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I 
 
 OJt M(m-\^ (^ 
 
 u 
 
 THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION, 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDKD 
 
 llEFLECTIOiNS 
 
 ON 
 
 y 
 
 THE LIFE OF lUClIAUD BRLNSLEY SHERIDAN. 
 
 CONTAINED IN 
 
 ^|f Jnaugutal ite??, 
 
 DELIVERED UEFORE THE 
 
 SllEllIDAN LITERARY SOCIETY, 
 
 OF TORONTO, 
 ON THE 12TII OF NOVEMBER, 1859. 
 
 ma tcv Dumml)c{t ^antpfen ©inter €tMi mo^tbtm. 
 
 BY 
 
 LETABLERE JOHN LITTON, M.A., 
 
 Vice-President. 
 
 cT 
 
 rEll^TED rOR THE SOCIETY, 
 13Y ROWSKLIi & ET^LIS 
 
 Price Sixpence Sterling— to be had c 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 II Booksellers. 
 
(EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 On Saturday, November 12th, at seven o'clock, P.M., the members of 
 «« The Sheridan Literary Society," of Toronto, held their first meeting for 
 the ensuing season of 1859, at the Temperance Hall, Temperance street^ 
 After the election of officers for the year, the following resolution t^rs 
 moved by D. A. Sampson, Esq., M.A., B.C.L., Barrister at Law, and 
 seconded by Dr. O'Dea, 
 
 "Tliat the chair be taken by Letablerb J. Litton, M.A., and that he, as 
 Vice-President of the Society, do deliver the opening lecture," which 
 resolution having passed netn. con., the Chairman proceeded amid profound 
 silence to address the Society as follows : 
 
 At the conclusion of the address, which was received with loud and long- 
 continued applause, it was moved by T. Spencei', Esq., and seconded by 
 D. A. Sampson, Esq., 
 
 «' That the Chairman do receive thn thanks of this Society for his very 
 able address, and that it be printed f- che benefit of its members;" which 
 resolution was unanimously adopted, and after the admission of some new 
 members, the meeting broke up at half-past ten o'clock. 
 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 i 
 
 Gentlemen — 
 
 The honour you have conferred upon me, in having placed 
 me in the proud position which I occupy this evening, is one 
 of which I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance ; and 
 although I feel I am unable to do justice to the task which 
 your kindness has imposed upon me — though I freely yield 
 the precedence to some of you in education, to man^/ of you 
 in position, to all of you in talent — yet, gentlemen, to not 
 one amongst you, do I yield in lively interest in the future 
 prospects of this Society, and in deep and heartfelt solicitude 
 for its welfare. I come not here with the weapons of the 
 orator in my hand, nor I am I provided with the light-arms 
 of the rhetorician. No armour have I to protect me, but your 
 indulgence — no weapon shall T use but the appeal to your 
 intelligence. I trust that the sincerity of my heart will 
 make amends for the inadequacy of my power, for truly in 
 my case it may be said, " ex ahundantid cordis os loquitur.'' 
 Would you know, gentlemen, why we have been summoned 
 together ? Would you know what brings me here ? My 
 intention is to enlighten you on these points, and with your 
 permission I shall arrange my discourse under two heads. 
 In the first place, I shall endeavour to point out what are the 
 objectn — what the ends we have in view in meeting here this 
 evening, for the purpose of forming, or rather re-forming, this 
 Society ; and in the second, I shall cast a cursory glance 
 over the life and times of the great orator, writer and 
 humourist, whose name we have adopted to adorn our Club ; 
 whose life presents to us, and to all thinking men, so many 
 grave lessons " to follow the good," and so many sad warnings 
 " to avoid the evil," and whose death was but another illus- 
 tration of the truth of the saying of Guizot's, that " The 
 
 A 
 
4 
 
 happiness of man is even more uncertain than the destiny of 
 
 states."* 
 
 We have assembled, gentlemen, to inaugurate the re- 
 entrance into life of the " Sheridan Literary Society," which 
 formerly flourished and rejoiced in its strength, but like 
 learning in Europe during the middle ages, it had its decline — 
 became enveloped in darkness, and subsequently languished 
 j^nd died— only, as we confidently hope, to emerge from that 
 gloom, arrayed in more than its former brightness, and 
 endued with a stronger and more enduring vitality. The 
 object which we, in common with other Societies of this kind, 
 have in view in meeting here together at certain stated periods 
 is twofold. Firstly, to encourage literary research, and 
 literary discussion, and thereby to increase that stock of 
 knowledge which we may already have acquired ; and secondly, 
 to accustom ourselves to convey to others with that clearness 
 which ever accompanies true eloquence, the results of our 
 research, and thus to become adepts in the art of public 
 speaking. Surely if we can even partially attain to either 
 of these ends, our time will not have been misspent — our 
 labour will not have been in vain. Bacon has taught us that 
 "knowledge is power" — experience has proved to us that 
 knowledge is pleasure. Would you ask me what it is that 
 equalizes the social condition of man, and levels all the dis- 
 tinctions of birth, or of wealth? I answer, knowledge. 
 Would you know what it is that gives to all of us, no matter 
 what may be our political position, no matter what may be 
 our worldly rank, no matter what our religious creed, the 
 most universal and wide-spread enjoyment ? I will tell you 
 it is knowledge. Would you enquire what it is that elevates 
 man's mind above the grovelling pursuits of mere animal 
 pleasure, that tends to save man from the horrible degrada- 
 tion of sinking into the " mud-puddles" c ^ sensual indulgence ? 
 (as Carlyle has it.f)— What is it that sobers him in prosperity, 
 and consoles him in adversity, that arms him for the battle 
 of life, and enables him to hew out for himself a road which 
 
 I 
 
 * Guizot's "Memoires pour servir i I'historie de mon temps." 
 f Carlyle's "Frederick the Great." 
 
5 
 
 (4 
 
 I 
 
 leads on to fortune," to independence, to honour, to hap- 
 piness, and mayhap to immortal fame ? I assert it is 
 knowledge. To use the words of an eloquent writer and a 
 great orator: " Knowledge is like the mystic ladder in the 
 patriarch's dream ; its base rests on the primeval earth, its 
 crest is lost in the shadowy splendour of the empyrean, while 
 the great authors who for traditionary ages have held the 
 chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are 
 the angels ascending and descending the sacred scale, and 
 maintaining, as it were, the communication between man and 
 heaven." * How noble and how apt is the simile ! and how 
 clearly does it demonstrate to us that it is our duty as well 
 as our interest, to keep up by every means this communica- 
 tion ; for when the great Creator of unnumbered worlds 
 breathed into us the breath of life, and made us partakers of 
 his own divine essence, by bestowing on us a soul, he not 
 only implanted in our breast that thirst for knowledge which 
 all men possess more or less, but he also supplied to us the 
 means of satisfying that innate desire. Shall Ave then refuse 
 to drink from those pu: »; springs which the providence of 
 God, and the intelligence of man, have alike provided for 
 us ? or shall we, forgetful of Dante's words, — 
 
 Nessun maggior doloro che ricordarsi del tempo felice, 
 Nella miseria,! 
 
 by passing a youth of ignorance and idleness, prepare for our- 
 selves an old age of useles regret and of unavailing remorse ? 
 It has been well said, " The youth of a nation are the trustees 
 of posterity." What important duties does this trust entail 
 upon us ? By it we are bound to use to the uttermost our 
 humble efforts to raise higher and higher the standard of 
 intellectual culture in this great country — to watch over the 
 interests of learning, and to advance, as far as in us lies, 
 the progress of education. I say " advance," for in the 
 acquisition of knowledge there is no middle course — no 
 juste milieu f' one must either go forward or go back— • 
 
 a 
 
 * Right Hon. B. D'Israeli. 
 
 f No bitterer pang can mortal bosom know, 
 Than joy rememliered in the midst of woe. 
 
6 
 
 advance or recede — gaze upward, with the eye of his mind, 
 or wander with downcast countenance through the heautious 
 regions of science with as little profit and as little pleasure 
 to himself as is afforded to a blind man by the most gorgeous 
 landscape of nature's scenery. Depend upon it, that a man 
 who does not look up will assuredly look down ; and that 
 the spirit which dares not soar is destined to grovel ; although 
 we all cannot arrive at high renown or immortal fame, yet, 
 we can each add something, no matter how little that some- 
 thing may be, to the store of learning, which has been trans- 
 mitted to us by our ancestors, and which it is our duty to 
 hand down in our turn to remote posterity. Let us not be 
 cast down by the magnitude of the task, for great results 
 have ever had small beginnings ; and how the grain of mustard 
 seed grew into the greatest of all trees, we all have read. 
 Receive not as true the old-fashioned rhyme of Pope : 
 
 ** A little learning's a dangerous thing ; 
 
 «' Drink deep, or touch not the Pyrean spring." 
 
 For in these latter days, as Moliere has it, 7ious avons change 
 tout cela."* Modern experience has taught us that men will 
 not be content to remain wholly ignorant, because thoy can- 
 not hope to be perfectly learned. The decree has gone forth, 
 the spirit of knowledge has touched the multitude. Totam- 
 que infusa 'per artus. Mens agitat molem et magno se cor- 
 pore miscet. On every side of him the traveller, in the " old 
 country," sees the evidence of this activity. On every side 
 he beholds those means of intellectual development which a 
 beloved country (like a tender mother) has provided for her 
 sons. I allude not so much to the ancient and time-honoured 
 seats of learning in England, as to those more modern ones 
 which, in the form of " national schools," " normal schools," 
 "public libraries," the " people's lecture rooms," and others 
 too numerous to mention, which lie so thickly scattered 
 through her large towns, and more particularly in those of her 
 manufacturing districts. I have myself seen in one of these 
 establishments at Liverpool, crowds of artizans and labour- 
 ers congregated together, all with one accord drinking, as it 
 
 * Le medicin malgrfe lui. 
 
!' 
 
 I 
 
 were, from these fountains of knowledge. I hove seen, 
 gentlemen, the engine-driver, arr&yed, as he was, in the black 
 livery of toil, pore over the biographies of Watt, Brunei and 
 Stephenson, whilst beside him might be observed the bluff 
 honest sailor, row smiiing as ho perused the humorous pages 
 of Marryat's novels, now blushing with pri<le as ho read, for 
 the first time, o^ some great deed which his ancestors had 
 done under the leadership of a Drake or a Nelson ; wii^lst 
 not far oif sat some pale mechanic in happy converse with 
 Goldsmith or Dickens, Hugh Miller, or Dionysius Lardner, 
 Edgeworth or Gaskell, all doubtless thinking, with Lord 
 Bacon, that " If the invention of ships was thought nobl<?, 
 which carrieth riches from place to place, and consociateth 
 the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how 
 much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass 
 over the vast seas of time, and make distant ages to partici- 
 pate of the wisdom, illumination, and i*^"^- 'ior -he one of 
 the other.'' From *his pleasing view o'^ e of learn- 
 
 ing in the old country, let us turn to ti ... presents 
 
 to us in this great province ; an aspect c fill the 
 
 mind of every Englisman with pride, anu ry true- 
 
 hearted Canadian with peculiar pleasure. Should we not 
 rejoice when we contemplate the rapid strides with which 
 civilization has of late years advanced amongst us ? Should 
 we not feel thankful at the powerful interest which education 
 has awakened in the minds of our governors, and of our 
 fellow-colonists ? Nearly half a million per annum is directly 
 expended in the cultivation of the human mind in Canada, 
 and wc have but to look around us, to see the many nurse- 
 ries of talent which our adopted country has generously laid 
 out for us. Scarce had the foot-print of the mocassin been 
 erased from the soil, ere rose up on its traces temples of 
 education — monuments of civilization. Do we rot behold the 
 word " civilization" inscribed in glowing letters on the walls 
 of our numerous '' colleges," "normal schools," "grammar 
 schools," " law courts," " chambers," and " literary society 
 houses." Is not the word "civilization" graven in charac- 
 ters ineffaceable and imperishable on the beauteous front of 
 
our new University, (at the opening of which it was my pride 
 and mv privilege to assist) ? Scarce, gentlemen, had the 
 war-whoop of tlie Indian died away on the distant breeze of 
 the far west, ere was heard in the streets of our infant cities 
 the still small voic . of wisdom, calling to us and to all that 
 thirst, '• to come and buy wine and milk," and saying unto us, 
 *' Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, 
 and your labour for that which satisfieth not ; hearken 
 diligently unto me, and let your soul delight itself in fatness" 
 — whilst our fathers took up the chorus, and ere long was 
 heard through the length and breadth of the land, the great 
 and glorious cry. Educate! Educate! They felt as we 
 should feel, to use the words of one of the greatest writers 
 of the age, that " More grand than empire is the domain 
 won over human thought, and identified with the etcrnai 
 progress of intellect and freedom,"* and more grand than 
 conquest it is " to extend that empire of man over the 
 
 material A/orld."t 
 
 Gentlemen, much as we would advocate the claims of 
 popular education on the one hand, we should not undervalue 
 the advantages of a university training on the other ; for this 
 is an error into which too many have fallen at the present 
 day. You will hear men ask, what is the value of a college 
 course ? to what practical purpose can the knowledge of the 
 classics bo applied ? To reply in the words of one who dated 
 his greatness from his university career ; who, though not 
 possessed of the fortuitous advantages which in England are 
 conferred by noble birth, arrived at the highest political rank 
 to which a subject can attain ; whose genius, emerging from 
 the obscure atmosphere of the cotton-mill, shone ut resplen- 
 dent in the more trying atmosphere of a British House of 
 Commons ; and who, in addititon, had to overcome the dis- 
 advantages of an unpleasing air and an ungracious demeanor, 
 and yet died ex-Prime Minister of England; I mean Sir Robert 
 Peel. " I cannot (said he) dwell too much on the importance^, 
 to all who conspire to any conspicuous station in any depart- 
 ment of public life, of classical acquirements ; for they imbue 
 
 • 
 
 *Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 
 
 ■j" Lord Macaulay. 
 
9 
 
 i 
 
 men's minds with a knowledge of the pure n.odels of antiquity, 
 p.nd with a taste for their constant cultivation and study. 
 Lord Holland, in his history of James II., dwells on Fox's 
 great delight in studying the classics during his retirement 
 from public life, and on his devotion of entire days to the 
 perusal ot Virgil and Euripides ; and (adds he) Lord Gron- 
 ville declared Pitt to be the best Greek scholar he had ever 
 known." "Persons (says another great authority on this 
 matter) ask what is the use of classical education? As well 
 might they ask, what is the use of a relish for food, the 
 smell of the rose, the sweetness of music, the contemplation 
 0*" truth ?'' Hear also the opinion expressed so eloquently 
 on this matter by one whosr beauteous writings have afforded 
 us all equal delight and instruction. Sir Edward Bulwer 
 Lytton, in an address delivered before tliC Universit / '^t' 
 Edinburgh in 1854, said, " Whatever renown a university 
 Can confer abridges the road to subsequent success, interests 
 our contemporaries in our career, and rears up a crowd eager 
 to cheer us in our first maturer effoi ls to make a name. 
 Whatever be our future profession and pursuits, however 
 they may take us away from our scholastic closet and forbid 
 any frequent return to the classic studies of our youth ; still, 
 he whose early steps have been led into that land of demigods 
 and heroes, (Greece and Rome,) will find that itc very air has 
 enriched through life the flood of his thoughts, and that he 
 quits tie soil with a front which the Greek has directed 
 toward the stars, and a step which imperial Rome has dis- 
 ciplined to the march that carried her eagles through the 
 world." 
 
 Look, gentlemen, at those public men whose names will 
 float with glorious distinctness down the stream of time, until 
 that stream be lost in the boundless ocean of eternity, and 
 you will find that they were all distinguished for classical 
 acquirements ; to the names of Pitt and Fox, already men- 
 tioned, we may add those of Lords Bacon and Mansf old, 
 Ellenborough and Tenterden, Stowell, North, and Grenville ; 
 Burke and Windham, Canning and Grattan, Flood and 
 Curran, and we may conclude the shining list with the mere 
 
10 
 
 modern names of Plunkett and Bush, Derby and Camp- 
 bell, Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone. It is to aid 
 each other in the contemplation of the lives of such mighty 
 Dead and such mighty Living, that we of the Sheridan Club 
 propose to meet at stated periods. It is to encourage each 
 other to follow (though magno intervallo) in the steps of these 
 great <xamples; to impart to each other our individual 
 acquisitions, that we shall from time to time assemble in this 
 hall ; and although we may never approach their standard 
 in literary lore, nor arrive at the pinnacle of fame to which 
 they have attained ; yet the study of the career of such men 
 will discipline our minds, and materially aid us in the all 
 important task of self-education ; by such education, I mean 
 not, gentlemen, the mere customary course which most of us 
 have gone through at school and at college ; by such educa- 
 tion I understand not the parrot-like learning which is but 
 too common in our day ; but I mean a nobler thing ; I mean 
 a fair impersonation, which like philosophy in " Lucian's 
 Dream," sits by us it our boyhood and woos us at our man- 
 hood, endeavouring to lead us from darkness to light, from 
 ignorance to knowledge, ^'om carnal pleasures to intellectual 
 enjoyments, in fine, from materialism to spiritualism. 
 
 It now becomes my pleasing duty to lay before you, in as 
 few words as possible, the other branch of the studies which 
 will occupy our attention on the many occasions on which 
 we hope to assemble under this roof during the ensuing 
 season, I allude to the study and practice of " public speak- 
 ing,'' one which, though much encouraged in most of the 
 countries which compose the continent of Europe, has been, 
 alas! but too much neglected in England and her colonies. 
 
 Whilst Italy boasts of her schools of oratory, of which a 
 Cavour, a D' Azeglio, and a Gavazzi are the pupils ; whilst 
 the universities of France, in like manner, foster with pr'^- 
 tecting care that wondrous art, and possess those schools of 
 rhetoric in which a Mcntalembert and a Theirs, a Victor 
 Hugo and a Guizot, have all learned to debate. Amongst 
 us practical Anglo-Saxons, the taste for eloquence has of 
 late years visibly declined, and deeds rather than words are 
 
 t 
 
 ■^ 
 

 11 
 
 looked for from our public servants. This to a certain ex- 
 tent proves our good sense, for were those frequent displays 
 of turgid rhetoric which one is wont to hear in the legislative 
 halls of the United States, and of other foreign nations, to take 
 place in our House of Commons or Chambers of Assembly, 
 the despatch of public business would be retarded, and the 
 patience of our more practical listeners would be over-taxed. 
 But, f^entlemen, whilst we should avoid on the one hand the 
 mere parade of fine words, we should on the other endeavour 
 to iret rid of that confusion of ideas which is but two visible 
 in the addresses of unpractised speakers of the present day. 
 For what is true eloquence ? To reply in the words of a 
 great authority — " It is the faculty of making oneself master 
 of the minds of the listeners, guiding them by his mind, 
 causing them to think as he thinks, and thus imparting to 
 their wills the direction of his own."* How then can a man 
 who is not master of his own thoughts, guide the thoughts 
 of others? How can a speaker whose ideas are floating 
 confusedly in his brain, and which, like the shipwrecked 
 companions of ^neas, '^apparent rari nantes in gurgite 
 vasto;'' how, I ask, can such an one give direction to 
 the ideas of his audience, no matter how intelligent, no 
 matter how indulgent that audience may be ? It behoves 
 us, therefore, who would succeed in gaining this influence, to 
 guide ourselves by certain rules which can never be forgotten 
 with safety, nor neglected with impunity Firstly. We 
 must thoroughly know what we want to speak about ; we 
 must become masters of our subject before-hand, and make 
 it our own by study— by meditation and by concentration of 
 thought, and by a careful perusal of those authorities which 
 bear upon it : without such preparation our eloquence be- 
 comes just so much plain water, bearing along nought but 
 empty words, and producing only disgust and nausea in the 
 
 hearers in fact we become mere wcrd-spinners. Read the 
 
 lives of the ancient orators, and you will learn that Demos- 
 thenes devoted years of solitary preparation to the composi- 
 
 *M. Bautain, Professor of Oratory atthe Sorbonne, 
 
 B 
 
12 
 
 tion of his orations, and that Cicero strengthened his powers 
 by intense study. Glance over the biographies of the 
 moderns and they will tell the same tale. To cite but two 
 examples, it is well known that Sheridan passed days and 
 weeks in preparing himself for his grand effort at the motion 
 for the irop-iachment of Warren Hastings, and also for 
 subsequent ones; and that Lord Brougham never made 
 (as a young man) a speech which he had not previously 
 •written out in full. If then such men never trusted to the 
 sudden inspiration of the moment ; what are we that we 
 should dare to do sO? Forget not that a great speaker 
 and thinker hath said, " Mere fine talkers, who boast of 
 being able to speak on a minute's notice, ever get confused, 
 and if they have the audacity not to break down, they con- 
 tinue to twaddle without understanding their own words, 
 and drench their audience with inexhaustible volubility.*" 
 Secondly. We must endeavour to express ourselves with 
 method^ clearness and gracefulness; to attain this end, 
 we should never begin a speech without having previously 
 sketched our plan, first in our note-books, and then in our 
 memory ; no good general ever engaged in battle without 
 having first prepared his plan of attack ; no wise admiral 
 ever ventured his vessel into seas unknown to him without 
 frequent reference to the chart and the log. A discourse 
 without a plan or a parent idea, is like a stream without a 
 spring ; a plant without a root ; a body without a soul ; and 
 becomes full of empty phrases and effervescing nothings. 
 Remember how Montesqieu hath said, " It is not enough to 
 exhibit many things to the understanding, you must exhibit 
 them in order," and also that a greater than he hath written 
 ^^ Qui bene cepitfacti dimidimn Jtahet."f 
 
 Thirdly. We must explore those works that bear upon 
 our subject, and always do so pencil in hand, in order to 
 mark the salient ideas in our progiess, and, as it were, to 
 extract the honey from those fair flowers which have been 
 planted by the accumulated intellect of our progenitors. 
 
 .. 
 
 * M. Bautain. 
 
 t He -who hath begun a thing well, hath half completed it. 
 
18 
 
 .. 
 
 Some may object to this use of other men's ideas ; but when 
 they learn that Holier^ imitated Plautus and Terence ; that 
 La Fontaine borrowed largely from (Esop and Phsedrus, 
 perhaps they will be silent. In reading, too, let our motto 
 be " non multa sed multum^'' remembering that we injure 
 the mind, when we over-crowd it, as much as we injure tho 
 body when we over-feed it ; and that every thing which is 
 destined to be durable, is of slow growth. Geology has de- 
 monstrated to us that this world of our's was not made in 
 six days, but six " periods ;" history has proved that 
 neither Egypt, Athens, nor Rome, were " built in a day." 
 She has also shewn that it required a thousand years to 
 form our glorious British Constitution (and long may it 
 flourish). Experience teaches us, that it requires a hundred 
 yea.-3 to form the oak, half a century to form a good lawyer, 
 a quarter of a century to make a general, and three genera- 
 tions to make a g,entleman. 
 
 Do not suppose, my friends, that the rules which I have 
 ventured to propose to your consideration can be observed 
 without a certain amount of labour ; for " is not difficulty 
 the very condition of success ?" and has it not been written, 
 that " Pater ipse colendi hand facilem esse viam voluit f* 
 and what is genius but patience ? Believe me, however, if 
 by the exercise of such patience and perseverance we can 
 add to our stock of knowledge, and become adepts in the 
 art of imparting that knowledge, we shall have been well 
 repaid f'^'- this our conquest over difficulty, and amply 
 rewarded for this our victory over indolence. 
 
 Gentlemen, I trust I may not be deemed tedious if, before 
 I bring this somewhat lengthy address to a close, I should 
 lay before you a short sketch of the life of that brilliant but 
 unfortunate Irishman after whom our Society is named. 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the second son of Mr. Thomas 
 Sheridan, school-master, and afterwards manager of the 
 Theatre Roya), Dublin, was born in that city, in the year 
 1751, and, like many of our great men, seems to have derived 
 from his mother all his brilliancy of intellect, and, like some, 
 to have given no evidence of that brilliancy during the days 
 
14 
 
 of his boyhood. In 1772, aged twenty-one, he eloped with 
 and married the beautiful and sweetly-singing Miss Linley, 
 aged eighteen, on whose account he quarrelled with his 
 father, who was averse to the marriage ; and also fought 
 two duels with one of her former admirers. In 1775, at 
 the age of twenty-four, being pressed by circumstances, he 
 entered the arena of literature, and »vrote " The Rivals," 
 which will afford delight to every admirer of real comedy as 
 lon(' as the English language shall endure. At the end 
 of the same year, he produced " The Duenna,'' which 
 Byron affirmed to be the best opera of the age. In 1776 
 he was proposed by Dr. Johnson and admitted into the 
 Literary Club, and thus became one of that " coterie" 
 which the quaint page of " Bos well's Life of Johnson" has 
 rendered so famous. In 1777, at the age of twenty-six, he 
 composed what Byron called the best comedy in the English 
 language, namely, "The School for Scandal ;" and in 1779, 
 what the same great poet and satirist considered the very 
 best farce then extant, namely, " The Critic." In this 
 year, also, he became acquainted with Burke, Fox, and 
 Windham ; and the next, entered parliameat as member 
 lor Stafford, and soon after made his first speech, every 
 word of which, mark you, he first wrote out ; " and," says 
 his biographer, " like most of our great orators, he wrote 
 out his speeches, and, to the last, spoke from notes." On 
 shewing this maiden effort to a friend, whom he asked, 
 "Was it considered successful?" and on this friend reply- 
 ing in the negative, Sheridan said, *' The power is in me, 
 and by God it shall come out." It was in the year 1786, 
 in his thirty-fifth year, that, for five consecutive hours, 
 before an astounded House of Commons, he thundered 
 forth his grand oration against Warren Hastings, " whose 
 impeachment," writes Moore, " afforded one of those pre- 
 cious opportunities, of which, if fortune but rarely offers 
 them to genius, it is genius alone that can triumphantly 
 avail itself." Of this speech Burke said, " It was the most 
 astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, 
 of which there was any record or tradition ;" and Fox, 
 
 *' 
 
 t 
 
 f 
 
15 
 
 *' 
 
 r 
 
 " That of all that he had ever heard, all that he had ever 
 read, Avhen compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and 
 vanished like vapour before the sun ;" and William Pitt, 
 " That it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern 
 times, and possessed every thing that genius or art could 
 furnish to agitate and control the human mind." Mr. 
 Logan (who was present at the delivery of it, and had de- 
 termined before-hand to oppose the impeachment) thus de- 
 scribed its eftbcts upon him : " The first hour," (said he,) 
 " I called it raera declamation ; the second, I said, this is 
 wondrous eloquence ; the third hour, Hastings is unjustifi- 
 able ; the fourth, Hastings is an atrocious criminal ; the 
 fifth, Hastings is the greatest monster of iniquity ever 
 heard of in the records of crime." In fact, as Pitt said, 
 "All parties were brought under the wand of the enchanter," 
 and, gentlemen, that enchanter was Brinsley Sheridan. 
 
 In 1788 he delivered his great speech at the trial of 
 Warren Hastings, in Westminster Hall ; which lasted four 
 days, and is mentioned by Gibbon as "that display of 
 genius which blazed for four successive days ;" and on 
 which occasion he exhibited a curious trait in his disposi- 
 tion, viz., that of wishing to appear to be an orator 
 without preparation ; for referring in his speech to certain 
 minutes which the Chancellor desired to be produced, he 
 sent Taylor, his clerk, for his bag, which he pretended to 
 have mislaid, "in which," said he, "these minutes were," 
 and meanwhile went on speaking. Fox, getting uneasy at 
 the non-appearance of the bag, asked Taylor for an expla- 
 nation, who whispered—" Lord bless you, the man neither 
 has nor had any bag !" Yet with all this desire to affeci; 
 inspiration, (so to speak,) it is well known that Sheridan 
 passed many days and weeks in laborious preparation for 
 this oration ; in fact, he "worked," (as he wrote in a private 
 letter which has since come to light,) " until he had motes 
 before his eyes." 
 
 In 1792 Sheridan lost his wife by consumption, and from 
 this date the star of his prosperity, which burst forth in 
 such splendour, and was destined to set in such gloom, began 
 
I 
 
 16 
 
 to wane. Wc find him now becoming involved in the 
 meshes of those pecuniary embarrassments, which, by de- 
 grees, gathered like serpents round him, and finally crushed 
 him ; and also becoming addicted to that degrading intempe- 
 rance which afterwards gained so complete a mastery over 
 his energies. 
 
 It Avas about this time, not being what is vulgarily termed 
 "flush of cash," that driving with an argumentative friend, 
 (Mr. Richardson,) he engaged him in a dispute, for the ex- 
 press purpose of getting up a sham quarrel ; and when the 
 dispute waxed warm, he pulled the driver's string, and got 
 out of the coach, saying to his companion, "that he could not 
 submit to his language," hut leaving him to par/ the fare. 
 It was about this time, too, that at the burning of Drury 
 lane Theatre, (in which consisted his whole wealth,) when, to 
 the surprise of a friend, he sat calmly in the Piazza Coffee 
 House, discussing a bottle of sherry, whilst he gazed at the 
 conflagration, he observed, in reply to the expression of 
 that surprise, "Why should not a man enjoy his glass of 
 wine at his own fireside ?" 
 
 In 1795 he married again ; and we find him in 1798 
 engaged in adapting to the English stage the beautiful 
 German play of " The Stranger," and the next he produced 
 Kotzebue's drama of " Pizarro," or "The Spaniards in 
 Peru," to which he added much original matter. In 1801 
 he opposed, Avith all the force of his eloquence, the "Act 
 of Union mih Ireland," which Pitt purchased from that 
 unhappy country at the price of her independence. In 
 1804 he became member for Westminster, thus throwing 
 over-board his old friends at Stafford, who subsequently, in 
 the hours of his adversity, acted by him in like manner. 
 
 In 1812 he delivered his last speech in Parliament, 
 which was one in favour of " Catholic Emancipation," and 
 which ended with these remarkable words : "If they were 
 the last words I should ever utter in this House, I should 
 say. Be just to Ireland, as you value your honour; be just 
 to Ireland, as you value your own peace," proving (in 
 common with many Irishmen) that he forgot not the beau- 
 
 i 
 
17 
 
 teous land of his nativity, and that " Ooelum non aninum 
 mutant qui trans mare currunt." His failure to bo re- 
 elected for Stafford, in 1812, completed his ruin, and from 
 thence we find him, like some noble ship which has foundered 
 on a lee shore, drifting, a hopeless wreck, on toward destruc- 
 tion. From this date the scene becomes gloomy and sad 
 beyond description. Whilst pressing creditors and noisy duns 
 beset his path like so many wasps and hornets, his genius be- 
 came clouded, and his brain became fevered by his frequent 
 acges of intemperance. In the year 1818 all his property 
 (including a beauteous portrait of the wife of his youth, by 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds) was brought to the hammer ; and 
 in 1815 we find his person arrested and confined for three 
 days in a low sponging-house, from which when he was 
 released and restored to his wife, he burst into violent 
 weeping at the " indignity thus offered to him." A little 
 later we find him writing, from that bod of sickness from 
 which he was destined never to rise, a sad letter to 
 Canning, asking the loan of .£100 ; and there is extant 
 another letter which, in May 1816, he wrote to the poet 
 Rogers, (his house at the time being full of sheriffs' 
 ofiicers— who were fain to carry him off*, dying as he 
 was, rolled up in his blankets— to a sponging-house,) 
 couched in these heart-rending terms, " I find £150 
 would remove all difficulty. I am absolutely undone 
 and broken hearted. They (the bailiff's) are going to put 
 the carpets out of the window and break into Mrs. 
 Sheridan's room to take me. For God's sake let me see you." 
 Subsequently, the officers of the law did actually arrest him 
 in bed, and, but for the interposition of his physician, Dr. 
 Bains, would have carried him off. At length death^ "which 
 knocketh alike at the hovel of the poor, and at the palaces 
 of kings," released this mighty spirit from the trammels of 
 the flesh, and released, it fled upward to stand before the 
 throne of God, and to swell the ranks of those accusers who, 
 like him, had been the miserable victims of the base and 
 odious ingratitude of that worst of men, George IV., whose 
 career was one big blot on the list of our kings, and whose 
 
18 
 
 name is a deep disgrace, graven in loathsome characters, 
 on the page of English history. Whilst, my friends, we 
 contemplate with pride and admiration the genius, the 
 eloquence, the wit of Sheridan, let us endeavour to 
 avoid his errors — let us put not our trust in princes, or in 
 any child of man — let us not confide in the aid of high 
 birth or of wealthy relatives ; in influential friends, or in 
 the fickle people, for all these will caress us in the day of 
 our prosperity, and as they have ever done, will desert 
 us in the night of our adversity — let us rather learn to 
 depend only on ourselves and on our own labour. Let us 
 beware lest by intemperance we cloud the intellect that God 
 has given us, and thus cast down reason from her throne, 
 and erase from our fronts the very stamp of immortality. 
 Surely a great moral lesson is to be learned by such medita- 
 tion as that in which we have been engaged, for in the words 
 of the sweet Poet of the New World : 
 
 I 
 
 " Lives of great mea all remind us, 
 We can make our lives sublime : 
 And departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 
 Footprints which, perhaps another, 
 Wandering o'er life's solemn main — 
 
 Some forelorn and shipwrecked brothei' 
 Seeing, may take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing; 
 
 With a heart for any fate. 
 Still achieving, still pursuing ; 
 
 Learn to labour and to wait." 
 
 I beg, gentlemen, again to thank you most sincerely for 
 the kind indulgence which you have accorded to my dullness, 
 and for the kind attention with which you have listened to 
 my poor attempt to inaugurate, by this address, the Sheridan 
 Club and Literary Society. 
 
 I