"The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property," remarked the prince. "I wish Charles would remember, that his strength lies in the aristocracy."
"No man knows it better," observed W——. "But I strongly doubt whether his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people, nay, the populace, are a new element to him, and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent ability, as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long, and has bridled them with so much the hand of a master, that what he might have once considered as an achievement, he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy, I scarcely think that, after passing the Granicus, he would have been proud of his fame as a horse-breaker. Fox sees, as all men see, that great changes, for either good or ill, are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king, perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great demagogue."
The glitter of Sheridan's eye, and the glow which passed across his cheek, as he looked at the speaker, showed how fully he agreed with the sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But, with that sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious characteristics of the man, he laughingly said, "At all events, whatever the Revolution may do to our neighbours, it will do a vast deal of good to ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull, that I began to think of withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country, where, at least, their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers, like the herbs of a 'Hortus siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the effects were miraculous—the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's Street, and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people grew communicative, and puns were committed that would have struck their forefathers with amazement. As Burke said, in one of his sybilline speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come, at once bending down the summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the aldermen, on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal, said, that if the Dutch would take his advice, and if iron spikes were not enough, they should glass their wall."
The newspapers now arrived, and France for a while engrossed the conversation. The famous Mirabeau had just made an oration with which all France was ringing.
"That man's character," said the prince, after reading some vehement portions of his speech, "perplexes me more and more. An aristocrat by birth, he is a democrat by passion; but he has palpably come into the world too early, or too late, for power. Under Louis XIV., he would have made a magnificent minister; under his successor, a splendid courtier; but under the present unfortunate king, he must be either the brawler or the buffoon, the incendiary, or the sport, of the people. Yet he is evidently a man of singular ability, and if he knows how to manage his popularity, he may yet do great things."
"I always," said Sheridan, "am inclined to predict well of the man who takes advantage of his time. That is the true faculty for public life; the true test of commanding capacity. There are thousands who have ability, for one who knows how to make use of it; as we are told that there are monsters in the depths of the ocean which never come up to the light. But I prefer your leviathan, which, whether he slumbers in the calm or rushes through the storm, shows all his magnitude to the eye."
"And gets himself harpooned for his pains," observed W——.
"Well, then, at least he dies the death of a hero," was the reply—"tempesting the brine, and perhaps even sinking the harpooner." He uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour, that all listened while he declaimed—"I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct, his political ear losing the voice of man, his passions growing stagnant, all his sensibilities palpably paralyzing, while the world is as loud, busy, and brilliant round him as ever—with but one sense remaining, the unhappy consciousness that, though not yet dead, he is buried; a figure, if not of scorn, of pity, entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind, and forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his life, would wish to drag on existence like Somers, coming to the Council day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough, babbling out his own imbecility? If I am to die, let me die in hot blood, let me die like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart, or springing upon the hunter who has struck him—not like the crushed snake, miserable and mutilated, hiding itself in its hole, and torpid before it is turned into clay!"
"Will Mirabeau redeem France?" asked the prince; "or will he overwhelm the throne?"
"I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher," said Sheridan, sportively, "who could walk through the ocean, and yet keep his head above water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already."