George Sheridan

“ One of the virtues of General Sheridan was that he knew when to act without orders. Just before the surrender of Lee, General Sheridan captured some despatches from which he learned that Lee had ordered his supplies to a certain place. I was on the other side of the river, where he could get no communication from me until the next morning. General Sheridan pushed on at once without orders, got to the place fifteen minutes before the rebels, and captured the supplies. ”

“ When I got back to Washington, the President sent for me and Mr. Frye of Maine, a member of the committee, to come to the President's room in the Capitol to report to him the result of our observations. During the conversation, Grant expressed what he had often expressed on other occasions, his great admiration for Sheridan. He said: "I believe General Sheridan has no superior as a general, either living or dead, and perhaps not an equal. People think he is only capable of leading an army in battle, or to do a particular thing he is told to do. ”

“ A wit rather than a humorist, an orator more than a statesman, a brilliant writer of comedy and farce, Sheridan was equally at home in the salons of the great, in the repartee of the clubs, in the badinage and persiflage of the green-room, or in the debates and conflicts of the House of Commons. ”

“ In 1764 he went to live in France, partly for economy, partly for Mrs Sheridan’s health, and partly to study the system of education. His wife died in 1766 and soon afterwards he returned to England. In 1769 he published a matured Plan of Education for the Young Nobility and Gentry with a letter to the king, in which he offered to devote the rest of his life to the execution of his theories on condition of receiving a pension equivalent to the sacrifice of his professional income. ”

“ Young Sheridan and Captain Mathews of this town, who lately had a rencontre in a tavern in London, upon account of the maid of Bath, Miss Linley, have had another this morning upon Kingsdown, about four miles hence. Sheridan is much wounded, but whether mortally or not is yet uncertain. ”

“ Sheridan applied this, more than thirty years after, in talking of his own son, on the hustings of Westminster, and said that, in like manner, he would ask no greater distinction than for men to point at him and say, "There goes the father of Tom Sheridan." ”

“ His offer was not accepted; but Sheridan, still enthusiastic, retired to Bath, and prepared his pronouncing General Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols., 1780) . After his son’s brilliant success he assisted in the management of Drury Lane, and occasionally acted. His Life of Swift, a very entertaining work in spite of its incompleteness as a biography, was written for the 1784 edition of Swift’s works. He died at Margate on the 14th of August 1788.
3. Frances Sheridan (1724–1766) , wife of the above and mother of the dramatist, was the daughter of Dr Philip Chamberlaine of Dublin. ”

“ Such a man outclasses all others in military history, not excepting Wellington or Marlborough, for such a man as Sheridan is without a peer as a field marshal in the annals of warfare; and had he been found sooner and given greater responsibilities he would not only have surely proved it, but would have more fully electrified the world than he did and have been its idol as a military genius and hero for all time. ”

“ Subsequently a private tutor, Lewis Ker, directed his studies in his father's house in London, while Angelo instructed him in fencing and horsemanship.
At the end of 1770 Sheridan's father settled in Bath and taught elocution. His children became acquainted with those of Thomas Linley (1732–1795) [q. v.] , a composer and teacher of music, who had given Sheridan's mother lessons in singing. One of Sheridan's friends at Harrow was Nathaniel Brassey Halhed [q. v.] , who went to Oxford from Harrow. With him Sheridan carried on a correspondence from Bath. ”

“ On the 2d of July, the Prince Regent prorogued the Parliament, after a new Alien Bill, and a Bill to regulate the Civil List, had passed. On the 12th of July, 1816, there was a public funeral of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq. certainly the most brilliant and accomplished orator of the age. In my opinion, he far surpassed either Pitt or Fox in real eloquence, and, in the midst of all his changings and vacillations, he was always, without one exception, the steady and zealous friend of the liberty of the press. Poor Sheridan was always in pecuniary difficulties, and overwhelmed with debt ”

“ About six o’clock the next morning, a picket on duty reported to him before he was up that cannon were being fired in the direction of Cedar Creek. At first Sheridan paid little attention. Then he began to be disturbed. He writes: “I tried to go to sleep again, but grew so restless that I could not and soon got up and dressed myself.” Eating a hurried breakfast, he mounted his splendid coal-black steed, Rienzi, and started for the battle-field of Cedar Creek, where his army was. This was the ride that afterward became famous as “Sheridan’s Ride.”
Sheridan Rallying His Troops. ”

“ Into the private sphere where her virtues freely displayed themselves, and her patient yet energetic life was spent, it is not permitted us to enter; but we could not pass without this brief record what we know to have been a life as much marked by earnestness, energy, and self-sacrifice, as by those qualities of wit and genius which are for ever associated with the name of Sheridan. Three daughters survive her, and one son—Lady Dufferin, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Lady Seymour, and Mr. Brinsley Sheridan, the member of Parliament for Shaftesbury. ”

“ Every party prejudice has been overcome by such a display of genius, eloquence, and goodness."
Sheridan indeed was at the height of his glory; but fame is a dangerous pinnacle for the strongest of men, and Sheridan had no foundation-stones of strength or stability. His wife's death was the beginning of his fall, debt and drink did the rest. All sense of honour seems to have left him where money was concerned. ”

“ Had the fortunes of war placed Sheridan in command of the Army of the Potomac at any period of the Civil War, there is no doubt but what that war would have developed in him a field marshal exceeding in dash, ability and brilliancy any military genius of either ancient or modern times. He was a born soldier, unspoilt by training, success or anything else, and was blessed with splendid common sense. He was a genius, for, says a popular poet:
"There is no balking Genius. ”

“ This man, with all his genius, wit, eloquence, and fascinating manners, with inherited and acquired abilities, who had overcome all obstacles, and stood in the first rank in society and in the House of Commons, died poor, worn out by debauchery, and with bailiffs about him. Nevertheless, in recognition of the purity of his political life, in admiration of his splendid talents, when he passed away he was carried, with the consent of the nation, to that Abbey to lie wherein is the secret hope of all our great men.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin in 1731 ”

“ Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) , like Burke and Goldsmith, was an Irishman by birth; his family provided Prince Charles, in Sir Thomas Sheridan, with a most inefficient tutor, and an unfortunate comrade in war. Sheridan's own family was Protestant, his grandfather was a friend of Dean Swift in Ireland, and a humorist. His son, though in Dr. Johnson's set, was regarded by the great lexicographer as a prodigy of natural dullness, highly cultivated and improved by art. Educated at Harrow, young Richard never gave any cause for the complaint that he was dull. ”

“ Sheridan wrote always with ease, unaffectedness, and good-breeding, her books every where giving evidence of the place she might have taken in society if she had not rather desired to refrain from mingling with it, and keep herself comparatively unknown. ”

“ When it is considered, too, that the father, to whom he felt thus amiably, had never distinguished him by any particular kindness but, on the contrary, had always shown a marked preference for the disposition and abilities of his brother Charles—it is impossible not to acknowledge, in such true filial affection, a proof that talent was not the only ornament of Sheridan, and that, however unfavorable to moral culture was the life that he led, Nature, in forming his mind, had implanted there virtue, as well as genius. ”

“ Senaar resisted for several hours, but the flag of the Mahdi floats over its fortress. The day is ours.
“Ibrahim.”
Sherif el Habib handed his document to the Mahdi.
“Dear uncle, we have fought and won,” ran the letter. “I was wounded in the right foot and lost two toes, but that was better than my life. The people were all with us, but the soldiers fought bravely. It was a tough battle. The commander gave me his sword, which I will send to the Mahdi when I hear from him. How is Girzilla? Give her my love. Is Max the Madcap alive? Of course he is. Tell him not to play any pranks in Kordofan. ”

“ ACRES
Out, you poltroon! you ha'n't the valour of a grasshopper.
DAVID Well, I say no more—'twill be sad news, to be sure, at Clod-Hall! but I ha' done.—How Phillis will howl when she hears of it!—Ay, poor bitch, she little thinks what shooting her master's going after! And I warrant old Crop, who has carried your honour, field and road, these ten years, will curse the hour he was born. [Whimpering.]
ACRES It won't do, David—I am determined to fight—so get along you coward, while I'm in the mind.
[Enter SERVANT.]
SERVANT
Captain Absolute, sir.
ACRES
Oh! show him up. ”

“ That habit of dilatoriness, which is too often attendant upon genius, and which is for ever making it, like the pistol in the scene just quoted, "shoot a bar too late," was, through life, remarkable in the character of Mr. Sheridan,—and we have here an early instance of its influence over him. Though it was in August, 1770, that he received the sketch of this piece from his friend, and though they both looked forward most sanguinely to its success, as likely to realize many a dream of fame and profit, it was not till the month of May in the subsequent year, as appears by a letter from Mr. ”

“ Sheridan through his too distinct careers of literature and of politics, it is on the highest point of his elevation in each that the eye naturally rests; and the School for Scandal in one, and the Begum speeches in the other, are the two grand heights—the "summa biverticis umbra Parnassi" —from which he will stand out to after times, and round which, therefore, his biographer may be excused for lingering with most fondness and delay. ”

“ Sheridan's abilities. I know that his mind is seldom unemployed; but then, like all such great and vigorous minds, it takes an eagle flight by itself, and we can hardly bring it to rustle along the ground, with us birds of meaner wing, in coveys. I only beg that you will prevail on Mr. Sheridan to be with us this day, at half after three, in the Committee. Mr. Wombell, the Paymaster of Oude, is to be examined there to-day. Oude is Mr. Sheridan's particular province; and I do most seriously ask that he would favor us with his assistance. ”

“ AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. THE GEORGIAN ERA. (Concluded from page 124.) Sheridan.
"In early life, Sheridan had been generally accounted handsome: he was rather above the middle size, and well proportioned. He excelled in several manly exercises: he was a proficient in horsemanship, and danced with great elegance. His eyes were black, brilliant, and always particularly expressive. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who painted his portrait, is said to have affirmed, that their pupils were larger than those of any human being he had ever met with. They retained their beauty to the last ”

“ On the first discovery of the elopement, the landlord of the house in which the Sheridans resided had, from a feeling of pity for the situation of the young ladies,—now left without the protection of either father or brother,—gone off, at break of day, to the retreat of Charles Sheridan, and informed him of the event which had just occurred. Poor Charles, wholly ignorant till then of his brother's attachment to Miss Linley, felt all that a man may be supposed to feel, who had but too much reason to think himself betrayed, as well as disappointed. ”

“ I have said it!”
“We have not found the outlet of the river,” said Max.
“No, nor don’t want to.”
“I do, and I have already named the whirlpool ‘the Ibrahim.’”
“Thanks for the honor. But let us get back to uncle, and—Girzilla.”
“My dear fellow, you are in love with the pretty Egyptian. How she will listen to your ‘hairbreadth ’scapes on sea and land.’”
“Hush! we are drifting.”
“Drifting isn’t the word for it, we are going thirty miles an hour. Pull, you lazy Arab, pull!”
Max exerted all his strength.
The Arab became purple in the face with the strain. ”

“ If he ranks only as a man of second-rate genius, he was assuredly a man of first-rate talents. He was the most classical and the most popular dramatic writer of his age. The works he has left behind him will remain as monuments of his fame, for the delight and instruction of posterity. ‘Mr. Sheridan not only excelled as a comic writer, but was also an eminent orator, and a disinterested patriot. As a public speaker, he was distinguished by acuteness of observation and pointed wit, more than by impassioned eloquence, or powerful and comprehensive reasoning. ”

“ I hear from every body that your ... are vastly disliked—but are you not all kept in awe by such beauty? I know she flattered herself to subdue all your Volunteers by the fire of her eyes only:—how astonished she must be to find that they have not yet laid down their arms! There is nothing would tempt me to trust my sweet person upon the water sooner than the thoughts of seeing you; but I fear my friendship will hardly ever be put to so hard a trial. Though Sheridan is not in office, I think he is more engaged by politics than ever. ”