Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Volume 1

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826

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Page 255 - Opera), the best farce (the Critic— it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.
Page 31 - You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading.
Page 154 - 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 honourable gentleman that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and everyday means of ordinary corruption?
Page 97 - And scorn assumes compassion's doubtful mien, To warn me off from the encumber'd scene. This must not be ; — and higher duties crave Some space between the theatre and the grave ; That, like the Roman in the Capitol, I may adjust my mantle ere I fall : My life's brief act in public service flown, The last, the closing scene, must be my own. Here, then, adieu! while yet some well-graced parts May fix an ancient favourite in your hearts, Not quite to be forgotten, even when You look on better actors,...
Page 267 - Was this, then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator — dramatist — minstrel,— who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all...
Page 255 - ... be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals ; — and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits ; an army employed in executing an arrest ; a town besieged on a note of hand ; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house, wielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other.
Page 161 - ... in direct opposition to the declared sense of a great majority of the nation, and they should be put in force with all their rigorous provisions, if his opinion were asked by the people as to their obedience, he should tell them, that it was no longer a question of moral obligation and duty, but of prudence.
Page 211 - Nay, I will say more — flattered and encouraged by the Right Honourable Gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if ever I again engage in the compositions he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption — to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, the character of the Angry Boy in the Alchemist'
Page 77 - Ay, just as the eyes do of a person who squints : when her love-eye was fixed on me, t'other, her eye of duty, was finely obliqued : but when duty bid her point that the same way, off t'other turned on a swivel, and secured its retreat with a frown ! Faulk.
Page 96 - Cheeks of rose, untouched by art ? I will own the colour true, When yielding blushes aid their hue. Is her hand so soft and pure ? I must press it, to be sure; Nor can I be certain then, Till it, grateful, press again. Must I, with attentive eye, Watch her heaving bosom sigh ? I will do so, when I see That heaving bosom sigh for me.

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