Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! (1)
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your Master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence! (2)
He was your brother-bear his ashes hence!
While Powers of mind almost of boundless range, (3)

(1) Fox-Pitt-Burke. ["When Fox was asked, which he thought the best speech he had ever heard, he replied, Sheridan's on the impeachment of Hastings, in the House of Commons.' When he made it, Fox advised him to speak it over again in Westminster Hall on the trial, as nothing better could be made of the subject; but Sheridan made his new speech as different as possible, and, according to the best judges, very inferior, notwithstanding the panegyric of Burke, who exclaimed during the delivery of some passages of it-There, that is the true style-something between poetry and prose, and better than either.'"-B. Diary, (from Lord Holland,) 1821.]

(2) ["In society I have met Sheridan frequently. He was superb! I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others of good fame and ability. I have met him at all places and parties at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of Tavistock's, at Robins's the auctioneers, at Sir Humphry Davy's, at Sam. Rogers's—in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him convivial and delightful."- B. Diary, 1821.]

(3) ["Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions upon him and other hommes marquans, and mine was this: Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been par excellence always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far beyond that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggars' Opera), the best farce (the Critic - it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and, on hearing it, he burst into tears! Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or made his own celebrated philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine."— B. Diary, Dec. 17. 1813.]

Complete in kind-as various in their change,
While Eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth,
That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth,
Survive within our souls-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

THE

PRISONER OF CHILLON,

A FABLE. (1)

(1) [Lord Byron wrote this beautiful poem at a small inn, in the little village of Ouchy, near Lausanne, where he happened, in June, 1816, to be detained two days by stress of weather; "thereby adding," says Moore, "one more deathless association to the already immortalised localities of the Lake."-E]