"The alarm had been brought forward in great pomp and form on Saturday morning. At night all the mail-coaches were stopped; the Duke of Richmond stationed himself, among other curiosities, at the Tower; a great municipal officer, too, had made a discovery exceedingly beneficial to the people of this country. He meant the Lord Mayor of London, who had found out that there was at the King's Arms at Cornhill a Debating Society, where principles of the most dangerous tendency were propagated; where people went to buy treason at sixpence a head; where it was retailed to them by the glimmering of an inch of candle; and five minutes, to be measured by the glass, were allowed to each traitor to perform his part in overturning the State."
It was in the same speech that he gave the well-known and happy turn to the motto of the Sun newspaper, which was at that time known to be the organ of the Alarmists. "There was one paper," he remarked, "in particular, said to be the property of members of that House, and published and conducted under their immediate direction, which had for its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, when it might, with much more propriety, have assumed the whole—
"Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat? Ille etiam cacos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella."
Among the subjects that occupied the greatest share of his attention during this Session, was the Memorial of Lord Auckland to the States-General,—which document he himself brought under the notice of Parliament as deserving of severe reprobation for the violent and vindictive tone which it assumed towards the Commissioners of the National Convention. It was upon one of the discussions connected with this subject that a dispute, as to the correct translation of the word "malheureux" was maintained with much earnestness between him and Lord Melville—two persons, the least qualified, perhaps, of any in the House, to volunteer as either interpreters or pronouncers of the French language. According to Sheridan, "ces malheureux" was to be translated "these wretches," while Lord Melville contended, to the no small amusement of the House, that "mollyroo" (as he pronounced it,) meant no more than "these unfortunate gentlemen."
In the November of this year Mr. Sheridan lost by a kind of death which must have deepened the feeling of the loss, the most intimate of all his companions, Tickell. If congeniality of dispositions and pursuits were always a strengthener of affection, the friendship between Tickell and Sheridan ought to have been of the most cordial kind; for they resembled each other in almost every particular—in their wit, their wants, their talent, and their thoughtlessness. It is but too true, however, that friendship in general gains far less by such a community of pursuit than it loses by the competition that naturally springs out of it; and that two wits or two beauties form the last sort of alliance, in which we ought to look for specimens of sincere and cordial friendship. The intercourse between Tickell and Sheridan was not free from such collisions of vanity. They seem to have lived, indeed, in a state of alternate repulsion and attraction; and, unable to do without the excitement of each other's vivacity, seldom parted without trials of temper as well as of wit. Being both, too, observers of character, and each finding in the other rich materials for observation, their love of ridicule could not withstand such a temptation, and they freely criticised each other to common friends, who, as is usually the case, agreed with both. Still, however, there was a whim and sprightliness even about their mischief, which made it seem rather an exercise of ingenuity than an indulgence of ill nature; and if they had not carried on this intellectual warfare, neither would have liked the other half so well.
The two principal productions of Tickell, the "Wreath of Fashion" and "Anticipation," were both upon temporary subjects, and have accordingly passed into oblivion. There are, however, some graceful touches of pleasantry in the poem; and the pamphlet, (which procured for him not only fame but a place in the Stamp-office,) contains passages of which the application and the humor have not yet grown stale. As Sheridan is the hero of the Wreath of Fashion, it is but right to quote the verses that relate to him; and I do it with the more pleasure, because they also contain a well-merited tribute to Mrs. Sheridan. After a description of the various poets of the day that deposit their offerings in Lady Millar's "Vase of Sentiment," the author thus proceeds:—
"At Fashion's shrine behold a gentler bard
Gaze on the mystic vase with fond regard—
But see, Thalia checks the doubtful thought,
'Canst thou, (she cries,) with sense, with genius fraught,
Canst thou to Fashion's tyranny submit,
Secure in native, independent wit?
Or yield to Sentiment's insipid rule,
By Taste, by Fancy, chac'd through Scandal's school?
Ah no—be Sheridan's the comic page,
Or let me fly with Garrick from the stage.
Haste then, my friend, (for let me boast that name,)
Haste to the opening path of genuine fame;
Or, if thy muse a gentler theme pursue,
Ah, 'tis to love and thy Eliza due!
For, sure, the sweetest lay she well may claim,
Whose soul breathes harmony o'er all her frame;
While wedded love, with ray serenely clear,
Beams from her eye, as from its proper sphere."
In the year 1781, Tickell brought out at Drury-Lane an opera called "The Carnival of Venice," on which there is the following remark in Mrs. Crouch's Memoirs:—"Many songs in this piece so perfectly resemble in poetic beauty those which adorn The Duenna, that they declare themselves to be the offspring of the same muse." I know not how far this conjecture may be founded, but there are four pretty lines which I remember in this opera, and which, it may be asserted without hesitation, Sheridan never wrote. He had no feeling for natural scenery, [Footnote: In corroboration of this remark, I have been allowed to quote the following passage of a letter written by a very eminent person, whose name all lovers of the Picturesque associate with their best enjoyment of its beauties:—
"At one time I saw a good deal of Sheridan—he and his first wife passed some time here, and he is an instance that a taste for poetry and for scenery are not always united. Had this house been in the midst of Hounslow Heath, he could not have taken less interest in all around it: his delight was in shooting, all and every day, and my game-keeper said that of all the gentlemen he had ever been out with he never knew so bad a shot.">[ nor is there a trace of such a sentiment discoverable through his poetry. The following, as well as I can recollect, are the lines:—
"And while the moon shines on the stream,
And as soft music breathes around,
The feathering oar returns the gleam,
And dips in concert to the sound."