"As an argument to the feelings and pa.s.sions of men, the Honorable Member had great advantages in dwelling on this topic; because it was a subject which those who disliked everything that had the air of cant and profession on the one hand, or of indifference on the other, found it awkward to meddle with. Establishments, tests, and matters of that nature, were proper objects of political discussion in that House, but not general charges of Atheism and Deism, as pressed upon their consideration by the Honorable Gentleman. Thus far, however, he would say, and it was an opinion he had never changed or concealed, that, although no man can command his conviction, he had ever considered a deliberate disposition to make proselytes in infidelity as an unaccountable depravity. Whoever attempted to pluck the belief or the prejudice on this subject, style it which he would, from the bosom of one man, woman, or child, committed a brutal outrage, the motive for which he had never been able to trace or conceive."
I quote these words as creditable to the feeling and good sense of Sheridan. Whatever may be thought of particular faiths and sects, a belief in a life beyond this world is the only thing that pierces through the walls of our prison-house, and lets hope shine in upon a scene, that would be otherwise bewildered and desolate. The proselytism of the Atheist is, indeed, a dismal mission. That believers, who have each the same heaven in prospect, should invite us to join them on their respective ways to it, is at least a benevolent officiousness,--but that he, who has no prospect or hope himself, should seek for companionship in his road to annihilation, can only be explained by that tendency in human creatures to count upon each other in their despair, as well as their hope.
In the speech upon his own motion relative to the existence of seditious practices in the country, there is some lively ridicule, upon the panic then prevalent. For instance:--
"The alarm had been brought forward in great pomp and form on Sat.u.r.day morning. At night all the mail-coaches were stopped; the Duke of Richmond stationed himself, among other curiosities, at the Tower; a great munic.i.p.al 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sumed 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 doc.u.ment he himself brought under the notice of Parliament as deserving of severe reprobation for the violent and vindictive tone which it a.s.sumed 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 p.r.o.nouncers of the French language. According to Sheridan, "_ces malheureux_" was to be translated "these wretches," while Lord Melville contended, to the no small amus.e.m.e.nt of the House, that "_mollyroo_" (as he p.r.o.nounced 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 compet.i.tion 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 princ.i.p.al productions of Tickell, the "Wreath of Fashion" and "Antic.i.p.ation," were both upon temporary subjects, and have accordingly pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sages 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 a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sage of a letter written by a very eminent person, whose name all lovers of the Picturesque a.s.sociate with their best enjoyment of its beauties:--
"At one time I saw a good deal of Sheridan--he and his first wife pa.s.sed 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."
I have already given a humorous Dedication of the Rivals, written by Tickell on the margin of a copy of that play in my possession. I shall now add another piece of still more happy humor, with which he has filled, in very neat hand-writing, the three or four first pages of the same copy.
"The Rivals, a Comedy--one of the best in the English language--written as long ago as the reign of George the Third. The author"s name was Sheridan--he is mentioned by the historians of that age as a man of uncommon abilities, very little improved by cultivation. His confidence in the resources of his own genius and his aversion to any sort of labor were so great that he could not be prevailed upon to learn either to read or write. He was, for a short time, Manager of one the play-houses, and conceived the extraordinary and almost incredible project of composing a play extempore, which he was to recite in the Green-room to the actors, who were immediately to come on the stage and perform it. The players refusing to undertake their parts at so short a notice, and with so little preparation, he threw up the management in disgust.
"He was a member of the last Parliaments that were summoned in England, and signalized himself on many occasions by his wit and eloquence, though he seldom came to the House till the debate was nearly concluded, and never spoke, unless he was drunk. He lived on a footing of great intimacy with the famous Fox, who is said to have concerted with him the audacious attempt which he made, about the year 1783, to seize the whole property of the East India Company, amounting at that time to above 12,000,000_l_. sterling, and then to declare himself Lord Protector of the realm by the t.i.tle of Carlo Khan. This desperate scheme actually received the consent of the lower House of Parliament, the majority of whom were bribed by Fox, or intimidated by his and Sheridan"s threats and violence: and it is generally believed that the Revolution would have taken place, if the Lords of the King"s Bedchamber had not in a body surrounded the throne and shown the most determined resolution not to abandon their posts but with their lives. The usurpation being defeated, Parliament was dissolved and loaded with infamy. Sheridan was one of the few members of it who were re-elected:--the Burgesses of Stafford, whom he had kept in a constant state of intoxication for near three weeks, chose him again to represent them, which he was well qualified to do.
"Fox"s Whig party being very much reduced, or rather almost annihilated, he and the rest of the conspirators remained quiet for some time; till, in the year 1788, the French, in conjunction with Tippoo Sultan, having suddenly seized and divided between themselves the whole of the British possessions in India, the East India Company broke, and a national bankruptcy was apprehended. During this confusion Fox and his partisans a.s.sembled in large bodies, and made a violent attack in Parliament on Pitt, the King"s first minister:--Sheridan supported and seconded him.
Parliament seemed disposed to inquire into the cause of the calamity: the nation was almost in a state of actual rebellion; and it is impossible for us, at the distance of three hundred years, to form any judgment what dreadful consequences might have followed, if the King, by the advice of the Lords of the Bedchamber, had not dissolved the Parliament, and taken the administration of affairs into his own hands, and those of a few confidential servants, at the head of whom he was pleased to place one Mr. Atkinson, a merchant, who had acquired a handsome fortune in the Jamaica trade, and pa.s.sed universally for a man of unblemished integrity.
His Majesty having now no farther occasion for Pitt, and being desirous of rewarding him for his past services, and, at the same time, finding an adequate employment for his great talents, caused him to enter into holy orders, and presented him with the Deanery of Windsor; where he became an excellent preacher, and published several volumes of sermons, all of which are now lost.
"To return to Sheridan:--on the abrogation of Parliaments, he entered into a closer connection than ever with Fox and a few others of lesser note, forming together as desperate and profligate a gang as ever disgraced a civilized country. They were guilty of every species of enormity, and went so far as even to commit robberies on the highway, with a degree of audacity that could be equalled only by the ingenuity with which they escaped conviction. Sheridan, not satisfied with eluding, determined to mock the justice of his country, and composed a Masque called "The Foresters," containing a circ.u.mstantial account of some of the robberies he had committed, and a good deal of sarcasm on the pusillanimity of those whom he had robbed, and the inefficacy of the penal laws of the kingdom. This piece was acted at Drury-Lane Theatre with great applause, to the astonishment of all sober persons, and the scandal of the nation. His Majesty, who had long wished to curb the licentiousness of the press and the theatres, thought this a good opportunity. He ordered the performers to be enlisted into the army, the play-house to be shut up, and all theatrical exhibitions to be forbid on pain of death, Drury-Lane play-house was soon after converted into a barrack for soldiers, which it has continued to be ever since. Sheridan was arrested, and, it was imagined, would have suffered the rack, if he had not escaped from his guard by a stratagem, and gone over to Ireland in a balloon with which his friend Fox furnished him. Immediately on his arrival in Ireland, he put himself at the head of a party of the most violent Reformers, commanded a regiment of Volunteers at the siege of Dublin in 1791, and was supposed to be the person who planned the scheme for tarring and feathering Mr. Jenkinson, the Lord Lieutenant, and forcing him in that condition to sign the capitulation of the Castle. The persons who were to execute this strange enterprise had actually got into the Lord Lieutenant"s apartment at midnight, and would probably have succeeded in their project, if Sheridan, who was intoxicated with whiskey, a strong liquor much in vogue with the Volunteers, had not attempted to force open the door of Mrs. ----"s bed-chamber, and so given the alarm to the garrison, who instantly flew to arms, seized Sheridan and every one of his party, and confined them in the castle-dungeon.
Sheridan was ordered for execution the next day, but had no sooner got his legs and arms at liberty, than he began capering, jumping, dancing, and making all sorts of antics, to the utter amazement of the spectators.
When the chaplain endeavored, by serious advice and admonition, to bring him to a proper sense of his dreadful situation, he grinned, made faces at him, tried to tickle him, and played a thousand other pranks with such astonishing drollery, that the gravest countenances became cheerful, and the saddest hearts glad. The soldiers who attended at the gallows were so delighted with his merriment, which they deemed magnanimity, that the sheriffs began to apprehend a rescue, and ordered the hangman instantly to do his duty. He went off in a loud horse-laugh, and cast a look towards the Castle, accompanied with a gesture expressive of no great respect.
"Thus ended the life of this singular and unhappy man--a melancholy instance of the calamities that attend the misapplication of great and splendid ability. He was married to a very beautiful and amiable woman, for whom he is said to have entertained an unalterable affection. He had one son, a boy of the most promising hopes, whom he would never suffer to be instructed in the first rudiments of literature. He amused himself, however, with teaching the boy to draw portraits with his toes, in which he soon became so astonishing a proficient that he seldom failed to take a most exact likeness of every person who sat to him.
"There are a few more plays by the same author, all of them excellent.
"For further information concerning this strange man, vide "Macpherson"s Moral History," Art. "_Drunkenness_.""
CHAPTER VII.
SPEECH IN ANSWER TO LORD MORNINGTON.--COALITION OF THE WHIG SECEDERS WITH MR. PITT.--MR. CANNING.--EVIDENCE ON THE TRIAL OF HORNE TOOKE.--THE "GLORIOUS FIRST OF JUNE."--MARRIAGE OF MR. SHERIDAN.--PAMPHLET OF MR.
REEVES.--DEBTS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.--SHAKSPEARE Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS.--TRIAL OF STONE.--MUTINY AT THE NORE.--SECESSION OF MR. FOX FROM PARLIAMENT.
In the year 1794, the natural consequences of the policy pursued by Mr.
Pitt began rapidly to unfold themselves both at home and abroad.
[Footnote: See, for a masterly exposure of the errors of the War, the Speech of Lord Lansdowne this year on bringing forward his Motion for Peace.
I cannot let the name of this n.o.bleman pa.s.s, without briefly expressing the deep grat.i.tude which I feel to him, not only for his own kindness to me, when introduced, as a boy, to his notice, but for the friendship of his truly n.o.ble descendant, which I, in a great degree, owe to him, and which has long been the pride and happiness of my life.] The confederated Princes of the Continent, among whom the gold of England was now the sole bond of union, had succeeded as might be expected from so n.o.ble an incentive, and, powerful only in provoking France, had by every step they took but ministered to her aggrandizement. In the mean time, the measures of the English Minister at home were directed to the two great objects of his legislation--the raising of supplies and the suppressing of sedition; or, in other words, to the double and anomalous task of making the people pay for the failures of their Royal allies, and suffer for their sympathy with the success of their republican enemies. It is the opinion of a learned Jesuit that it was by _aqua regia_ the Golden Calf of the Israelites was dissolved--and the cause of Kings was the Royal solvent, in which the wealth of Great Britain now melted irrecoverably away. While the successes, too, of the French had already lowered the tone of the Minister from projects of aggression to precautions of defence, the wounds which in the wantonness of alarm, he had inflicted on the liberties of the country, were spreading an inflammation around them that threatened real danger. The severity of the sentence upon Muir and Palmer in Scotland, and the daring confidence with which charges of High Treason were exhibited against persons who were, at the worst, but indiscreet reformers, excited the apprehensions of even the least sensitive friends of freedom. It is, indeed, difficult to say how far the excited temper of the Government, seconded by the ever ready subservience of state-lawyers and bishops, might have proceeded at this moment, had not the acquittal of Tooke and his a.s.sociates, and the triumph it diffused through the country, given a lesson to Power such as England is alone capable of giving, and which will long be remembered, to the honor of that great political safeguard,--that Life-preserver in stormy times,--the Trial by Jury.
At the opening of the Session, Mr. Sheridan delivered his admirable answer to Lord Mornington, the report of which, as I have already said, was corrected for publication by himself. In this fine speech, of which the greater part must have been unprepared, there is a natural earnestness of feeling and argument that is well contrasted with the able but artificial harangue that preceded it. In referring to the details which Lord Mornington had entered into of the various atrocities committed in France, he says:--
"But what was the sum of all that he had told the House? that great and dreadful enormities had been committed, at which the heart shuddered, and which not merely wounded every feeling of humanity, but disgusted and sickened the soul. All this was most true; but what did all this prove?
What, but that eternal and unalterable truth which had always presented itself to his mind, in whatever way he had viewed the subject, namely, that a long established despotism so far degraded and debased human nature, as to render its subjects, on the first recovery of their rights, unfit for the exercise of them. But never had he, or would he meet but with re probation that mode of argument which went, in fact, to establish, as an inference from this truth, that those who had been long slaves, ought therefore to remain so for over! No; the lesson ought to be, he would again repeat, a tenfold horror of that despotic form of government, which had so profaned and changed the nature of civilized man, and a still more jealous apprehension of any system tending to withhold the rights and liberties of our fellow-creatures. Such a form of government might be considered as twice cursed; while it existed, it was solely responsible for the miseries and calamities of its subjects; and should a day of retribution come, and the tyranny be destroyed, it was equally to be charged with all the enormities which the folly or frenzy of those who overturned it should commit.
"But the madness of the French people was not confined to their proceedings within their own country; we, and all the Powers of Europe, had to dread it. True; but was not this also to be accounted for? Wild and unsettled as their state of mind was, necessarily, upon the events which had thrown such power so suddenly into their hands, the surrounding States had goaded them into a still more savage state of madness, fury, and desperation. We had unsettled their reason, and then reviled their insanity; we drove them to the extremities that produced the evils we arraigned; we baited them like wild beasts, until at length we made them so. The conspiracy of Pilnitz, and the brutal threats of the Royal abettors of that plot against the rights of nations and of men, had, in truth, to answer for all the additional misery, horrors, and iniquity, which had since disgraced and incensed humanity. Such has been your conduct towards France, that you have created the pa.s.sions which you persecute; you mark a nation to be cut off from the world; you covenant for their extermination; you swear to hunt them in their inmost recesses; you load them with every species of execration; and you now come forth with whining declamations on the horror of their turning upon you with the fury which you inspired."
Having alluded to an a.s.sertion of Condorcet, quoted by Lord Mornington, that "Revolutions are always the work of the minority," he adds livelily:--
"--If this be true, it certainly is a most ominous thing for the enemies of Reform in England; for, if it holds true, of necessity, that the minority still prevails, in national contests, it must be a consequence that the smaller the minority the more certain must be the success. In what a dreadful situation then must the n.o.ble Lord be and all the Alarmists!--for, never surely was a minority so small, so thin in number as the present. Conscions, however, that M. Condorcet was mistaken in our object, I am glad to find that we are terrible in proportion as we are few; I rejoice that the liberality of secession which has thinned our ranks has only served to make us more formidable. The Alarmists will hear this with new apprehensions; they will no doubt return to us with a view to diminish our force, and enc.u.mber us with their alliance in order to reduce us to insignificance."
We have here another instance, in addition to the many that have been given, of the beauties that sprung up under Sheridan"s correcting hand.
This last pointed sentence was originally thus: "And we shall swell our numbers in order to come nearer in a balance of insignificance to the numerous host of the majority."
It was at this time evident that the great Whig Seceders would soon yield to the invitations of Mr. Pitt and the vehement persuasions of Burke, and commit themselves still further with the Administration by accepting of office. Though the final arrangements to this effect were not completed till the summer, on account of the lingering reluctance of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Windham, Lord Loughborough and others of the former Opposition had already put on the official livery of the Minister. It is to be regretted that, in almost all cases of conversion to the side of power, the coincidence of some worldly advantage with the change should make it difficult to decide upon the sincerity or disinterestedness of the convert. That these n.o.ble Whigs were sincere in their alarm there is no reason to doubt; but the lesson of loyalty they have transmitted would have been far more edifying, had the usual corollary of honors and emoluments not followed, and had they left at least one instance of political conversion on record, where the truth was its own sole reward, and the proselyte did not subside into the placeman. Mr. Sheridan was naturally indignant at these desertions, and his bitterness overflows in many pa.s.sages of the speech before us. Lord Mornington having contrasted the privations and sacrifices demanded of the French by their Minister of Finance with those required of the English nation, he says in answer:--
"The n.o.ble Lord need not remind us, that there is no great danger of our Chancellor of the Exchequer making any such experiment. I can more easily fancy another sort of speech for our prudent Minister. I can more easily conceive him modestly comparing himself and his own measures with the character and conduct of his rival, and saying,--"Do I demand of you, wealthy citizens, to lend your h.o.a.rds to Government without interest? On the contrary, when I shall come to propose a loan, there is not a man of you to whom I shall not hold out at least a job in every part of the subscription, and an usurious profit upon every pound you devote to the necessities of your country. Do I demand of you, my fellow-placemen and brother-pensioners, that you should sacrifice any part of your stipends to the public exigency? On the contrary; am I not daily increasing your emoluments and your numbers in proportion as the country becomes unable to provide for you? Do I require of you, my latest and most zealous proselytes, of you who have come over to me for the special purpose of supporting the war--a war, on the success of which you solemnly protest, that the salvation of Britain, and of civil society itself, depend--do I require of you, that you should make a temporary sacrifice, in the cause of human nature, of the greater part of your private incomes? No, gentlemen, I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal; and to prove that I think the sincerity of your attachment to me needs no such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle: I will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you to contribute to it; and, while their whole thoughts are absorbed in patriotic apprehensions for their country, I will dexterously force upon others the favorite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives.
"Good G.o.d, Sir, that he should have thought it prudent to have forced this contrast upon our attention; that he should triumphantly remind us of everything that shame should have withheld, and caution would have buried in oblivion! Will those who stood forth with a parade of disinterested patriotism, and vaunted of the _sacrifices_ they had made, and the _exposed situation_ they had chosen, in order the better to oppose the friends of Brissot in England--will they thank the n.o.ble Lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependents, as unfit to fill the offices procured for them, as the offices themselves were unfit to be created?--Will the train of newly t.i.tled alarmists, of supernumerary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents and commissaries, thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic has been to themselves, and how expensive to their country? What a contrast, indeed, do we exhibit!--What! in such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor, must make the most practised collector"s heart ache while he tears it from them--can it be that people of high rank, and professing high principles, that _they_ or _their families_ should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty? Can it be that that should be the case with the very persons, who state the _unprecedented peril of the country_ as the _sole_ cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks? The Const.i.tution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion, and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not murmur at their burdens, it is for their salvation, their all is at stake. The time is come, when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the Throne as round a standard;--for what? ye honest and disinterested men, to receive, for your own private emolument, a portion of those very taxes wrung from the people on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument?
Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain to abstain a while at least, and wait the fitting of the times? Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak? The Throne is in danger!--"we will support the Throne; but let us share the smiles of Royalty;"--the order of n.o.bility is in danger!--"I will fight for n.o.bility," says the Viscount, "but my zeal would be much greater if I were made an Earl." "Rouse all the Marquis within me," exclaims the Earl, "and the peerage never turned forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove." "Stain my green riband blue," cries out the ill.u.s.trious Knight, "and the fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful servant." What are the people to think of our sincerity?--What credit are they to give to our professions?--Is this system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that whispers to that Right Honorable Gentleman that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and every-day means of ordinary corruption?"
The discussions, indeed, during the whole of this Session, were marked by a degree of personal acrimony, which in the present more sensitive times would hardly be borne. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan came, most of all, into collision; and the retorts of the Minister not unfrequently proved with what weight the haughty sarcasms of Power may descend even upon the tempered buckler of Wit.
It was in this Session, and on the question of the Treaty with the King of Sardinia, that Mr. Canning made his first appearance, as an orator, in the House. He brought with him a fame, already full of promise, and has been one of the brightest ornaments of the senate and the country ever since. From the political faith in which he had been educated, under the very eyes of Mr. Sheridan, who had long been the friend of his family, and at whose house he generally pa.s.sed his college vacations, the line that he was to take in the House of Commons seemed already, according to the usual course of events, marked out for him. Mr. Sheridan had, indeed, with an eagerness which, however premature, showed the value which he and others set upon the alliance, taken occasion in the course of a laudatory tribute to Mr. Jenkinson, [Footnote: Now Lord Liverpool] on the success of his first effort in the House, to announce the accession which his own party was about to receive, in the talents of another gentleman,--the companion and friend of the young orator who had now distinguished himself. Whether this and other friendships, formed by Mr. Canning at the University, had any share in alienating him from a political creed, which he had hitherto, perhaps, adopted rather from habit and authority than choice--or, whether he was startled at the idea of appearing for the first time in the world, as the announced pupil and friend of a person who, both by the vehemence of his politics and the irregularities of his life, had put himself, in some degree, under the ban of public opinion--or whether, lastly, he saw the difficulties which even genius like his would experience, in rising to the full growth of its ambition, under the shadowing branches of the Whig aristocracy, and that superseding influence of birth and connections, which had contributed to keep even such men as Burke and Sheridan out of the Cabinet--_which_ of these motives it was that now decided the choice of the young political Hercules, between the two paths that equally wooed his footsteps, none, perhaps, but himself can fully determine. His decision, we know, was in favor of the Minister and Toryism; and, after a friendly and candid explanation to Sheridan of the reasons and feelings that urged him to this step, he entered into terms with Mr. Pitt, and was by him immediately brought into Parliament.
However dangerous it might be to exalt such an example into a precedent, it is questionable whether, in thus resolving to join the ascendant side, Mr. Canning has not conferred a greater benefit on the country than he ever would have been able to effect in the ranks of his original friends.
That Party, which has now so long been the sole depository of the power of the State, had, in addition to the original narrowness of its principles, contracted all that proud obstinacy, in antiquated error, which is the invariable characteristic of such monopolies; and which, however consonant with its vocation, as the chosen instrument of the Crown, should have long since _invalided_ it in the service of a free and enlightened people. Some infusion of the spirit of the times into this body had become necessary, even for its own preservation,--in the same manner as the inhalement of youthful breath has been recommended, by some physicians, to the infirm and superannuated. This renovating inspiration the genius of Mr. Canning has supplied. His first political lessons were derived from sources too sacred to his young admiration to be forgotten. He has carried the spirit of these lessons with him into the councils which he joined, and by the vigor of the graft, which already, indeed, shows itself in the fruits, bids fair to change altogether the nature of Toryism.