Thomas Moore

“ With such a man to have battled in the cause of genuine liberty,—with such a man to have struggled against the inroads of oppression and corruption,—with such an example before me, to have to boast that I never in my life gave one vote in Parliament that was not on the side of freedom, is the congratulation that attends the retrospect of my public life. His friendship was the pride and honor of my days. ”

“ He falls to work, an artificer of fraud, against all the rules of architecture;—he lays his ornamental work first, and his massy foundation at the top of it; and thus his whole building tumbles upon his head. Other people look well to their ground, choose their position, and watch whether they are likely to be surprised there; but he, as if in the ostentation of his heart, builds upon a precipice, and encamps upon a mine, from choice. He seems to have no one actuating principle, but a steady, persevering resolution not to speak the truth or to tell the fact. ”

“ Does it become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain to abstain a while at least, and wait the fitting of the times? Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak? The Throne is in danger!—'we will support the Throne ”

“ Sheridan, in a letter to her sister-in-law, dated four days after the termination of the Speech, "till I could gratify myself and you by sending you the news of our dear Dick's triumph!—of our triumph I may call it; for surely, no one, in the slightest degree connected with him, but must feel proud and happy. It is impossible, my dear woman, to convey to you the delight, the astonishment, the adoration, he has excited in the breasts of every class of people! ”

“ One master-passion, domineering in the breast, may win the faculties of the understanding to advance its purpose, and to direct to that object every thing that thought or human knowledge can effect; but, to succeed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind;—each rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage upon its throne. For, the Power, that has not forbad the entrance of evil passions into man's mind, has, at least, forbad their union;—if they meet they defeat their object, and their conquest, or their attempt at it, is tumult. ”

“ And never yet was this truth dismissed from the human heart—never in any time, in any age—never in any clime, where rude man ever had any social feeling, or where corrupt refinement had subdued all feelings,—never was this one unextinguishable truth destroyed from the heart of man, placed, as it is, in the core and centre of it by his Maker, that man was not made the property of man; that human power is a trust for human benefit and that when it is abused, revenge becomes justice, if not the bounden duty of the injured! ”

“ Without dwelling on the contrast which is so often drawn—less with a view to elevate Sheridan than to depreciate his party—between the conduct of himself and his friends at this fearful crisis, it is impossible not to concede that, on the scale of public spirit, he rose as far superior to them as the great claims of the general safety transcend all personal considerations and all party ties. It was, indeed, a rare triumph of temper and sagacity. ”

“ When Sheridan rises, his elevation is not sufficiently prepared; he starts abruptly and at once from the level of his statement, and sinks down into it again with the same suddenness. But Burke, whose imagination never allows even business to subside into mere prose, sustains a pitch throughout which accustoms the mind to wonder, and, while it prepares us to accompany him in his boldest flights, makes us, even when he walks, still feel that he has wings:—
"Même quand l'oiseau marche, on sent qu'il a des ailes." ”

“ There are few things less politic in an eminent public man than a too great readiness to answer accusations against his character. For, as he is, in general, more extensively read or heard than his accusers, the first intimation, in most cases, that the public receives of any charge against him will be from his own answer to it. Neither does the evil rest here;—for the calumny remains embalmed in the defence, long after its own ephemeral life is gone. ”

“ Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey admit, are held sacred even by the ruffian hand of war or by the more uncourteous hand of the law. But, in this situation, they are not confined from a mean and selfish policy of man—not from a coarse and sensual jealousy—enshrined rather than immured, their habitation and retreat is a sanctuary, not a prison—their jealousy is their own—a jealousy of their own honor, that leads them to regard liberty as a degradation, and the gaze of even admiring eyes as inexpiable pollution to the purity of their fame and the sanctity of their honor. ”

“ Amidst all these various interests, imaginations, and fears, which were brought to life by the dawn of the French Revolution, it is not surprising that errors and excesses, both of conduct and opinion, should be among the first products of so new and sudden a movement of the whole civilized world;—that the friends of popular rights, presuming upon the triumph that had been gained, should, in the ardor of pursuit, push on the vanguard of their principles, somewhat farther than was consistent with prudence and safety ”

“ Burke had ever attached himself to the popular party in politics. There was, in truth, nothing democratic about him but his origin;—his tastes were all on the side of the splendid and the arbitrary. The chief recommendation of the cause of India to his fancy and his feeling was that it involved the fate of ancient dynasties, and invoked retribution for the downfall of thrones and princedoms, to which his imagination, always most affected by objects at a distance, lent a state and splendor that did not, in sober reality, belong to them. ”

“ By him, who has not been born among them, this can only be achieved by politics. In that arena, which they look upon as their own, the Legislature of the land, let a man of genius, like Sheridan, but assert his supremacy,—at once all these barriers of reserve and pride give way, and he takes, by storm, a station at their side, which a Shakspeare or a Newton would but have enjoyed by courtesy. ”

“ You had lost a mother who would have cherished you, whose talents you inherited, who would have softened the asperity of our father's temper, and probably have prevented his unaccountable partialities. You have always shown a noble independence of spirit, that the pecuniary difficulties you often had to encounter could not induce you to forego. As a public man, you have been, like the motto of the Lefanu family, 'Sine macula,' and I am persuaded had you not too early been thrown upon the world, and alienated from your family, you would have been equally good as a private character. ”

“ As this triple triumph of talent—this manifestation of the power of Genius to multiply itself, like an Indian god—was, in the instance of Sheridan, not only possible, but within the scope of a very easy arrangement, it is to be lamented that no such coincidence did actually take place, and that the ability to have achieved the miracle is all that can be with truth attributed to him. ”

“ No, gentlemen, I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal; and to prove that I think the sincerity of your attachment to me needs no such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle: I will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you to contribute to it; and, while their whole thoughts are absorbed in patriotic apprehensions for their country, I will dexterously force upon others the favorite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives. ”

“ The consequence, as is well known, of the new course taken by Burke was that the speeches and writings which he henceforward produced, and in which, as usual, his judgment was run away with by his temper, form a complete contrast, in spirit and tendency, to all that he had put on record in the former part of his life. He has, indeed, left behind him two separate and distinct armories of opinion, from which both Whig and Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the most highly tempered, that ever Genius and Eloquence have condescended to bequeath to Party. ”

“ The sensibility, too, displayed by Sheridan at this period, was not that sort of passionate return to former feelings, which the prospect of losing what it once loved might awaken in even the most alienated heart;—on the contrary, there was a depth and mellowness in his sorrow which could proceed from long habits of affection alone. The idea, indeed, of seeking solace for the loss of the mother in the endearments of the children would occur only to one who had been accustomed to find happiness in his home, and who therefore clung for comfort to what remained of the wreck. ”

“ I quote these words as creditable to the feeling and good sense of Sheridan. Whatever may be thought of particular faiths and sects, a belief in a life beyond this world is the only thing that pierces through the walls of our prison-house, and lets hope shine in upon a scene, that would be otherwise bewildered and desolate. The proselytism of the Atheist is, indeed, a dismal mission. ”

“ United not only by marriage, but by love, to a man who was the object of universal admiration, and whose vanity and passions too often led him to yield to the temptations by which he was surrounded, it was but natural that, in the consciousness of her own power to charm, she should be now and then piqued into an appearance of retaliation, and seem to listen with complaisance to some of those numerous worshippers, who crowd around such beautiful and unguarded shrines. Not that she was at any time unwatched by Sheridan,—on the contrary, he followed her with a lover's eyes throughout ”

“ Does not the Right Honorable Gentleman then feel that he comes back to office with a character degraded by the violation of a solemn pledge, given to a great and respectable body of the people, upon a particular and momentous occasion? Does the Right Honorable Gentleman imagine either that he returns to office with the same character for political wisdom, after the description which he gave of the talents and capacity of his predecessors, and after having shown, by his own actions, that his description was totally unfounded? ”

“ Tom behaves with constant and tender attention to his father:—he laments his dear mother sincerely, and at the time was violently affected;—but, at his age, the impressions of grief are not lasting; and his mind is naturally too lively and cheerful to dwell long on melancholy objects. He is in all respects truly amiable and in many respects so like his dear, charming mother, that I am sure he will be ever dear to my heart. I expect to have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Sheridan again next week, when I hope to find him more composed than when I took leave of him last Sunday. ”

“ I think Mackintosh a better philosopher, and a better citizen, and I know him to be a far better scholar and a far better man, than Payne; in whose book there are great irradiations of genius, but none of the glowing and generous warmth which virtue inspires; that warmth which is often kindled in the bosom of Mackintosh, and which pervades almost every page of Mr. Burke's book—though I confess, and with sorrow I confess, that the holy flame was quite extinguished in his odious altercation with you and Mr. Fox. ”

“ The conspiracy of Pilnitz, and the brutal threats of the Royal abettors of that plot against the rights of nations and of men, had, in truth, to answer for all the additional misery, horrors, and iniquity, which had since disgraced and incensed humanity. Such has been your conduct towards France, that you have created the passions which you persecute; you mark a nation to be cut off from the world ”

“ The natural consequence of all this is that persons, the best furnished with general information, are often the most vague and unimpressive on particular subjects; while, on the contrary, an uninstructed man of genius, like Sheridan, who approaches a topic of importance for the first time, has not only the stimulus of ambition and curiosity to aid him in mastering its details, but the novelty of first impressions to brighten his general views of it—and, with a fancy thus freshly excited, himself, is most sure to touch and rouse the imaginations of others. ”

“ The great problem of the natural rights of mankind seemed about to be solved in a manner most flattering to the majority; the zeal of the lover of liberty was kindled into enthusiasm, by a conquest achieved for his cause upon an arena so vast; and many, who before would have smiled at the doctrine of human perfectibility, now imagined they saw, in what the Revolution performed and promised, almost enough to sanction the indulgence of that splendid dream. ”

“ It was natural, too, that the greater portion of that unemployed, and, as it were, homeless talent, which, in all great communities, is ever abroad on the wing, uncertain where to settle, should now swarm round the light of the new principles,—while all those obscure but ambitious spirits, who felt their aspirings clogged by the medium in which they were sunk, would as naturally welcome such a state of political effervescence, as might enable them, like enfranchised air, to mount at once to the surface. ”

“ It is upon topics of this unpromising kind, and from the very effort, perhaps, to dignity and enliven them, that the peculiar characteristics of an orator are sometimes most racily brought out. To the Cider Tax we are indebted for one of the grandest bursts of the constitutional spirit and eloquence of Lord Chatham; and, in these orations of Sheridan upon Tobacco, we find examples of the two extreme varieties of his dramatic talent—both of the broad, natural humor of his farce, and the pointed, artificial wit of his comedy. ”

“ What a contrast, indeed, do we exhibit!—What! in such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor, must make the most practised collector's heart ache while he tears it from them—can it be that people of high rank, and professing high principles, that they or their families should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty? ”

“ And yet, my Lords, I am asked to prove why these people arose in such concert:—'there must have been machinations, forsooth, and the Begums' machinations, to produce all this!'—Why did they rise!—Because they were people in human shape; because patience under the detested tyranny of man is rebellion to the sovereignty of God; because allegiance to that Power that gives us the forms of men commands us to maintain the rights of men. ”

“ With equal personality, but more playfulness, Mr. Burke, in exposing that wretched fiction, by which the Great Seal was converted into the Third Branch of the Legislature, and the assent of the King forged to a Bill, in which his incapacity to give either assent or dissent was declared, thus expressed himself:—"But what is to be done when the Crown is in a deliquium? It was intended, he had heard, to set up a man with black brows and a large wig, a kind of scare-crow to the two Houses, who was to give a fictitious assent in the royal name—and this to be binding on the people at large!" ”