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would never dare to utter. The man of Lewis advised this publication as soon as he acknowledged capacity is also a chartered was informed that copies of the speeches, speaker: unlike the other, he is a leader taken in shorthand, had been preserved. instead of a plaything. Sheridan had the Moore says, in his Life of Sheridan, that he good fortune to conquer for himself the had in his possession an authentic report of position of chieftain in debate. His friends the Begum speech. He gives some extracts were glad of his support: his opponents from it; but till this official work appeared, dreaded his sarcasm. All united in listen- it was impossible to compare what the variing to him with respect. Finding then that ous speakers did say with what they are credhe might say unchecked whatever he pleas-ited with saying. A few specimens will suffice ed, he often indulged to the full his taste for to show the nature of the changes, and florid ornament and forced conceits. These these specimens may be taken as fair samexhibitions came to be regarded as flights ples of the whole. of eloquence, and men praised in the veteran debater passages which they would have denounced had they proceeded from a tyro. Nothing prepares the public better for being pleased with an orator than the unanimous and favourable testimony of recognised judges. After such a preparation, the public heard him deliver his most famous speech, that on the impeachment of Hastings, and its approbation was unbound-introductory remarks:ed. Some of the passages which we are wont to regard as unmitigated bombast were singled out by contemporaries as excelling anything ever achieved in the aunals of oratory.

Immediately after his decease, his speechwere given to the world in a collected form, under the editorship of a "Constitutional Friend." The editor says in the pref

ace:

"No exertion has been spared to collect and arrange accurate accounts of every speech delivered by the late Mr. Sheridan; and those efforts proving successful, it may boldly be asserted that pages more abounding with brilliant wit, depth, solidity, and sound argument, have never been presented to the public. Many of these speeches have been candidly admitted, by all parties, to exhibit every oratorical effect the human mind is capable of suggesting."

From this collection extracts have been taken, in order to be placed before youths for their instruction in oratorical effects. The impression made on this generation by Sheridan as an orator has been caused by the perusal of that edition of his speeches. It will materially affect the decision as to his powers of oratory, if it be shown that the accepted report of his speeches is not only defective, but wholly misleading. This can be proved, with regard to his most important effort: it may be inferred of the

others.

In 1859 there was published an almost verbatim report of the speeches of the managers and counsel at the trial of Warren Hastings. The late Sir George Cornewall

The report of the Begum speech in the collected work does not profess to be literal. A great portion is in the third person it is detached passages only which are in the first person, and are placed within inverted commas to show that they are literally accurate. It is these passages alone which will now be selected for comparison.

The first verbatim passage occurs in the

"The unfortunate gentleman at the bar is no mighty object in my mind. Amidst the series of mischiefs to my sense, seeming to surround him, what is he but a petty Nucleus, involved in its Lamina, scarcely seen or thought of."*

Be it remarked that in all these extracts the words in italics are so printed in the original. This was doubtless done to call attention to a phrase or epithet supposed to be of great beauty or fitness. It will be observed, however, that the most nonsensical words or clauses are those italicised. The following is the parallel passage to that just quoted, and it contains nothing about a Nu

cleus or a Lamina.

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The next passage is remarkable as exemplifying the utter nonsense which was first put into Sheridan's mouth and then eulogised as his rhetoric:

"It is not the peering suspicion of apprehending guilt; it is not any popular abhorrence of its wide-spread consequences; it is not the secret consciousness in the bosom of the judge, which can excite the vengeance of the law, and authorise its infliction! No. In this good

* "Sheridan's Specches," vol. ii. p. 56. "Report of the Trial of Warren Hastings," vol.

i. p. 483.

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No, my Lords; we know well that it is the glory of this Constitution that not the general fane or character of any man not the weight or power of any prosecutors no plea of moral or political expediency not even the secret consciousness of guilt which may live in the hosom of the judge can justify any British court in passing any sentence, to touch a hair of the head or an atom in any respect of the property, of the fame, of the liberty, of the poorest or meanest subject that breathes the air of this just and free land. We know, my Lords, that there can be no legal guilt without legal proof; that the rule which defines the evidence is as much the law of the land as that which creates the crime. It is upon that ground that we mean to stand." t

In the following passage it will be observed that the reporter has not merely made Sheridan talk balderdash, but has made him say the opposite to what he actually stated. It is necessary to quote the paragraph in full in order to prove this, the first sentence not being within inverted commas in the original:

"But though he stated the difficulties which the managers had to encounter, he did not mean to say that the proofs, which they had adduced, were in any degree defective. 'Weak, no doubt, in some parts, and incompetent, and yet more deplorable, as undistinguished by any compunctious visitings of repenting accomplices, but yet enough, and enough in sure validity, to abash the front of guilt no longer hid, and flash conviction on conscientious judges."

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Having said this. I think it extremely possible that your Lordships may imagine that I am begging indulgence and allowance for weak and incompetent evidence. No, my Lords, I will be bold to say that there is now before you, upon this charge, a mass of full, complete, competent evidence-strong as ever abashed the confidence of courageous guilt, or brought conviction home to the hearts of conscientious judges." §

It would be wearisome to quote all the passages illustrative of the imperfections of the published version of this speech. The

"Speeches," vol. ii. pp. 59, 60. "Report," vol. i. p. 186. "Speeches," vol. ii. p. 60. "Report," vol. i. p. 487.

reporter frequently gives the very words used by Sheridan, but he slightly alters their appropriateness by changing their places. Sometimes a page or two of the official report intervenes between the two members of a sentence as given in the speeches. Phrases are tacked together with often there are improvements due to the relittle regard to symmetry or sense. Very porter's imagination, and perhaps introduced by him in the belief that they were in Sheridan's manner. The latter having said of a native officer who had made the affidavits :

"I imagine your Lordships will now again think we have done with Doond Sing. No such thing. Here he is again, the third time, swearing before Elijah Imbey. But he is not to be trusted by himself, he is a bad one singlehanded; and, as it was a military duty, he is he is joined with coupled with somebody elseMir Ahmud Ali, subadar; and at last he hits the mark."

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"The best antiquarian in our Society would be, after all, never the wiser! Let him look where he would, where can he find any vestige of battle, or a single blow? In this rebellion there is no soldier, neither horse nor foot a man is known fighting no office order survives, not an express is to be seen. His Great Rebellion as notorious as our Forty-five, passed

away

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in nothing, and ending, no doubt, just as it beunnatural, but not raging-beginning gan! If rebellion, my Lords, can thus engender unseen, it is time for us to look about. What hitherto has been dramatic may become historical; Knightsbridge may at this moment be invested; and all that is left us, nothing but the forlorn hope of being dealt with according to the statue, by the sound of the Riot Act, and the sight, if it can be, of another Elijah." *

*"Speeches," vol. ii. pp. 80, 81.

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"With regard to the first charge, which is a charge of direct, actual rebellion, I do protest that, in order to satisfy my own mind as much as I could, I have been hunting, with all the industry at least, though not with the acuteness, of any antiquarian that ever belonged to the Antiquaries' Society, to find at what period this rebellion actually existed, and I have not found any one thing to guide me to the period of its existence. There never was a rebellion so concealed. We asked Mr. Middleton whether any battle was fought anywhere? None, he owns, that ever he heard of. Did any one man, horse or foot, march to suppress this rebellion?' 'None.' 'Did you ever hear any orders given for any troops to march to supply it?

'None.' The rebellion seems clearly to have died a natural death, though raised certainly for a most unnatural object. But if this rebellion really did exist, it is impossible to treat the idea seriously; and it must have been a merry scene when Mr. Hastings first conceived the strange improbable fiction when he first entertained the idea of persuading the directors that they had entered into such a plot. It is impossible to know when and where there may

not be a rebellion. While we are sitting here there may be a rebellion at Knightsbridge of the most fatal tendency that ever was; for the celebrated account of that army which has given celebrity to that village was an ostentatious display of pomp and military parade compared to that with which this was conduct

ed"

A comparison of the foregoing extracts proves how very different Sheridan's points were from his reporter's notion of what they ought to have been. There is real cleverness in the way that he makes Mr. Middleton bear witness to the absurdity of bis own allegations. The nonsense about the rebellion beginning in nothing, engendering unseen, and the forlorn hope of being dealt with " by the sound of the Riot Act, and the sight, if it can be, of another Elijah," is the reporter's own unadulterated nonsense. It is greatly to be regretted that so many persons should have entertained the conviction that Sheridan ever uttered all the stuff which is contained in the generally accepted version of his speeches. The better known and much admired piece of declamation about filial piety, as well as the peroration, have been greatly distorted by mis-reporting. In Moore's Life of Sheridan the correct versions are quoted, so that it is unnecessary to insert them here. But, did space permit, it would be instructive to exhibit the littleknown but correct version alongside of the well-known and absurd one. With another, and that a short example of the discrepan

cies between the two reports of the speeches, this exposition of blunders will terminate. Referring to Captain Gordon, Sheridan is made to say. - it was difficult to imagine any man could tell a benefac

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"The breath that I now draw, next to heaven, I owe to you; my existence is an emanation from your bounty; I am indebted to you beyond all possibility of return; and therefore destruction." my gratitude shall be your

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"If he was so deluded, he may explain that delusion to your Lordships; but till that time I will not believe that Captain Gordon who said to the Begums, The welfare of your servant is entirely owing to your favour and benevolence,' meant to say, and the gratitude of your servant shall be your destruction."

the close of the impeachment are the only As this speech and the one in reply at two by Sheridan of which verbatim reports are extant, it is fair to make them the basis of a judgment concerning his rank as an orator. The foregoing extracts prove that much of the bombast in the ordinary version is due to the reporter's imagination, but there is still a large mass of rhetorical common-place in the trustworthy report. In the latter we read the very words which are said to have made Burke exclaim,

There, that is the true style; something between poetry and prose, and better than either." Those who now read them will

agree with the dictum of Fox that "such a mixture was for the advantage of neither; as producing poetic prose, or, still worse, prosaic poetry." Indeed, there is an artificiality about these passages which detracts from their effect. They have the appearance of being laboured. Sheridan was not able to polish them so artistically as to conceal his art. Few could excel him at an with satire. To do this perfectly was his epigram, or more successfully barb a phrase cauld to write maxims. It is probable that special gift, as it was the gift of Rochefouhad Rouchefoucauld endeavoured to cope with Bossuet as a writer of funeral orations, he would have failed as egregiously as Sheridan did when he tried to out-do Burke in his own particular field of figurative rhetoric, and impassioned declamation.

The best thing in this speech, as in all Sheridan's speeches, is not its rhetoric, but its common-sense. With a thorough mastery of the subject, and a marvellous adaptation of the materials to produce the de

sired result, he stated the case with a fulness | the deplorable perversion of the speaker's and clearness which a professional advocate utterances of which the incompetent rewould have envied. As a one-sided yet porter is guilty. It detracts from Sheridan's comprehensive exposition of the question at renown and diminishes the value of his issue, the Begum speech is noteworthy work that, excepting a few witticisms of among great orations. None of the mana- doubtful authenticity and doubtful value, gers of the impeachment could have done he uttered but one phrase which sank into the work better: perhaps Burke himself men's minds and was added to the stock of would not have done it so well. Had the parliamentary wisdom. That phrase, howpurely ornamental passages been omitted, ever, is a glorious one, and though it has it would still have deen a splendid address. not been attributed to Sheridan, yet to him The condemnation of these passages is that the merit of originating it belongs. In they add neither beauty nor symmetry to the debate on a motion by Mr. Gray, rethe speech as a whole. garding reform, he said that "man was not born to have property in man."

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To estimate a man's powers as an orator after perusing the most accurately reported speech is a fruitless task. It is necessary to have heard as well as read the speech in order to criticise its author. As a piece of composition the performance may be admirable, but it is merely as an essay that it is judged. It may read well: in opposition to Fox, I maintain that a good speech must read well. Yet, when printed, half its spirit has departed. The voice, the gesture, the personal appearance of the orator, give a force to his utterance, the effect of which no reader of it can experience or conceive, but of which every listener has felt the influence. Take the finest of Mr. Gladstone's budget speeches, or any one of Mr. Bright's splendid appeals to the noblest feelings of human nature, and endeavour to obtain from a perusal of them a notion of the precise effect they would produce on delivery. Why, the attempt will be vain. Sayings, common-place in themselves, will electrify an assembly while they may be passed over almost unnoticed by the reader. There is no magic in these words: "America, they tell me, has resisted I rejoice to hear it;" but proceeding from the lips of the haughty Chatham, they produced a ferment in the House of Lords. It is, then, the personal element which is the chief attribute of an orator, and it is the element which is wanting from the printed speech while it dominates the spoken one. We are assured that Sheridan was marvellously endowed with this personal element, that he was listened to because it was a delight to hear him give utterance to his thoughts. He did not speak beautiful essays like his great contemporary Burke, or our great contemporary, the late Lord Macaulay. His fame as an orator, like the fame of Bolingbroke and Chatham, is based on tradition. More for tunate than either, two of his speeches have been rescued from the oblivion which awaits the speaker when no reporter is present to record his thoughts, and from

III.

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Many who admit that Sheridan did much which is excellent lament that he misemployed opportunities which would have enabled him to render far more lasting and valuable service to literature and to his country. They bemoan the irregularities of his life, and charge him with squandering his money and injuring his health by vicious indulgences. His biographers have put on record many strange stories about him, and other stories equally discreditable but less trustworthy pass current in society. Such tales always find ready credence among the lovers of literary garbage. The maxim, Say nothing but good about the dead, is generally interpreted to mean, Invent or discover as many good stories as possible concerning the dead, and, if the good stories are nasty, so much the better. That the actual facts should be set forth is most desirable; but that gratuitous and probably false inferences should be drawn from them is highly blameworthy. Biographers, however, are always so anxious to prove theories or point morals, that they are prone to give prominence to that side or those truths only which will serve their purpose. From this tendency on their part Sheridan has suffered greatly. Many things in his life give a handle for moralising, or a pretext for vile imputations. Other things afford occasion for comments of an opposite kind and equally discreditable to those who make them. On the one hand, it is assumed that because he drank and spent too much, he cannot have been a great dramatist or orator. On the other, it is held that because he made good jokes there was no harm in his leading a free life and making his creditors sigh for their money. The Hon. Mrs. Norton, in her natural and laudable desire to protest against the injustice done to his memory, has advanced a plea on his behalf

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From the Economist.

THE TABLE D'HOTE.

which ought never to have been seriously | ish to look for the advent of a second Sheridan mooted. She says that "Sheridan was drunk as of a second Shakspeare. His position as his companions were drunk, and with his among orators who have had extraordinary drunken companions with a drunken triumphs is a lofty one; yet his rhetorical Prince Royal and the drunken Ministers of merits cannot be ascertained from his pubthe Crown-but there can be little doubt lished speeches. These speeches deserve that the more finally organised the brain, perusal to satisfy curiosity, but they should the more fatal the consequences of such swi- never be studied as models. His oratorical ish excitement." Now, it is very doubtful renown is simply a tradition; it is a tradition, whether the man whose brain is finely or- however, which will not soon perish, for it ganised, if he indulges in stimulants to excess, will endure so long as the representatives of really suffers greater physical injury than the Commons of England remember those bis less gifted brother. If the bodily health who were once the heroes of their debates, be the same in both cases, the results will be and so long as Englishmen cherish the memsimilar. It is said that Sheridan's constitution ories of all the valiant champions of their was unusually robust, that he hardly knew liberties and their rights. W. F. RAE. what illness was, consequently the result in his case could not have been unusually fatal. Nor is it an apology for him that other men did likewise. The truth is that his faults and his excellences were chiefly due to the age in which he lived. Because he was a notable man he reflected in his person and works the peculiarities characteristic of this country during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Were he alive now, he THE distinguishing feature of the Englishwould drink less claret: he would write ar- man abroad is his hatred of every other ticles instead of comedies, and he might not Englishman. He will travel any distance, aspire to manage Drury Lane Theatre. His or be at any expense, in order to avoid his. speeches in Parliament would be quite as countrymen. Tolerable fishing and good powerful without being at all flowery; they scenery have their attractions; a notedi would contain more sarcasms than tropes. gaming-table or a celebrated mineral spring To be the boon companion of the Prince of is occasionally taken into consideration; Wales would not appear to him the greatest but that country, town, or village eclipses object of his ambition. His reputation all its rivals which can say "There are no might be as widespread, but his career would English to be found here." When the membe less romantic. It may be left to the high-bers of one English family observe the toned moralist to bespatter Sheridan's actual members of another English family come life with unsavoury epithets. The critic's on board the steamer in which they are alduty is neither so invidious nor so easily ready seated, they stare at the new-comers discharged. He has to deal with the man as if the latter were guilty of a gross imperas a whole; to analyse, without bias or regard tinence, or they smile in contempt when for consequences, his life and his writings. they hear English spoken, or they say, with Whatever judgment he passes must be based a well-imitated shrug, "You cannot escape on the entire case, but it must relate more the English tourist, wherever you go." to the writings which survive than to the What particular traits decide that a man is man who has departed. To the present no longer a man but a tourist, have not as generation it is important to know whether yet been specified; but it is certain that Sheridan's comedies and speeches are mas- every English person abroad refuses to conterly productions, whether they are ani- sider himself an ordinary tourist, but conmated with the vital spark which will render siders every other English person abroad them immortal, whether they will give as an ordinary tourist. This vague impres much pleasure to those who now or who sion or feeling becomes at no time so promay hereafter read them as to the audiences nounced as during dinner; when Nature which first hailed them with rapturous ap- herself, appealing to our strongest instincts, plause. His place in literature is in the shatters the frail restrictions which art, or second rank, but in that rank he has no su civilization, or society would impose, and perior. The historian of the English drama insists on these mutually repugnant persons will chronicle him as the last great writer of sitting down at the one table. The table English comedy, and will consider it as fool- d'hôte is the apostle of humanity. Dinner is that touch of nature which, in foreign

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* Macmillan's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 176.

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