind's eye. In the Temple I can't see far before me, and seldom extend my speculations on things to come into any fatiguing sketch of reflection.—From your window, however, there was a tedious scope of black atmosphere, that I think won my mind into a sort of fellow-travellership, pacing me again through the cheerless waste of the past, and presenting hardly one little rarified cloud to give a dim ornament to the future;—not a star to be seen;—no permanent light to gild my horizon;—only the fading helps to transient gaiety in the lamps of Tunbridge;—no Law coffee-house at hand, or any other house of relief;—no antagonist to bicker one into a control of one's cares by a successful opposition, [Footnote: Richardson was remarkable for his love of disputation; and Tickell, when hard pressed by him in argument, used often, as a last resource, to assume the voice and manner of Mr. Fox, which he had the power of mimicking so exactly, that Richardson confessed he sometimes stood awed and silenced by the resemblance.
This disputatious humor of Richardson was once turned to account by Sheridan in a very characteristic manner. Having had a hackney-coach in employ for five or six hours, and not being provided with the means of paying it, he happened to espy Richardson in the street, and proposed to take him in the coach some part of his way. The offer being accepted, Sheridan lost no time in starting a subject of conversation, on which he knew his companion was sure to become argumentative and animated. Having, by well-managed contradiction, brought him to the proper pitch of excitement, he affected to grow impatient and angry, himself, and saying that "he could not think of staying in the same coach with a person that would use such language," pulled the check-string, and desired the coachman to let him out. Richardson, wholly occupied with the argument, and regarding the retreat of his opponent as an acknowledgment of defeat, still pressed his point, and even hollowed "more last words" through the coach-window after Sheridan, who, walking quietly home, left the poor disputant responsible for the heavy fare of the coach.] nor a softer enemy to soothe one into an oblivion of them.
"It is damned foolish for ladies to leave their scissors about;—the frail thread of a worthless life is soon snipped. I wish to God my fate had been true to its first destination, and made a parson of me;—I should have made an excellent country Joll. I think I can, with confidence, pronounce the character that would have been given of me:—He was an indolent good-humored man, civil at all times, and hospitable at others, namely, when he was able to be so, which, truth to say, happened but seldom. His sermons were better than his preaching, and his doctrine better than his life; though often grave, and sometimes melancholy, he nevertheless loved a joke,—the more so when overtaken in his cups, which, a regard to the faith of history compels us to subjoin, fell out not unfrequently. He had more thought than was generally imputed to him, though it must be owned no man alive ever exercised thought to so little purpose. Rebecca, his wife, the daughter of an opulent farmer in the neighborhood of his small living, brought him eighteen children; and he now rests with those who, being rather not absolutely vicious than actively good, confide in the bounty of Providence to strike a mild average between the contending negations of their life, and to allow them in their future state, what he ordained them in this earthly pilgrimage, a snug neutrality and a useless repose.—I had written thus far, absolutely determined, under an irresistible influence of the megrims, to set off for London on foot, when, accidentally searching for a cardialgic, to my great delight, I discovered three fugitive sixpences, headed by a vagrant shilling, immerged in the heap in my waistcoat pocket. This discovery gave an immediate elasticity to my mind; and I have therefore devised a scheme, worthier the improved state of my spirits, namely, to swindle your servants out of a horse, under the pretence of a ride upon the heath, and to jog on contentedly homewards. So, under the protection of Providence, and the mercy of footpads, I trust we shall meet again to-morrow; at all events, there is nothing huffish in this; for, whether sad or merry, I am always,
"Most affectionately yours,
"J. RICHARDSON.
"P.S. Your return only confirmed me in my resolution of going; for I had worked myself, in five hours solitude, into such a state of nervous melancholy, that I found I could not help the meanness of crying, even if any one looked me in the face. I am anxious to avoid a regular conviction of so disreputable an infirmity;—besides, the night has become quite pleasant."
Between Tickell and Sheridan there was a never-ending "skirmish of wit," both verbal and practical; and the latter kind, in particular, was carried on between them with all the waggery, and, not unfrequently, the malice of school-boys. [Footnote: On one occasion, Sheridan having covered the floor of a dark passage, leading from the drawing room, with all the plates and dishes of the house, ranged closely together, provoked his unconscious play-fellow to pursue him into the midst of them. Having left a path for his own escape, he passed through easily, but Tickell, falling at full length into the ambuscade, was very much cut in several places. The next day, Lord John Townshend, on paying a visit to the bed-side of Tickell, found him covered over with patches, and indignantly vowing vengeance against Sheridan for this unjustifiable trick. In the midst of his anger, however, he could not help exclaiming, with the true feeling of an amateur of this sort of mischief, "but how amazingly well done it was!">[ Tickell, much less occupied by business than his friend, had always some political jeux d'esprit on the anvil; and sometimes these trifles were produced by them jointly. The following string of pasquinades so well known in political circles, and written, as the reader will perceive, at different dates, though principally by Sheridan, owes some of its stanzas to Tickel, and a few others, I believe, to Lord John Townshend. I have strung together, without regard to chronology, the best of these detached lampoons. Time having removed their venom, and with it, in a great degree, their wit, they are now, like dried snakes, mere harmless objects of curiosity.
"Johnny W—lks, Johnny W—lks, [1]
Thou greatest of bilks,
How chang'd are the notes you now sing!
Your fam'd Forty-five
Is Prerogative,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King,'
Johnny W-lks,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King.'"
"Jack Ch—ch—ll, Jack Ch—ch—ll,
The town sure you search ill,
Your mob has disgraced all your brags;
When next you draw out
Your hospital rout,
Do, prithee, afford them clean rags,
Jack Ch—ch—ll,
Do, prithee, afford them clean rags."