often; its eyes and its looks; and the nurse, who was of a superior class, assured me that it had all the airs and phantasies of any woman of fashion in Grosvenor-Square. It was curious to see Sheridan, who could attend to nothing, never come to Wanstead without bringing some cap or ribband or toy for this beautiful infant. And he would stand looking at it, and talking with the nurse, and endeavouring to engage its attention for the hour together, finding here the last image of her he had lost, to whose departed shade, I doubt not, he considered himself as making a grateful offering while he was thus hanging with affection over her child. The nurse had been hired at an extraordinary salary. Mrs. Canning came every day to visit it; every human expedient was resorted to for its health and nurture; and no anxiety seemed unreasonable for an object that already appeared to charm the eye and interest the heart of every beholder.

We had at Wanstead a little society around us, of which my pupil was the hero; and we had therefore one evening a ball, and Sheridan was to come down to us. I was standing at the top of the dance, just going to lead off, when suddenly the door flew open, and, at the bottom of the room, I saw Mrs. Canning, who, with a look of horror, cried out, "Oh! the child, the child, the child is dying!" I rushed up stairs, and never

shall I forget the look which Sheridan had fastened upon the infant that lay in the nurse's lap, and had just struggled through a convulsion fit. Denman was brought down in an incredibly short space of time, but he could do nothing; the convulsion fits returned, and the child expired!

It was piteous to hear Sheridan's moans as I lay in the next room. He stirred not from his chamber. I sent his son to him. We brought his friend Richardson from town; but it was long before he would suffer any thing to be said to him. At last he came down to us, resumed his composure, and told me he should send the child to be interred at the Cathedral of Wells. I ventured to look, and mutter to myself, as if I thought the distance was great-" But where," he said quickly to me, "but where can the child be but in the bosom of its mother ?" Richardson got him away at last and plunged him into business; but it was long before he returned to us.

It was some months, if I recollect aright; and when he did come, it was in the company of the editor of a newspaper, who was to take down, as he dictated it, a celebrated speech that he had just made in answer to Lord Mornington. They passed three days together, and I thought Sheridan would have died of weariness. He lamented to me, and was astonished, he said, at his own insanity, in having ever made the editor so ridicu

lous a promise. I was not less astonished that he ever kept it. Never would he undergo, he said, such a martyrdom again. I entirely believed

him.

One of the besetting sins of Sheridan was procrastination. Trifling or important, whatever was the business, the franking of a letter or the signing of a deed with the Duke of Bedford for his theatre, it never could be done at the proper time and place. Long habits of indulgence in this vice of procrastination made his life a torment to those around him, and a scene of unnatural exertion and unnecessary irritation to himself.

On the very occasion before us, Lord Mornington's speech had entirely turned upon a pamphlet just published by Brissot, at Paris, and republished in London, with a preface by Burke. I observed to Mr. Sheridan (I had heard his speech) that he had taken the pamphlet of Brissot entirely on Lord Mornington's own shewing. "I could not do otherwise,” replied Sheridan, “I had never read a line of it." I think this was very possible; but I do not think, from the celebrity of the pamphlet, that the same could, with any probability, have been said of a single member of the House of Commons except himself.

Not long after, another specimen of the indolence, indeed, but also of the exertion, of which Mr. Sheridan was capable, occurred.

A chaise drove to our door, and out of it stepped Mr. Sheridan, followed by a servant, who continued to bring from out of it as many bundles of papers and red boxes as would have loaded an hand-cart. "How I shall ever get through them,” said Mr. Sheridan to me, "I know not; but I must reply to Hastings's counsel the day after to-morrow, and I must here find my materials.” "The day after to-morrow! this day six months, you mean."

"No, no; I have had them these six weeks in Grosvenor-Street already; but you know how I am plagued, morning, noon, and night;—well, sir, to the charge." And to the charge he went most gallantly; never stirring out of his room for four, I think certainly for three days and evenings, and much of the three nights, till the moats, he told me, were coming into his eyes, though the strongest and finest that ever man was blessed with. He came regularly every day to dine with Tom and me; and I found that it was for me never to speak to him but to listen, making a slight occasional comment on what he told me he had been doing. The first thing, however, to be done, was to send a letter to Lord Kenyon, to implore him to give him a further interval of two or three days, in which to prepare himself. This was granted; and, on the morning appointed, he went off early in a chaise and four by himself, to Grosvenor-Street; and none of us, Tom told me, were

to come near him till the speech was over. When he came into the manager's box, he was in full dress, and his countenance had assumed an ashen colour that I had never before observed. No doubt, Cicero himself might have quailed before so immense and magnificent an audience as was now assembled to hear him. He was evidently tried to the utmost-every nerve and faculty within him put into complete requisition; but he contrived, as I thought at the time, very skilfully, to break the misery of the first throw-off, by saying, "Before I begin, my lords, I have to remark," &c. &c. The last words of the speech, too, I thought equally skilful:-"My lords, I have done. When the decision of your lordships is known, I must bow to it as becomes me, whatever it may be; but in the mean time, my lords, and till that decision is known, I shall say that on this charge at least acquittal is impossible."

On this day the appearance of Sheridan, as it struck me, was that of a perfect orator. The voice was so fine, the manner so dignified and graceful, the flow of the words so unembarrassed, the expressions sometimes so beautiful, the rapidity and fire of the eloquence sometimes so overpowering, the statements so clearly made, the appeals deduced from them so forcible, that the impression on my mind, as I sat under him in the manager's box, was quite that of listening to some being of