Mr. Sheridan arrived in Dublin, from France, in the month of October, 1766, and, as the Act directs, appeared in Court during the Term to take the benefit of it in form. Very shortly after, having no scheme of fecreting his property, a trick too common on fuch occafions, a meeting of his Creditors was called by public advertisement, and the remains of his fortune, which chiefly confifted of furplus rents arifing from a certain farm at Quilca, which he had formerly purchased from his eldest brother, and had in his difficulties mortgaged to a brother-in-law, was vefted in three of the Creditors,* in truft for the whole, who, without let or molestation, permitted him the free enjoyment of the fame till his death. Some months after Quilca was advertised to be fold, and the purchase money was honourably appropriated, upon an average of the outstanding debts, to the purpofe of discharging them. . . . . No dirty expedient was attempted to evade payment, though at the interval of

....

Tho. Adderly, Efq. M. P. Robert Birch of Turvey, Efq. M. P. and Wm.Lefanu, Efq.who was the principal agent, and honourably,as on every other occafion thro' an exemplary life of 86 years, discharged the truft repofed in him. The two last of whom were living when thefe Remarks were first published; Mr Birch is now the only furviver April 3d, 1798.

The Equity of Redemption rather, Anno 1789; which brought about 650l. subject to the mortgage, which devolved to the mortgagee's daughter, who now enjoys the issues and profits.

This paffage is literally transcribed from the Author's MS. It is feelingly given from his own personal experience in other cafes, to which it manifeftly alludes. The Items, not trifling nor a few, are on his Books; upwards of fifteen hundred pounds for board and tuition. . .£1500!!! liberal education truly, with a witness. It was not in that way my FATHER fhowed his gratitude to the worthy preceptor of his youth; knowing a confiderable fum for his board and inftruction had been fuffered to accumulate, when he came of age he called for the account, and, adding the interest, discharged the whole to the uttermost farthing. This decided proof of his pupil's honour and integrity the good old gentleman

two and twenty years, no intereft during that time having been paid or called for, the ftatute of limitation might have been pleaded in full force; the Creditors were publicly apprized of the intended distribution, and every claimant, duly producing vouchers, received his dividend refpe&ively apportioned.

In a Work of confiderable merit and utility, which lately iffued from the American Prefs, it is recorded, under the head of Eminent Men, that " the Rev. Doctor Thomas Sheridan, “ of Ireland, Author of the English Dictionary, Works on "Elocution, &c. died August 14th, 1788." Here Father and Son are evidently confounded. . . . Well! and what matter, cries his Worship in ftilts; he fees no occafion for fuch great minuteness: What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? Very true, Sir! and is the Sneer less applicable to your Alexanders and your Cæfars, those Gods on Earth, who have been hung up to pofterity on as difputable authority, and to as little purpose ?— An honeft man's the nobleft work of God. He is an example proper for imitation, and fuch alone are worthy of commemorating. Pope on the various pursuits of mankind, among others, speaking of your Heroes and your Politicians, comes precisely to the point: But grant that thofe can conquer, thefe can cheat, 'Tis phrafe abfurd to call a VILLAIN great.

September 5, 1796.

gentleman on his death-bed pathetically inculcated to his children, whom, in that awful crifis, he recommended to his care. They are living, and take pleasure in teftifying the facts. One inftance of the like kind, and but one in the course of forty years, my FATHER has experienced in his own practice.

AND

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS,

ALLUDED TO IN THE COURSE OF THE REMARKS ON BOSWELL'S JOHNSON;

INCLUDING THE

REAL HISTORY OF THE GOLD MEDAL

GIVEN TO THE AUTHOR OF THE

TRAGEDY OF DOUGLAS.

OUR Author in his Obfervations concerning Imitation, quoting a paffage from Lord Rofcommon, opposes it to a fimilar paffage in the Effay on Criticism by our English Homer. Pope, he remarks, on the Structure of Poetic Numbers, lays down the following rule:

"Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The found fhould be an echo to the fenfe."

Effay on Criticism, verse 364.

The last line, with the alteration of a fingle word, is evidently borrowed from the noble Peer; not perhaps with the usual felicity of great genius, which is to improve upon the original. The idea of making the found a comment or echo to the sense is coeval with poetry itself; a doctrine founded in nature and clearly demonftrable on the principles of harmony and good taste, we may add too, a doctrine universally received as orthodox, till of late combated by Dr. Johnson and a few of his implicit difciples. It is a favourite fubject of

MR. WHYTE... Preliminary Effay to his POEMS, new Edit. p. lv.

of Sheridan's, and for that very reason, as it appears, fastidioufly, and I will fay ungratefully, oppofed by Johnson, whom Sheridan in the day of emergency had effentially ferved.* The circumftance could not be obliterated; but as the sense of obligation is painful to fome minds, from a false conceit of something in it humiliating, it was a perpetual blister to the Doctor, which, whenever the name of Sheridan was but glanced at, irritated his farcaftic difpofition, and was the real ground of that irreconcileable difference which latterly fubfifted between them.... This may found harsh to the memory of that great Moralift, but (both have paid the debt of nature) it is fimply doing justice to the other, which indeed is virtually granted, though it must be observed with manifeft reluctance, by Bofwell himself. Bofwell in his ardour for Johnson generally uses the name of Sheridan invidiously, and for the most part ignorantly or wilfully mistakes facts, and mifreprefents the man. † The Writer fpeaks from his own knowlege, and especially as to two, the most confiderable inftances, wherein he himself was the principal Agent. Quæ ipfe miferrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui, (b. c.) One of the inftances alluded to is in another

Bofwell's Life of Johnfon, 3 vols. Lond. 1793, 2d Edit. vol. i. pp. 341, 2. That Journalist on the head of Johnson's Penfion tells us, "The Ear! of "Bute, who was then Prime Minifter, had the honour to announce this "inftance of his Sovereign's Bounty, &c." and p. 343, 44, acknowleging on the conceffion of Lord Loughborough, that Sheridan was the PRIME MOVER of the Bufinefs, fays " and it is but just to add, that Mr. Sheridan "told me, that when he communicated to Dr. Johnson that a Penfion was "to be granted to him, he replied in a fervour of gratitude, The English "Language does not afford me terms adequate to my feelings on this occafion. "I must have recourse to the French. I am penetré with his Majesty's good❝ ness.... When I repeated this to Dr. Johnson he did not contradict it."

BOSWELL.

Ibid. pp. (a) 349, 50, 51, 52, 53; 417; 543; 581; 589. Vol. ii. pp. 16. (b) 204, 5; 364. Vol. iii. pp. (c) 171; 470: 476; 594, &0.

another place transiently taken up ;* the other, as an anecdote connected with the literary history of the times, fhall now be related.

Dr. Johnson affected to dislike the Tragedy of Douglas, which, as Boswell fays, " He called a foolish Play," partly, we may suppose, from national prejudice, being written by a Scotchman, and partly because, as he had heard, it was wonderfully admired by his friend Sheridan, whom, as Bofwell gives it from the Doctor's own mouth," he wantonly and infolently treated in a coffee-houfe at Oxford, because he prefented its Author with a Gold Medal;" which Johnfon quaintly enough phrafes "counterfeiting Apollo's coin.” — There is something fufpicious in the ftory of this puny gafconade.-Sheridan was not remarkably pacific in cafes of infults offered; for, adopting the words of Hamlet, his favourite character, he might juftly fay of himself, though I am not splenetive and rafb, yet have I in me fomething dangerous, which let thy wisdom fear. And as to the circumftance of the Medal it would feem both the Doctor and Biographer were but partially informed. When the Tragedy of Douglas first came out, Mr. Sheridan, then Manager of the Dublin Theatre, received a printed copy of it from London, which having, according to custom, previously read to his company, he cast for representation; for it is true he highly admired it, and apprized the performers, it was his intention to give the author his third nights, as if the play had been originally brought out at his own house; an unprecedented act of liberality in the Manager, which, it was thought, would be wonderfully productive

*WHYTE'S POEMS, new Edition.... Notes on the Theatre or Mirrour for Youth addicted to the Theatro-Mania, p. 297.

Witness the well-known affair of Kelly's Riot, as it was called, detailed by VICTOR, and HITCHCOCK, and noticed in a subsequent page,