day was bright; and that in the year 1759, he who, in less than thirty years afterwards, held senates enchained by his eloquence, and audiences fascinated by his wit, was, by common consent both of parent and preceptor, pronounced to be "a most impenetrable dunce."

From Mr. Whyte's school the boys were removed to England, where Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan had lately gone to reside, and in the year 1762, Richard was sent to Harrow -Charles being kept at home as a fitter subject for the instructions of his father, who, by another of those calculations of poor human foresight, which the deity, called Eventus by the Romans, takes such wanton pleasure in falsifying, considered his elder son as destined to be the brighter of the two brother stars. At Harrow, Richard was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but, at the same time, engaging boy, who contrived to win the affection, and even admiration, of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his frank and genial manners, and by the occasional gleams of superior intellect, which broke through all the indolence and indifference of his character.

Harrow, at this time, possessed some peculiar advantages, of which a youth like Sheridan might have powerfully availed himself. At the head of the school was doctor Robert Sumner, a man of fine talents, but, unfortunately, one of those who have passed away without leaving any trace behind, except in the admiring recollection of their contemporaries. His taste is said to have been of a purity almost perfect, combining what are seldom seen together, that critical judgment which is alive to the errors of genius, with the warm

sensibility that deeply feels its beauties. At the same period, the distinguished scholar, Dr. Parr, who, to the massy erudition of a former age, joined all the free and enlightened intelligence of the present, was one of the under masters of the school; and both he and Dr. Sumner endeavoured, by every method they could devise, to awaken in Sheridan a consciousness of those powers, which, under all the disadvantages of indolence and carelessness, it was manifest to them that he possessed. But remonstrance and encouragement were equally thrown away upon the good-humoured but immovable indifference of their pupil; and though there exist among Mr. Sheridan's papers some curious proofs of a degree of industry in study for which few have ever given him credit, they are probably but the desultory efforts of a later period of his life, to recover the loss of that first precious time, whose susceptibility of instruction, as well of pleasure, never comes again.

One of the most valuable acquisitions he derived from Harrow was that friendship, which lasted throughout his life, with Dr. Parr;

which mutual admiration very early began, and the "idem sentire de re publica" of course not a little strengthened.

In a letter, dated from Hatton, August 3, 1818, the doctor says, "With the aid of a scribe I sit down to fulfil my promise about Mr. Sheridan. There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was inferior to many of his school-fellows in the ordinary business of a school, and I do not remember any one instance in which he distinguished himself by Latin or English composition, in

*

prose or verse. Nathaniel Halhed, one of his school-fellows, wrote well in Latin and Greek. Richard Archdall, another schoolfellow, excelled in English verse. Richard Sheridan aspired to no rivalry with either of them. He was at the uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of attending the most difficult and the most honourable of school business, when the Greek plays were taught -and it was the custom at Harrow to teach these at least every year. He went through his lessons in Horace, and Virgil, and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, doctor Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar. Knowing him to be a clever fellow, I did not fail to probe and to teaze him. I stated his case with great good-humour to the upper master, who was one of the best tempered men in the world; and it was agreed between us, that Richard should be called oftener, and worked more severely. The varlet was not suffered to stand up in his place; but was summoned to take his station near the master's table, where the voice of no prompter could reach him; and, in this defenceless condition he was so harassed, that he at last gathered up some grammatical rules, and prepared himself for his lessons. While this tormenting process was inflicted upon him, I now and then

* Dr. Parr was not aware of the circumstance, Sheridan did try his talent at English verse before he left Harrow.

upbraided him. But you will take notice that he did not incur any corporal punishment for his idleness: his industry was just sufficient to protect him from disgrace. All the while Sumner and I saw in him vestiges of a superior intellect. His eye, his countenance, his general manner, were striking. His answers to any common question were prompt and acute. We knew the esteem and even admiration, which, somehow or other, all his school-fellows felt for him. He was mischievous enough, but his pranks were accompanied by a sort of vivacity and cheerfulness, which delighted Sumner and myself. I had much talk with him about his apple-loft, for the supply of which all the gardens in the neighbourhood were taxed, and some of the lower boys were employed to furnish it. I threatened, but without asperity, to trace the depredators, through his associates, up to their leader. He, with perfect good-humour, set me at defiance, and I never could bring the charge home to him. All boys and all masters were pleased with him. I often praised him as a lad of great talents,—often exhorted him to use them well; but my exhortations were fruitless. I take for granted that his taste was silently improved, and that he knew well the little which he did know. He was removed from school too soon by his father, who was the intimate friend of Sumner, and whom I often met at his house. Sumner had a fine voice, fine ear, fine taste, and, therefore, pronunciation was frequently the favourite subject between him and Tom Sheridan. I was present at many of their discussions and disputes, and sometimes took a very active part in them-but Richard

was not present. The father, you know, was a wrong-headed, whimsical man, and, perhaps, his scanty circumstances were one of the reasons which prevented him from sending Richard to the University. He must have been aware, as Sumner and I were, that Richard's mind was not cast in any ordinary mould. I ought to have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency. In truth, he, as a boy, was quite careless about literary fame. I should suppose that his father, without any regular system, polished his taste, and supplied his memory with anecdotes about our best writers in our Augustan age. The grandfather, you know, lived familiarly with Swift. I have heard of him, as an excellent scholar. His boys in Ireland once performed a Greek play; and when sir William Jones and I were talking over this event, I determined to make the experiment in England. I selected some of my best boys, and they performed the Edipus Tyrannus, and the Trachinians of Sophocles. I wrote some Greek Iambics to vindicate myself from the imputation of singularity, and grieved I am that I did not keep a copy of them. Milton, you may remember, recommends what I attempted.

"I saw much of Sheridan's father after the death of Sumner, and after my own removal from Harrow to Stanmer. I respected him he really liked me, and did me some important services-but I never met him and Richard together. I often inquired about Richard, and from the father's answers, found they were not upon good terms-but neither he nor I ever spoke of his son's talents

but in terms of the highest praise."

ner.

In a subsequent letter Dr. Parr says, "I referred you to a passage in the Gentleman's Magazine, where I am represented as discovering and encouraging in Richard Sheridan those intellectual powers, which had not been discovered and encouraged by SumBut the statement is incorrect. We both of us discovered talents, which neither of us could bring into action while Sheridan was a school-boy. He gave us few opportunities of praise in the course of his school-business, and yet he was well aware that we thought highly of him, and anxiously wished more to be done by him than he was disposed to do. "I once or twice met his mother - she was quite celestial. Both her virtues and her genius were highly esteemed by Robert Sumner. I know not whether Tom Sheridan found Richard tractable in the art of speakingand, upon such a subject, indolence or indifference would have been resented by the father as crimes quite inexpiable. One of Richard's sisters now and then visited Harrow, and well do I remember that, in the house where I lodged, she triumphantly repeated Dryden's Ode upon St. Cecilia's Day, according to the instruction given to her by her father. Take a sample:

"None but the brave,
None but the brave,

None but the brave deserve the fair. ' Whatever may have been the zeal or the proficiency of the sister, naughty Richard, like Gallio, seemed to care nought for these things.

"In the later periods of his life Richard did not cast behind him classical reading. He spoke co

piously and powerfully about Cicero. He had read, and he had understood the four orations of Demosthenes read and taught in our public schools. He was at home in Virgil and in Horace. I cannot speak positively about Homer but I am very sure that he read the Iliad now and then; not as a professed scholar would do, critically, but with all the strong sympathies of a poet reading a poet. Richard did not, and could not forget what he once knew, but his path to knowledge was his own his steps were noiseless-his progress was scarcely felt by himself-his movements were rapid but irregular.

"Let me assure you that Richard, when a boy, was by no means vicious. The sources of his infirmities were a scanty and precarious allow ance from the father; the want of a regular plan for some profession; and, above all, the act of throwing him upon the town, when he ought to have been pursuing his studies at the University. He would have done little among mathematicians at Cambridge he would have been a rake, or an idler, or a trifler, at Dublin-but I am inclined to think that at Oxford he would have become an excellent scholar." During the greater part of Richard's stay at Harrow, his father had been compelled by the embarrassment of his affairs to reside with the remainder of the family in France, and it was at Blois, in the September of 1766, that Mrs. Sheridan died-leaving behind her that best kind of fame, which results from a life of usefulness and purity, and which it requires not the aid of art or eloquence to blazon. She appears to have been one of those rare women, who, united to men of more pre

tensions but less real intellect than themselves, meekly conceal this superiority even from their own hearts, and pass their lives, without a remonstrance or murmur, in gently endeavouring to repair those evils, which the indiscretion or vanity of their partners has brought upon them.

On his leaving Harrow, where he continued till near his eighteenth year, Richard was brought home by his father, who, with the elder son, Charles, had lately returned from France, and taken a house in London. Here the two brothers for some time received private tuition from Mr. Lewis Kerr, an Irish gentleman, who had formerly practised as a physician, but having, by loss of health, been obliged to give up his profession, supported himself by giving lessons in Latin and Mathematics. They attended also the fencing and riding schools of Mr. Angelo, and received instructions from their father in English grammar and oratory. Of this advantage, however, it is probable, only the elder son availed himself, as Richard, who seems to have been determined to owe all his excellence to nature alone, was found as impracticable a pupil at home as at school. But, however inattentive to his studies he may have been at Harrow, it appears, from one of the letters of his school-fellow, Mr. Halhed, that, in poetry, which is usually the first exercise, in which these young athlete of intellect try their strength, he had already distinguished himself,-and, in conjunction with his friend Halhed, had translated the seventh Idyl, and many of the lesser poems of Theocritus. This literary partnership was resumed soon after their departure from Harrow, In the

year 1770, when Halhed was at Oxford, and Sheridan residing with his father at Bath, they entered into a correspondence (of which, unluckily, only Halhed's share remains), and, with all the hope and spirit of young adventurers, began and prosecuted a variety of works together, of which none but their translation of Aristænetus ever saw the light.

Their first joint production was a farce, or rather play, in three acts, called "Jupiter," written in imitation of the burletta of Midas, whose popularity seems to have tempted into its wake a number of these musical parodies upon heathen fable. The amour of Jupiter with Major Amphitryon's wife, and sir Richard Ixion's courtship of Juno, who substitutes Miss Peggy Nubilis in her place, form the subject of this ludicrous little drama, of which Halhed furnished the burlesque scenes- while the form of a rehearsal, into which the whole is thrown, and which, as an anticipation of "The Critic" is highly curious, was suggested and managed entirely by Sheridan.

That habit of dilatoriness, which is too often attendant upon genius, 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. Kerr to Sheridan, that the probability of the arrival of the manuscript was announced to Mr. Foote. "I have despatched a card, as from

H. H., at Owen's coffee-house, to Mr. Foote, to inform him that he may expect to see your dramatic piece about the 25th instant."

Their hopes and fears in this theatrical speculation are very naturally and lively expressed throughout Halhed's letters, sometimes with a degree of humorous pathos, which is interesting as characteristic of both the writers :-" the

thoughts," he says, "of 2001. shared between us are enough to bring the tears into one's eyes." Sometimes, he sets more moderate limits to their ambition, and hopes that they will, at least, get the freedom of the play-house by it. But at all times he chides, with good-humoured impatience, the tardiness of his fellow-labourer in applying to the managers. Fears are expressed that Foote may have made other engagements, and that a piece, called "Dido," on the same mythological plan, which had lately been produced with but little success, might prove an obstacle to the reception of theirs. At Drury-lane, too, they had little hopes of a favourable hearing, as Dibdin was one of the principal butts of their ridicule.

The summer season, however, was suffered to pass away without an effort; and in October, 1771, we find Mr. Halhed flattering himself with hopes from a negotiation with Mr. Garrick. It does not appear, however, that Sheridan ever actually presented this piece to any of the managers.

Another of their projects was a periodical miscellany, the idea of which originated with Sheridan, and whose first embryo movements we trace in a letter to him from Mr. Lewis Kerr, who undertook with much good nature the negotiation of the young authors' lite