And yet this "rugged old giant," as he has been called, provided for them all, and for many others who came and went at their will, and who grumbled if everything was not exactly to their liking. As his bodily sufferings increased, he nerved himself to face the end with a touchingly childlike confidence. His thoughts wandered back to his wife. "We have been parted thirty years," he said. "Perhaps she is now praying for me. God help me. God, Thou art merciful, hear my prayers, and enable me to trust in Thee." Years before, when wandering about the dark aisles with Goldsmith, he had pointed to the sleeping figures around, saying, "And our names may perhaps be mixed with theirs." So now he was delighted when, in answer to his question, he was told that he would be buried in Westminster Abbey. "Do not give me any more physic," he asked the doctor at the very last; "I desire to render up my soul to God unclouded."

His funeral was a very quiet one, in great contrast to Garrick's, but his executors felt that "a cathedral service with lights and music" would have been too costly; as it was, the Dean and Chapter charged high fees, and the expenses came to more than two hundred pounds. But Boswell assures us that a "respectable number of his friends attended," and though the Abbey holds many a greater name than that of Samuel Johnson, few that sleep there carried a braver, kindlier heart throughout a life of constant suffering.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the son of an actor and manager who had been driven from Ireland, his native country, by a series of misfortunes, and forced to earn his living in England as a teacher of elocution. Want of money, endless debts, a wonderful power of spending freely with an entire absence of forethought, characterised the Sheridan family, and young Richard was brought up on those very happy-go-lucky principles. He was sent to Harrow, where his tutor said, "The sources of his infirmities were a scanty and precarious allowance from the father;" and when he left school, a handsome, brilliant, careless boy of seventeen the state of the family purse made any further education out of the question. His father had settled in Bath, and here Richard made the acquaintance of that beautiful girl and wonderful singer, Elizabeth Lindley "the link between an angel and a woman," as an Irish bishop called her, whose father also taught music and gave concerts in Bath. She was very unhappy, as her relations wished to force her into a marriage with a rich but elderly gentleman whom she disliked, and in her despair she confided her troubles to Richard Sheridan, the one among her many admirers to whom she had given her heart. To make a long story short, the young couple fled together "on a matrimonial expedition," as the London Chronicle worded it; and in spite of all opposition they married, and took up their abode in London, near Portman Square. Though neither of them had any private fortune, Sheridan refused to allow his wife to sing in public. This action of his was warmly discussed by Dr. Johnson's friends, some of whom said that as the young gentleman had not a shilling in the world, he was foolishly delicate or foolishly proud. The Doctor, however, applauded him roundly. "He is a brave man. He resolved wisely and nobly. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife singing publicly for him? No, sir, there can be no doubt here." But Sheridan had another surprise in store for his friends, and suddenly it became known that he had written a play called "The Rivals," with which the manager of Covent Garden Theatre was entranced, a light, fresh comedy, bearing on fashionable life in Bath. It was produced, and in spite of its many faults, chiefly arising from its having been written in such hot haste, it made a reputation for its author, which prepared the way for his great triumph two years later, when he brought out "The School for Scandal," still the most popular of English comedies. With it he leapt into fame, and though barely twenty-five, he became the man whose name was in everybody's mouth. With characteristic airiness and vagueness in money matters, he took upon himself the responsible duties of manager to Drury Lane Theatre after Garrick retired, and brilliant though he was, his recklessness and want of any business habits, soon brought about a serious state of chaos and rebellion there. This, however, seemed to disturb him but little, and he turned his attention to politics; for at the Literary Club he had made many political friends, including Fox, and he proposed going into Parliament as an independent member, though he believed that "either ministry or opposition would be happy to engage him." He found a seat at Stafford, and freely promised employment in Drury Lane Theatre to those who voted for him; while the necessary money for the election, which of course Sheridan did not possess, was provided by a gentleman in return for a share in the Opera House. His first speech was not a success, but though disappointed he was not daunted.

"It is in me, however," he declared, "and it shall come out."

Within a very short time the House of Commons listened to him as it would listen to no one else. By constant practice he had trained himself to speak perfectly and true to his Irish blood, he had a rich store of language, a fund of wit and humour, and the power of handling every emotion. His great speech in the Warren Hastings case lasted six hours, during the whole of which time he held the House in the hollow of his hand, and when he continued his attack in Westminster Hall, people paid twenty guineas a day to hear him. "I cannot tell you," wrote his devoted wife to her sister, "the adoration that he has excited in the breasts of every class of people. Every party prejudice has been overcome by such a display of genius, eloquence, and goodness."

Sheridan indeed was at the height of his glory; but fame is a dangerous pinnacle for the strongest of men, and Sheridan had no foundation-stones of strength or stability. His wife's death was the beginning of his fall, debt and drink did the rest. All sense of honour seems to have left him where money was concerned. His actors could get no payments save in fair words; he kept the money which resulted from special benefits; he borrowed where he could, and then plunged the more deeply into debt, but he never curbed his extravagances, or went without anything he desired, no matter to what means he had to resort. His buoyancy never failed him. Even when his theatre was burnt to the ground with a loss to him of £200,000, his ready wit did not desert him. He sat drinking his wine in a coffee-house from where he could see the flames, merely remarking to a sympathetic friend, "A man likes to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." All the latter part of his life is painfully sad; debt, poverty, and dishonour hemmed him in, and excessive drinking brought on his last illness. A few days before his death he was discovered almost starving in an unfurnished room. Even then the bailiffs were about to carry him away to the debtors' gaol, and only the doctor, who stayed and nursed him to the end, prevented this last disgrace. The news of his destitution horrified those who remembered him in the days of his dazzling triumphs, and in one paper an eloquent appeal was made to the public generosity, "that we may prefer ministering in the chamber of sadness to ministering at the splendid sorrows which adorn the hearse." In response, crowds of people, royal dukes included, flocked to leave delicacies at his lodging. But it was too late; the fitful life with all its successes and failures was over, the shining eyes of which he had been so proud were closed for ever now, the man who had "done everything perfectly" was no more: the greatest orator of his day was silent.

He had always hoped to be buried in Westminster Abbey, "where there is very snug lying," and if possible next to Fox and Pitt. Moreover, he had desired that his passage to the grave should be quiet and simple. But his friend, Peter Moore, determined that he should have a splendid funeral; every one was invited and every one came. The procession was of great length, and "such an array of rank, so great a number of distinguished persons" had never before assembled within the memory of the beholders. There was just room for a single grave near to where David Garrick lay, and here Sheridan was buried. While lest his name should be all too soon forgotten, a simply worded tablet was immediately prepared—the last tribute of Peter Moore.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MUSICIANS IN THE ABBEY

The Abbey which has its poets, its writers, and its actors, has also its musicians. Henry Purcell, who lies in the north aisle, spent his short life among Westminster precincts, for he was horn in the year 1658 at "an ancient house of Westminster, next door to the public-house and skittle ground—the 'Bell and Fish.'" His father, a "master of musique, who could sing brave songs," was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a singing man of the Abbey, master of the choristers there, and, most important of all, the musical copyist. For under the Commonwealth, church choirs and music had been sternly repressed, organs had been broken up, singing books had been burned as superstitious and ungodly, so that when once more the old cathedral services were allowed to be held, but few of the old service books were left, and copyists had to make good the deficiency. The older Purcell died when his little boy was quite young, but Thomas Purcell, an uncle, also a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, took him in hand, and at six years old Henry became a chorister under that delightful old Master of the Children of the chapel, Captain Cook, a musician whose devotion to King Charles I. had led him to turn soldier during the Civil War, and who in his old age had returned to his first love. Purcell was under this original master for eight years, and the old soldier seems to have taken a special pride in the little chorister. But he did not live to see his favourite pupil become famous, for in 1672 the old master died and was buried in the Westminster cloisters, whither he was followed two years later by his successor Humphreys. Then John Blow, another pupil, became Master of the Children, and, as it is specially stated on his monument in the Abbey, at the same time "master to the famous Henry Purcell." It was everything to the boy to be under so rare a teacher, for not only was he an excellent musician, but also a man singularly sympathetic and pure-minded, generous to a degree and without a thought of self. He became organist of Westminster Abbey, but he resigned it because he thought it the very post Purcell could fill with advantage. He then accepted St. Paul's, but having another pupil, Clarke, whom he considered suited to it, he again set his own interests entirely on one side and retired in his favour.