This speech, to whose popular sentiments the play owed much of its success, was chiefly made up by Sheridan of loans from his own oratory. The image of the Vulture and the Lamb was taken, as I have already remarked, from a passage in his speech on the trial of Hastings;—and he had, on the subject of Invasion, in the preceding year, (1798,) delivered more than once the substance of those patriotic sentiments, which were now so spirit-stirring in the mouth of Rolla. For instance, on the King's Message relative to preparation for Invasion:—
"The Directory may instruct their guards to make the fairest professions of how their army is to act; but of these professions surely not one can be believed. The victorious Buonaparte may say that he comes like a minister of grace, with no other purpose than to give peace to the cottager, to restore citizens to their rights, to establish real freedom, and a liberal and humane government. But can there be an Englishman so stupid, so besotted, so befooled, as to give a moment's credit to such ridiculous professions? … What, then, is their object? They come for what they really want: they come for ships, for commerce, for credit, and for capital. Yes; they come for the sinews, the bones—for the marrow and the very heart's blood of Great Britain. But let us examine what we are to purchase at this price. Liberty, it appears, is now their staple commodity: but attend, I say, and examine how little of real liberty they themselves enjoy, who are so forward and prodigal in bestowing it on others."
The speech of Rolla in the prison-scene is also an interpolation of his own,—Kotzebue having, far more judiciously, (considering the unfitness of the moment for a tirade,) condensed the reflections of Rolla into the short exclamation, "Oh, sacred Nature! thou art still true to thyself," and then made him hurry into the prison to his friend.
Of the translation of this play by Lewis, which has been found among the papers, Mr. Sheridan does not appear to have made any use;—except in so far as it may have suggested to him the idea of writing a song for Cora, of which that gentleman had set him an example in a ballad, beginning
"Soft are thy slumbers, soft and sweet,
Hush thee, hush thee, hush thee, boy."
The song of Mr. Lewis, however, is introduced, with somewhat less violence to probability, at the beginning of the Third Act, where the women are waiting for the tidings of the battle, and when the intrusion of a ballad from the heroine, though sufficiently unnatural, is not quite so monstrous as in the situation which Sheridan has chosen for it.
The following stanza formed a part of the song, as it was originally written:—
'Those eyes that beam'd this morn the light of youth,
This morn I saw their gentle rays impart
The day-spring sweet of hope, of love, of truth,
The pure Aurora of my lover's heart.
Yet wilt thou rise, oh Sun, and waste thy light,
While my Alonzo's beams are quench'd in night.'
The only question upon which he spoke this year was the important measure of the Union, which he strenuously and at great length opposed. Like every other measure, professing to be for the benefit of Ireland, the Union has been left incomplete in the one essential point, without which there is no hope of peace or prosperity for that country. As long as religious disqualification is left to "lie like lees at the bottom of men's hearts," [Footnote: "It lay like lees at the bottom of men's hearts; and, if the vessel was but stirred, it would come up."—BACON, Henry VII.] in vain doth the voice of Parliament pronounce the word "Union" to the two Islands—a feeling, deep as the sea that breaks between them, answers back, sullenly, "Separation."
Through the remainder of Mr. Sheridan's political career it is my intention, for many reasons, to proceed with a more rapid step; and merely to give the particulars of his public conduct, together with such documents as I can bring to illustrate it, without entering into much discussion or comment on either.