though, to be sure, that matter was never rightly cleared up. Joseph. The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed. Maria. 'Tis so-but, in my opinion, those who report such things are equally culpable. Mrs C. To be sure they are; tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers-'tis an old observation, and a very true one. But what's to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking? To-day, Mrs Clackitt assured me Mr and Mrs Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. No, no! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers. Joseph. Ah, Mrs Candour, if everybody had your forbearance and good-nature! Mrs C. I confess, Mr Surface, I cannot bear to hear people attacked behind their backs; and when ugly circumstances come out against our acquaintance, I own I always love to think the best. By the bye, I hope 'tis not true that your brother is absolutely ruined? Joseph. I am afraid his circumstances are very bad indeed, ma'am. Mrs C. Ah! I heard so-but you must tell him to keep up his spirits; everybody almost is in the same way-Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas Splint, Captain Quinze, and Mr Nickit--all up, I hear, within this week; so, if Charles is undone, he 'll find half his acquaintance ruined too; and that, you know, is a consolation. Joseph. Doubtless, ma'am-a very great one. Servant [entering]. Mr Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. Lady S. So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you; positively you shan't escape. Crabtree [entering with Sir BENJAMIN BACKBITE]. Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand.-Mrs Candour, I don't believe you are acquainted with my nephew, Sir Benjamin Backbite. Egad! ma'am, he has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet too.-Isn't he, Lady Sneerwell? Sir Benjamin. O fie, uncle! Crab. Nay, egad! it's true; I back him at a rebus or a charade against the best rhymer in the kingdom. Has your ladyship heard the epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle's feather catching fire?-Do, Benjamin, repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore at Mrs Drowzie's conversazione. Come now your first is the name of a fish, your second a great naval commander, and Sir B. Uncle, now-prithee Crab. I' faith, ma'am, 'twould surprise you to hear how ready he is at all these sort of things. Lady S. I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything. Sir B. To say truth, ma'am, 'tis very vulgar to print; and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady's smiles, I mean to give the public. [Pointing to Maria.] Crah. 'Fore heaven, ma'am, they 'll immortalise you! You will be handed down to posterity, like Petrarch's Laura or Waller's Sacharissa. Sir B. [To Maria.] Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin. 'Fore gad, they will be the most elegant things of their kind! Crab. But, ladies, that's true-have you heard the news? Mrs C. What, sir, do you mean the report of— Crab. No, ma'am, that's not it-Miss Nicely is going to be married to her own footman. Mrs C. Impossible! Crab. Ask Sir Benjamin. Sir B. 'Tis very true, ma'am ; everything is fixed, and the wedding liveries bespoke. Crab. Yes; and they do say there were pressing reasons for it. Lady S. Why, I have heard something of this before. Mrs C. It can't be; and I wonder any one should believe such a story of so prudent a lady as Miss Nicely. Sir B. O lud! ma'am, that's the very reason 'twas believed at once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody was sure there was some reason for it at bottom. Mrs C. Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady of her stamp as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny sickly reputation that is always ailing, yet will outlive the robuster characters of a hundred prudes. Sir B. True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution; who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection. Mrs C. Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know, Sir Benjamin, very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious tales. Crab. That they do, I'll be sworn, ma'am... O lud! Mr Surface, pray, is it true that your uncle, Sir Oliver, is coming home? Joseph. Not that I know of, indeed, sir. Crab. He has been in the East Indies a long time. You can scarcely remember him, I believe. Sad comfort, whenever he returns, to hear how your brother has gone on. Joseph. Charles has been imprudent, sir, to be sure; but I hope no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform. Sir B. To be sure he may; for my part, I never believed him to be so utterly void of principle as people say; and though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews. Crab. That's true, egad! nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that, whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues. They Sir B. Yet no man lives in greater splendour. tell me, when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest's chair. Joseph. This may be entertainment to you, gentlemen; but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother. Maria. [Aside.] Their malice is intolerable. [Aloud.] Lady Sneerwell, I must wish you a good-morning: I'm not very well. [Exit Maria. Mrs C. O dear! she changes colour very much. Lady S. Do, Mrs Candour, follow her she may want your assistance. Mrs C. That I will, with all my soul, ma'am. Poor dear girl, who knows what her situation may be ! ours. We Rolla to the Peruvian Army.- From 'Pizarro.' My brave associates! partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No! you have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule. We, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and a power which they hate. serve a monarch whom we love-a God whom we adore! Where'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress; where'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride! They offer us their protection; yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this: The throne we honour is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hopes of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them, too, we seek no change, and least of all such change as they would bring us. From the Speech against Warren Hastings. Filial Piety! It is the primal bond of society-it is that instinctive principle which, panting for its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense and sensibility of manit now quivers on every lip!-it now beams from every eye!—it is an emanation of that gratitude which, softening under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the vast countless debt it ne'er, alas! can pay, for so many long years of unceasing solicitudes, honourable self-denials, life-preserving cares !-it is that part of our practice where duty drops its awe!—where reverence refines into love! It asks no aid of memory! -it needs not the deductions of reason!-pre-existing, paramount over all, whether law or human rule, few arguments can increase, and none can diminish it!—it is the sacrament of our nature !-not only the duty, but the indulgence of man-it is his first great privilege-it is amongst his last most endearing delights !-it causes the bosom to glow with reverberated love!-it requites the visitations of nature, and returns the blessings that have been received !-it fires emotion into vital principle! -it renders habituated instinct into a master-passionsways all the sweetest energies of man-hangs over each vicissitude of all that must pass away-aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and age-explores the thoughtelucidates the asking eye!—and breathes sweet consolation even in the awful moment of dissolution! ... O Faith! O Justice! I conjure you by your sacred names to depart for a moment from this place, though it be your peculiar residence; nor hear your names profaned by such a sacrilegious combination as that which I am now compelled to repeat !-where all the fair forms of nature and art, truth and peace, policy and honour, shrunk back aghast from the deleterious shade! -where all existences, nefarious and vile, had swaywhere, amidst the black agents on one side, and Middleton with Impey on the other, the toughest head, the most unfeeling heart! the great figure of the piece, characteristic in his place, stood aloof and independent from the puny profligacy in his train !--but far from idle and inactive-turning a malignant eye on all mischief that awaited him!-the multiplied apparatus of temporising expedients, and intimidating instruments! now cringing on his prey, and fawning on his vengeance !— now quickening the limping pace of craft, and forcing every stand that retiring nature can make in the heart! violating the attachments and the decorums of life! sacrificing every emotion of tenderness and honour! and flagitiously levelling all the distinctions of national characteristics! with a long catalogue of crimes and aggravations, beyond the reach of thought, for human malignity to perpetrate, or human vengeance to punish! Sheridan's son Tom, who was Colonial treasurer at the Cape of Good Hope, was something of a poet; and two of his three beautiful and accomplished daughters attained literary fame, Lady Dufferin and Mrs Norton (Lady Stirling Maxwell). Memoirs were prefixed to editions of Sheridan's works by Leigh Hunt (1840), Browne (1873-75), and Stainforth (1874); and there were Lives by Watkins (1817) and Thomas Moore (1825). See also Sheridan and his Times (1859); Memoirs of Mrs Frances Sheridan, by her granddaughter, Alicia Le Fanu (1824); short Lives by Mrs Oliphant (1883) and Lloyd Sanders (with a full bibliography, 1891); Percy Fitzgerald, Lives of the Sheridans (1887). It should be added that most of the earlier Lives, according to Mr Fraser Rae, retail many facts as fictions. Sheridan's representatives (including Lord Dufferin, who wrote an introduction to it) recognised as authoritative only the Memoir by Mr Fraser Rae (2 vols. 1896). The editions of the works and of the principal plays are innumerable. was Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), author of the Road to Ruin, and the first to introduce the melodrama into England, was born in London. Till I was six years old,' says Holcroft, 'my father kept a shoemaker's shop in Orange Court; and I have a faint recollection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.' Humble as this condition was, it seems to have been succeeded by greater poverty, and the future dramatist and comedian employed in the country by his parents to hawk goods as a pedlar. When he attained to the dignity of a Newmarket stable-boy, he was proud of his new livery; and during the three years he spent there, a charitable person who kept a school taught him to read. Returning at sixteen years to London, he worked with his father as a shoemaker; but now a passion for books was predominant, and as the confinement of the shoemaker's stall did not agree with him, he attempted to start a school in the country. Becoming in 1770 a provincial actor, he spent seven years in strolling about England in every variety of wretchedness; then settling in London, he took gradually to authorship. Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian (1780), was the first of four novels; the comedy Duplicity (1781) the first of upwards of thirty plays. It was acted with great success at Covent Garden; and among its successors were The Follies of a Day (1784), adapted from Beaumarchais' Mariage de Figaro, and The Road to Ruin (1792), which brought him £600 and £1300. "The Road to Ruin,' said Mrs Inchbald, ranks amongst the most successful of modern plays. There is merit in the writing, but much more in that dramatic science which disposes character, scenes, and dialogue with minute attention to theatric exhibition.' Holcroft also wrote A Tour in Germany and France (the fruits of a four years' stay in Hamburg and Paris, 1799-1803), and numerous translations from German, French, and Italian. During the period of the French Revolution he was a zealous reformer, and in 1794, on hearing that his name was included in the same bill of indictment with Tooke and Hardy, he surrendered himself in open court, but was discharged without being brought to trial. The great sorrow of his life was the death of his eldest son, William (1773-89), who, having robbed his father of £40, and being found by him on an American-bound vessel, shot himself: for a twelvemonth the stern, strong man hardly quitted the house. The Road to Ruin is still a stock-acting piece, and Holcroft is also remembered by this song from his third novel, Hugh Trevor: Gaffer Gray. Ho! why dost thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Gray? And why does thy nose look so blue? "Tis the weather that 's cold, 'Tis I'm grown very old, And my doublet is not very new, Well-a-day!' Then line thy worn doublet with ale, And warm thy old heart with a glass. Hie away to the house on the brow, And knock at the jolly priest's door. The lawyer lives under the hill, Gaffer Gray; Warmly fenced both in back and in front. 'He will fasten his locks, And will threaten the stocks Should he ever more find me in want, Well-a-day!' The squire has fat beeves and brown ale, Gaffer Gray; And the season will welcome you there. 'His fat beeves and his beer, My keg is but low, I confess, What then? While it lasts, man, we 'll live. 'The poor man alone, When he hears the poor moan, Of his morsel a morsel will give, Well-a-day!' From The Road to Ruin.' Dornton. Still the same hurry, the same crowd, Mr Smith? Mr Smith. Much the same, sir;-the house never experienced a day like this!-Mr Sulky thinks we shall never get through. Dorn. Is Milford taken? Mr Smith. Yes, sir. Dorn. Unprincipled prodigal !-My son owes his ruin to him alone!-But he shall suffer! Mr Smith. My young master's tradesmen are waiting. Dorn. Bid them come it. All my own fault, my own fond folly! Denied him nothing!—encouraged him to spend. Mr Smith [re-entering]. This way, gentlemen. Dorn. Zounds! what an army!-A vile thoughtless profligate! Servant. [To Mr Dornton.] You are wanted in the counting-house, sir. Dorn. Very well.-I'll be with you in a moment, gentlemen-Abandoned spendthrift ! . . Dorn. [re-entering]. Your servant, gentlemen, your servant.-Pray, how happens it that you bring your accounts in here? 1 Tradesman. We received notice, sir. Dorn. I understand you!-And what are you, sir, who seem to stand apart from the rest? Hosier. A hosier, sir. I am unworthy the company of these honest gentlemen, who live in style. I never affront a punctual paymaster, not I: and, what they will think strange, I get more by those who do look over their bills than those who do not! ... Dorn. And what may be the amount of your bill, sir? Hosier. A trifle, for which I have no right to ask. Dorn. No right !-What do you mean? Hosier. Your son, sir, made me what I am; redeemed me and my family from ruin; and it would be an ill requital of his goodness to come here, like a dun, at such a time as this; when I would rather, if that could help him, give him every shilling I have in the world. Dorn. Would you? Would you? [Greatly affected.] -You look like an honest man!-But what do you do here then? Hosier. Mr Dornton, sir, knew I should be unwilling to come, and sent me word he would never speak to me more if I did not; and, rather than offend him, I would even come here on a business like this. Dorn. [Shakes him by the hand.] You are an honest fellow! An unaccountable !—And so Harry has been your friend? Hosier. Yes, sir; a liberal-minded friend; for he lent Dorn. Give me your bill, I tell you! I'll pay this bill myself. Hosier. I cannot, must not, sir. Dorn. Sir, I insist on- [Enter HARRY DORNTON.] So, sir! [Turning angrily round.] Why have you assembled these people into whose debt you have dishonestly run, wanting the power to pay; and who have as dishonestly trusted you, hoping to profit exorbitantly by your extravagance? Harry. O sir, you don't know them! very complaisant, indulgent kind of people. you, gentlemen? 1 Trades. Certainly, sir. Omnes. Certainly. Harry. [Struck with horror.] What!-What is that you say? Mr Smith. We have paid our light gold so often over that the people are very surly! Dorn. Pay it no more!-Sell it instantly for what it is worth, disburse the last guinea, and shut up the doors! Harry. [Taking Mr Smith aside.] Are you serious? Mr Smith. Sir! Harry. [Impatiently.] Are you serious, I say?—Is it not some trick to impose upon me? Mr Smith. Look into the shop, sir, and convince yourself! If we have not a supply in half an hour, we must stop! [Exit. Harry. [Wildly.] Tol de rol-My father! - Sir! [Turning away.] Is it possible?--Disgraced?—Ruined? -In reality ruined !-By me?-Are these things so?— Tol de rol Dorn. Harry!-How you look !-You frighten me! Harry. [Starting.] It shall be done! Dorn. What do you mean?—Calm yourself, Harry! Harry. Ay! By Heaven! They are Are not Dorn. Hear me, Harry! Harry. This instant! Dorn. [Calling.] Harry! Harry. Don't droop. Harry. Be kind enough to wait a few minutes without, my very good friends. [Exeunt Tradesmen.] Mr Williams[Takes his hand. [Exit. Hosier. SirDorn. How dare you introduce this swarm of locusts here? How dare you? Harry. [With continued good humour.] Despair, sir, is a dauntless hero. Dorn. Have you the effrontery to suppose that I can or shall pay them ?—What is it you mean? Harry. To let you see I have creditors. Dorn. Cheats! Bloodsuckers ! Harry. Some of them: but that is my fault-They must be paid. Dorn. Quit the room! Begone! [Wanting words. Harry. You are the best of men, sir, and I-But I hate whining. Repentance is a pitiful scoundrel, that never brought back a single yesterday. Amendment is a fellow of more mettle-But it is too late-Suffer I ought, and suffer I must-My debts of honour discharged, do not let my tradesmen go unpaid. Dorn. You have ruined me! Harry. The whole is but five thousand pounds! Dorn. But?-The counter is loaded with the destruction you have brought upon us all! Harry. No, no-I have been a sad fellow, but not even my extravagance can shake this house. Mr Smith [entering in consternation.] Bills are pouring in so fast upon us, we shall never get through! [Going. [Returning.] Don't despair! I'll find relief-[Aside.] First to my friend-He cannot fail? But if he should! Why, ay, then to Megæra ! -I will marry her, in such a cause! were she fifty widows and fifty furies! Dorn. Calm yourself, Harry! Harry. I am calm !-Very calm !-It shall be done! Don't be dejected-You are my father-You were the first of men in the first of cities-Revered by the good, and respected by the great-You flourished prosperously! -But you had a son !—I remember it! Dorn. Why do you roll your eyes, Harry? Dorn. Stay where you are, Harry! [Catching his hand.] All will be well! I am very happy! Do not leave me !-I am very happy !—Indeed, I am, Harry !— Very happy! Harry. Tol de rol-Heaven bless you, sir! You are a worthy gentleman !—I'll not be long! Dorn. Hear me, Harry!-I am very happy! See Holcroft's interesting Memoirs, written by himself and continued by Hazlitt (1815); also Kegan Paul's Life of Godwin (1876). Gifford treated him with contempt, real or assumed. Hugh Kelly (1739-77), the son of a Dublin publican, was bred a staymaker, and in London from 1760 on was successively staymaker, attorney's clerk, writer for the newspapers, essayist, and scurrilous theatrical critic. He had written a novel, Memoirs of a Magdalen (1767), which had the honour of translation into French, when in 1768 he surprised the public by producing a sentimental comedy, False Delicacy, which, though without much point or power, had a remarkable influence both on the fortunes and character of the author; the profits of his first third night realised £150-the largest sum of money he had ever before seen-'and from a low, petulant, absurd, and ill-bred censurer,' says Davies, 'Kelly was transformed to the humane, affable, good-natured, well-bred man.' The play had the benefit of a prologue and epilogue from Garrick; it was repeated twenty times in the same season that produced Goldsmith's Good-Natur'd Man, and a printed edition of ten thousand copies was sold within the year, so that Kelly netted £700 by his lucky stroke. French, German, and Portuguese translations made his name known on the Continental stage. His other comedies, A Word to the Wise, A School for Wives, and The Man of Reason, and a tragedy, Clementina, had little or no success. Kelly had withdrawn from stage work in 1774, and became an unsuccessful barrister. An edition of his works, with a Life, by Hugh Hamilton, was published the year after his death. Robert Bage (1728-1801) had as a novelist many points in common with Holcroft; like him he had adopted the principles of the French Revolution, which he inculcated in a series of works. Bage was born of Quaker parentage at Darley, Derbyshire, and became, like his father, a papermaker. His manufactory was at Elford near Tamworth, and there he realised a decent competence. During the last eight years of his life he lived in Tamworth. His works are Mount Kenneth (1781), Barham Downs (1784), The Fair Syrian (1787), James Wallace (1788), Man as He is (1792), and Hermsprong, or Man as He is Not (1796). Bage's novels are distinctly inferior to those of Holcroft, and it can only surprise us that Sir Walter Scott should have admitted them into his British Novelists when he was excluding so many better stories. Barham Downs and Hermsprong, upon the whole the most interesting, contain good satirical portraits, though the plots of both are crude and defective. Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), born at Elston Hall, Newark, was educated at Chesterfield and St John's College, Cambridge, and then studied medicine at Edinburgh. After trying a practice for two months in Nottingham, he removed (November 1756) to Lichfield, where he long remained a successful and distinguished physician. After his first wife's death (1770) he devoted himself largely to botanical and literary pursuits, though at first afraid that the reputation of poet would injure him in his profession. At this time he lived in a pretty villa in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, with a grotto and fountain, and here he began to arrange a botanic garden in a spot he described as 'adapted to love-scenes, and as being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of botany.' His Botanic Garden, a poem in polished heroic verse, was designed to describe, glorify, and allegorise the Linnæan system of botany. The Rosicrucian doctrine of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders seemed to 'afford a proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is probable they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures representing the elements.' In 1778 the poet was called to attend the children of Colonel Chandos Pole of Radbourne Hall, Derby; and a year after the colonel's death (1786) Dr Darwin married the widow, who possessed a jointure of £600 per annum. He was now released from all prudential fears and restraints about his poetical ambitions. In 1789 appeared the second part of his poem, The Loves of the Plants; the first part, the Economy of Vegetation, did not appear till 1792. Oddly enough, he incorporated at the beginning of this part, without acknowledgment, some fifty already published verses by Miss Seward, which had suggested to him the idea of the poem. This he did, he said, in compliment to the lady, who, however, in her memoir of Darwin complained gently of his not acknowledging the authorship in some way, as Mr Edgeworth said he was the last man who in this department needed to beg, borrow, or steal from any person on earth.' Ovid having by poetic art transmuted men, women, and even gods and goddesses into trees and flowers, Darwin explained that in the Loves of the Plants he had 'undertaken, by similar art, to restore some of them to their original animality, after having remained prisoners so long in their vegetable mansions :' From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark, (From the opening of Canto iv.) To such ingenious fancies in neat couplets, some passages add lofty thoughts in dignified verse: Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, |