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perity, might not ultimately be the cause of more extensive evils than even those, great as they are, which we at present experience: whether from so fatal a precedent we might not be led to introduce characters under similar disqualifications into every department: - to appoint Atheists to the mitre, Jews to the exchequer,

to select a treasury-bench from the Justitia, to place Brown Dignam on the woolsack, and Sir Hugh Palliser at the head of the admiralty."

The Englishman, as might be expected from the pursuits and habits of those concerned in it, was not very punctually conducted, and, after many apologies from the publisher for its not appearing at the stated times (Wednesdays and Saturdays), ceased altogether on the 2d of June. From an imperfect sketch of a new Number, found among Mr. Sheridan's manuscripts, it appears that there was an intention of reviving it a short time after-probably towards the autumn of the same year, from the following allusion to Mr. Gibbon, whose acceptance of a seat at the Board of Trade took place, if I recollect right, in the summer of 1779:

"This policy is very evident among the majority in both houses, who, though they make no scruple in private to acknowledge the total incapacity of ministers, yet, in public, speak and vote as if they believed them to have every virtue under heaven; and, on this principle, some gentlemen, -as Mr. Gibbon, for instance, while, in private, they indulge their opinion pretty freely, will yet, in their zeal for the public good, even con

descend to accept a place, in order to give a colour to their confidence in the wisdom of the government."

It is needless to say that Mr. Sheridan had been for some time among the most welcome guests at Devonshire House-that rendezvous of all the wits and beauties of fashionable life, where Politics was taught to wear its most attractive form, and sat enthroned, like Virtue among the Epicureans, with all the graces and pleasures for handmaids.

Without any disparagement of the manly and useful talents, which are at present no where more conspicuous than in the upper ranks of society, it may be owned that for wit, social powers, and literary accomplishments, the political men of the period under consideration formed such an assemblage as it would be flattery to say that our own times can parallel. The natural tendency of the excesses of the French Revolution was to produce in the higher classes of England an increased reserve of manner, and, of course, a proportionate restraint on all within their circle, which have been fatal to conviviality and humour, and not very propitious to wit-subduing both manners and conversation to a sort of lished level, to rise above which is often thought almost as vulgar as to sink below it. Of the greater ease of manners that existed some forty or fifty years ago, one trifling, but not the less significant, indication was the habit, then preva

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lent among men of high station, of calling each other by such familiar names as Dick, Jack, Tom, etc. *—a mode of address, that brings with it, in its very sound, the notion of conviviality and playfulness, and, however unrefined, implies at least, that ease and sea-room, in which wit spreads its canvas most fearlessly.

With respect to literary accomplishments, too, -in one branch of which, poetry, almost all the leading politicians of that day distinguished themselves-the change that has taken place in the times, independently of any want of such talent, will fully account for the difference that we witness, in this respect, at present. As the public mind becomes more intelligent and watchful, statesmen can the less afford to trifle with their talents, or to bring suspicion upon their fitness for their own vocation, by the failures which they risk in deviating into others. Besides, in poetry, the temptation of distinction no longer existsthe commonness of that talent in the market, at present, being such as to reduce the value of an elegant copy of verses, very far below the price it was at, when Mr. Hayley enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly of the article.

In the clever Epistle, by Tickell, “from the Hon. Charles Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townshend, cruising," some of the most

* Dick Sheridan, Ned Burke, Jack Townshend, Tom Grenville, etc. etc.

shining persons in that assemblage of wits and statesmen, who gave a lustre to Brooks's ClubHouse at the period of which we are speaking, are thus agreeably grouped :

"Soon as to Brooks's* thence thy footsteps bend,
What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Gibbon rap his box-auspicious sign
That classic compliment and wit combine;
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprize,
And friendship give what cruel health denies

*

*

On that auspicious night, supremely grac'd
With chosen guests, the pride of liberal taste,
Not in contentious heat, nor madd'ning strife,
Not with the busy ills, nor cares of life,

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We'll waste the fleeting hours-far happier themes Shall claim each thought and chase ambition's dreams. Each beauty that sublimity can boast

He best shall tell, who still unites them most.

Of wit, of taste, of fancy we'll debate,

If Sheridan, for once, be not too late :
But scarce a thought on politics we'll spare,
Unless on Polish politics, with Hare.
Good-natur'd Devon! oft shall then appear
The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer:

* The well-known lines on Brooks himself are perhaps the perfection of this drawing-room style of humour:

"And know, I've bought the best champagne from Brooks; From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill

Is hasty credit, and a distant bill;

Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."

Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit and Stanhope's ease
And Burgoyne's manly sense unite to please.
And while each guest attends our varied feats
Of scattered covies and retreating fleets,
Me shall they wish some better sport to gain,
And Thee more glory, from the next campaign."

In the society of such men the destiny of Mr. Sheridan could not be long in fixing. On the one side, his own keen thirst for distinction, and, on the other, a quick and sanguine appretiation of the service that such talents might render in the warfare of party, could not fail to hasten the result that both desired.

His first appearance before the public as a political character was in conjunction with Mr. Fox, at the beginning of the year 1780, when the famous Resolutions on the State of the Representation, signed by Mr. Fox as chairman of the Westminster Committee, together with a Report on the same subject from the Sub-Committee, signed by Sheridan, were laid before the public. Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage were the professed objects of this meeting; and the first of the Resolutions, subscribed by Mr. Fox, stated that "Annual Parliaments are the undoubted right of the people of England.”

Notwithstanding this strong declaration, it may be doubted whether Sheridan was, any more than Mr. Fox, a very sincere friend to the principle of Reform; and the manner in which he masked his

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