much of that detail which we doubt not many will desire. We have gleaned our facts from many sources; but of these most were imperfect, and often hard to reconcile. We shall check our facts and dates from Mr. Moore's ample work, of which the documentary authority claims general trust. Fairness requires of us to add, that Mr Moore is responsible for no more than we shall give in the form of extract from his book, as we have in a few instances differed from his fact, and in none adopted his comment so much is due to a writer who has saved us from much uncertainty. One thing more we must premise that our desire to present a correct outline of Sheridan's mind, and trace the progress of its formation, has led us into a minuter analysis of causes, than it is our intention to continue further than this object requires.

Of Sheridan's family much interesting information might be collected from various sources. It appears to have possessed and transmitted, so far at least as it may be traced, the distinction of talent. Thomas Sheridan was the friend, companion, and correspondent of Swift, with whom he contracted an intimacy in 1715. He kept a school in Capel-street, and was a person of some learning, much humour, abounding in careless good-nature, and singularly devoid of worldly prudence. His companionship became for a long time necessary to Swift, who in return did him many kind offices, and made him often the partner, and occasionally the butt of his coarse humours-not without sometimes being paid in kind. The history of their friendship is not highly flattering to either-exhibiting the folly of Sheridan, and the unfeeling hardness of Swift, who treated him harshly in his distress.

His third son, Thomas also, was the father of Richard Brinsley, the subject of this sketch. He is known as an actor of some eminence in his day, a learned philologist, and the friend of Dr. Johnson. He took his degree in Dublin, and by the advice of Swift, turned his attention to the art of declamation. In 1743 he commenced his career as an actor, in the theatre in Smock-alley, of which he became the manager. He paid a greater attention than was quite pleasing to the reform of the stage, and was frequently involved in disputes with actors

and authors, and still more serious quarrels with the town.

It was no small feature of the time, that a dramatic taste reigned. The theatres occupied a large share of the knowledge and attention of every rank. Theatrical criticism occupied no small place in the conversation of the refined and the polished circles; and as the rage for dramatic entertainment was popular, opinion and zeal were propagated in every direction, in a manner and with a force now little to be understood. The incidents, characters, and language of the piece of the season, or the merits of the reigning favorite, were alike the favorite theme of the scholar, and the gossip of the unlettered. This, on a larger field, like London, might be comparatively trifling in its effects; but the impulse of individual feeling, which soon wastes its force on the large surface of a populous city, may in a provincial town-and Dublin was little more-give birth to incidents of a kind, little to be anticipated from the cause. Of these one may be mentioned as having been the means of an intimacy which led to his union with Miss Frances Chamberleyne, who wrote an able pamphlet in his defence. This lady has still higher claims on our notice. She produced among several other writings, "Sidney Biddulph," a novel which was much admired in its day, and still approved by the praise of those who have read it. Her tale of " Nourjahad" is still popular, as perhaps the best production of its kind. Dr. Parr, in a letter to Mr. Moore, commemorates her in the enthusiastic expression, "I once or twice met his mother; she was quite celestial; both her virtues and her genius were highly esteemed by Robert Sumner."

Of these riots, another is detailed by Mr. Prior, as being the means of driving him from Dublin. Several active-minded youths of Trinity College, zealous as active youth is ever found to be, in playing the game of life on a little scale, among other more ordinary demonstrations of youthful public spirit, took it into their heads to reform the stage. At the head of these was Burke, then as after "the first man every where."* This temper perhaps received its impulse, from the refusal of a play, offered by a juvenile friend of his, and the project of "establishing taste in spite of Sheridan's arrogance, or his tasteless adherents," became the

of later years, we shall presently have much occasion to notice.

It may here be seasonable to notice the influence which early associations connected with the stage, at this time of his life, must have had in forming the early dispositions of Sheridan; congenial as such must have been to his nature and genius. His father's house was, of course, the centre of theatrical attraction; and the early sprightliness of his temper-his inborn wit-disposition to observe, and animated social tendencies-must all have met their early impulse and exercise among the habits and meetings of a gay, witty, and dissipated class. The conversation that most frequently met his ear, must have related to play's and players, and the things that concern the stage. His father professedly a critic of dramatic effect-his mother a dramatic writer of no mean reputation-the circle in which they moved, theatrical- the spirit of the day tending to exalt the stage-we may well, without being accused of speculation, infer that deep and abiding impressions were made on his fancy. And such may be traced through his life.

One remark more will conclude a period of which we find little notice among our authorities. There is a high probability that, as his infant mind developed in such a circle-its first associations were likely to be those of the drama. The effect of the passage the conception of the character the development of the plot must not only have been forced on his

attention, but even awakened his feeling and his fancy, and called forth a spirit of observation, adapted to the drama.

From the same causes may be easily traced, the dramatic spirit in action and feeling, which is to be observed in the conduct and adventures of Sheridan's youth. His turn for what is called "sentiment ;" his anxious desire for "effect;" his love of mystery (partly due to other causes); his romantic spirit, easily distinguished from his natural temper; these are all in him, more or less, a development of early impressions, on a peculiarly impressible mind. These remarks have been suggested to us, by the opportunities we have, in more than one instance, had of observing persons under circumstances nearly the same, and they seem to us to throw an interesting reflection on the sketch before us. After remaining a year at Mr.

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Whyte's, Sheridan was, with his brother, removed to England to their parents, who had in the meantime settled there and soon after, (1762,) he was sent to Harrow-while his brother, Charles, was kept to be instructed at home. Mr. Moore seems to have attributed this arrangement to some opinion of the superior talent of Charles : we should have drawn the opposite inference; but an extract from a letter of his mother's settles this point:

"Dick has been at Harrow, since Christmas, as he will probably fall into a bustling life, we have a mind to accustom him to shift for himself.— Charles's domestic and sedentary turn is best suited for a home education."

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Here," says Mr. Moore," he was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but at the same time, engaging boy, who contrived to win the affection, and even admiration, of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his frank and genial manners, and by the occasional gleams of superior intellect, which broke through all the indolence and indifference of his character."

At this time Dr. Robert Sumner was head-master at Harrow, and the well-known Dr. Parr one of the undermasters. These eminent persons the gifted intellect; and exerted themquickly perceived the indications of selves with assiduous and kindly zeal to conquer that idle and vivacious spirit, which was the real cause of his deficiencies in learning. Mr. Moore has preserved in a letter from Parr an interesting notice of his school-dayswe select some graphic and marking

sentences—

"His eye, his countenance, his general manner, were striking. His answers to any common question were prompt and acute. We knew the esteem, and even admiration, which, somehow or other, all his school-fellows felt for him. He was mischievous enough, but his pranks were cheerfulness, which delighted Sumner and accompanied by a sort of vivacity and myself. I had much talk with him about his apple-loft, for the supply of which all the gardens in the neighbourhood were taxed, and some of the lower boys were employed to furnish it. I threatened, but without asperity, to trace the depredators, through his associates, up to their leader. He, with perfect good-humour, set me at defiance, and I never could bring the charge home to him. All boys and all masters were pleased with him.— I often praised him as a lad of great ta lents, often exhorted him to use them

well; but my exhortations were fruitless. I take for granted that his taste was silently improved, and that he knew well the little which he did know."

We can afford one more extract from a subsequent communication from the same authority; though referring to a later period, it bears on the same point sufficiently for our present purpose

"In the later periods of his life, Richard did not cast behind him classical reading. He spoke copiously and powerfully about Cicero. He had read, and he had understood the four orations of Demosthenes read and taught in our public schools. He was at home in Virgil and in Horace. I cannot speak positively about Homer; but I am very sure that be read the Iliad now and then; not as a professed scholar would do, critically, but with all the strong sympathies of a poet reading a poet. Richard did not and could not forget what he once knew, but his path to knowledge was his own,—his steps were noiseless, his progress was scarcely felt by himself, his movements were rapid but irregular."

He continued at Harrow until his eighteenth year, when he was removed to London, where his father then resided. Here he continued, under the private tuition of Mr. Lewis 'Kerr, an Irish gentleman: received lessons in riding, fencing and in English grammar and oratory from his father. From his father's instructions he derived little or no advantage. He was probably not sensible of any benefit to be derived from them to the sprightliness and vivacity of his intellectual and physical temperament, they must have been insupportably dull. His taste by this time must have grown beyond the small though clever pedantry of his father's mind and he was already, though in secrecy, entering on the dazzling but perilous course, which gave to his afterday its mingled splendour and gloom. Fancy, sentiment, and passion were the threads of his fame and fate, and they were already mingling in the web.

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A variety of causes were, as usually happens, working together to reform the gay idler into the anxious and ambitious student. The genius of our dramatist was, at this period, passing through a stage of which least is ever to be traced, and most to be desired in the history of illustrious men. To those who read with the sympathy of talent and ambition, it must always be an inquiry of most intense curiosity, by what steps, and by what secret means, the VOL. IX.

rarer and higher powers of the intellect have been matured; and in what remote trains, the splendid works of time have originated. Little information of any value can be attained, on of eminent poets, has been mostly inthis interesting subject; the early life have attained a high degree of reputavolved in obscurity; a writer must tion, long before the inquiry can be supposed to begin. In the case actually before us, this interest derives increase from the peculiar and piquant features of the character; the mixed waywardness and discretion—the anxious pursuit and imprudent indolence; the assumed neglect of means, with the long and vigilant mystery of plan and study. From a dislike to labour, and a habitual dissipation of spirit, he now began to acquire a habit of severe and ambitious exertion, and we shall offer a few remarks on the causes.

However, the temperament of genius

But the

may contain inclinations unfavourable to early industry, there is in it, as we have already observed, a counterbalancing ambition which always, sooner or later, begins to give a new direction to the habits. The boy indulges freely in dreams, from which there is not always any present cause to disturb him; or, he is satisfied with the praise of wit and sprightliness, to which no very severe test is applied. The learning he neglects is but the preparation of a future day, of which neither himself or his admirers think; the necessity and the test are distant, and for a time he is content to sparkle, be praised, amused, and avoid the trouble of exertions, of which the use is neither apparent or near. day arrives when he must begin to meet with men, and as a man-when the objects of manly pursuit begin to call forth wishes-when the sparkle of wit and fancy, however they may be welcomed in the convivial hour, can no longer confer superiority. The knowledge he has neglected begins to meet him, in its more practical and more cultivated forms, and he begins sorely to feel that all his fertility of thought and fancy-all his native eloquence-all his ready sophistry cannot redeem him from a mortifying inferiority to those of whose minds he thinks lowly and justly. Such was, in fact, the position of Sheridan; and it may account for the rapid accumulation of knowledge which he seems to have been now acquiring, though not altogether for its secrecy. What we have said

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is indeed no more than may be applied to Swift, Goldsmith, Curran, Sterne, and many other less known persons. Sheridan had been fed on flattery even from his earliest days, and he had a heart to be won by its fascinations. He was accustomed to receive the praise of genius, while he enjoyed the pleasure of idleness, and, as always will be the consequence, to value himself upon the distinction. It became his pride that he owed to nature what others drew from laborious art; and, of course, the sense thus developed through his youthful years, was not wanting in its influence on his heart in after life. To attain the praise of the scholar, without the reproach of drudging for it, became a desire, though perhaps a latent one, of his heart. The appearance of laborious industry would not only destroy the peculiar distinction of his youth, but it would also at once exhibit him as a competitor with those who were his superiors. The fame of idleness would both cover his advances and excuse his deficiencies. This, Goldsmith's simplicity would not dream of; and Johnson's or Burke's lofty earnestness would repu diate; but Sheridan had the tact to appreciate small things, and the trained vanity to attend to them. In silent effort he matured his acquaintance with Homer, Virgil and Cicero, and acquired the valuable substance of scholarship, in all the better and more standard writings of the ancient and modern classics. We do not mean to say that, in these retired efforts, he was simply under the unqualified influence of the feeling we have described. A taste like Sheridan's, and taste was in a peculiar degree his excellence, must have found in the master-pieces of time, all the gratification they can impart; but this need only be mentioned to avoid seeming to exclude it. The sense we have described, was indeed a master-passion in the mind of Sheridan, and supplies a tone in the coloring of his moral portrait which has not been applied by any of his biographers. To seem in all things superior to effort to preserve the dig nity of seeming indifference-to conceal failure, and magnify success, are indeed desires with which all may feel some sympathy. But the nice and long-sighted tact of Sheridan's pride gave a characteristic force and vitality to these precautionary reserves.

We

cannot allow our pen to carry us further on a point, the importance of which may be underrated by many; yet it requires little habit of observation to carry the same reflection into further illustrations of Sheridan's early life. The same tone of temper can be traced in the history of his love, no less than in his literary effort. Full of nice, cautious and refined instincts, which the quickness of his passions, and the sprightliness of his spirits partly neutralized, and more disguised, Sheridan was, in seeming, thoughtless, rash and buoyant; while he was anxious, scrupulous, refined and jealous in reality. In this there was nothing of what is commonly meant by hypocrisy, which applies to the simulation of virtue, or the concealment of vice. It is not easy to go far into the anatomy of character without stumbling on contraricties, which may not be disregarded without rejecting the truths of human nature.

Sheridan's first literary attempts were pursued in combination with a friend, Halhed, his school-fellow at Harrow.

Halhed was a young man of high promise, and distinguished by early and brilliant reputation in his school and university career, both for talent and acquirement. He was Sheridan's not unworthy associate, and perhaps guide, in his literary beginnings, and, if the term may be applied under the conditions of secrecy and failure, his rival in love. Halhed appears to have had

some talents in common with Sheridan, as well as the same gaiety and buoyancy of temper. His opening seemed in many respects more promising; he had friends and interest; but the fair morning was early overcast with clouds; he went out to India, where he advanced in fortune, and came home with a deranged intellect. An eloquent writer, from whom we borrow this information, adds,

"One of the most eloquent speeches, or rather compositions, I ever read, was delivered by him in the House of Commons in support of a ridiculous prediction, published by one Brothers. It was heard with deep silence and deeper sorrow; no observation was made, and being unseconded, the motion of course fell to the ground. What became of him afterwards, I have not heard."

With this another disposition of a