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Gibbon's work, in a half-whisper, he said, "I called it voluminous.”

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It is true that Miss Sheridan's partiality for her brother may have given a bias to her judgment, but she has expressed herself on the occasion of having heard the principal speakers on the trial. "And last, not least," says she, "I heard my brother. I cannot express to you the sensation of pleasure and of pride. that filled my heart the moment that he rose. I never seen or heard his name before, I should have conceived him the first man among them at once. There is a dignity and grace in his countenance and deportment very striking, at the same time that one cannot trace the smallest degree of coxcomb superiority in his manner. His voice, too, appeared to me extremely fine." There are letters, too, extant from Mrs. Sheridan, in which she speaks of her husband's success with all the natural triumph of an attached woman; her exultation springs from the heart. Burke seems occasionally to have written to her when he was anxious to have an impression made upon the memory of Sheridan. In a letter, he says to her: "I know that his mind is seldom unemployed, but then, like all such great and vigorous minds, it takes an eagle's flight by itself, and we can hardly bring it to rustle along the ground with us birds of meaner wing in covey. 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 favour us with his assistance. What will come of the examination I know not, but without him I do not expect a great deal from it; with him I fancy [177]

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we may get out something material." It appears that this beautiful and highly-gifted woman rendered every assistance to her husband in his pursuit of information. Amongst his papers there exist ample proofs that she wrote out, with diligence and assiduity, pages of importance to him. She copied pamphlets and collected from various sources memorandums bearing upon any subject that occupied his attention; these she pasted together, or by some contrivance of her own made easy of reference.

His triumph has been thus acknowledged by Lord Byron :

"When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to Heaven in her appeal to Man,

His was the thunder, his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God,

Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed,
Till vanquished senates trembled as they praised."

An event of a nature calculated to excite the most lively interest in the nation now occurred, and demanded from each individual taking a lead in the direction of the public mind the utmost anxiety and reflection. Early in the month of July 1788 a visible alteration took place in the health of the king. The physicians in attendance recommended that his Majesty should go to Cheltenham to try the effects of the mineral waters there, as some tendency to excitement had been observed. It was resolved that the journey should be taken without the usual pomp and ceremony. The party, therefore, was the smallest possible, without guards or state; still the loyalty of the people would not allow the monarch to pass without exhibiting affectionate homage. "Every town seemed all face, filled with people as closely fastened to one another as they appear in the pit of the play

house." To this journey, which was undertaken as a change from the monotony of Windsor and as likely to divert the attention of the king, and to the life at Cheltenham, has been ascribed the direction which this malady now took. Early in the month of October the royal household saw, with unspeakable alarm, the gradual advance of a mental disorder.

Amongst the most interesting narratives of the day is that which the authoress of our classic novels, "Cecilia" and "Evelina," has furnished us with in her memoirs, published not long since under the name of her diary and letters. Miss Burney was in immediate attendance on the queen, and hence has been enabled to describe to us with the utmost fidelity the commencement, progress, and termination of the disease. We are let into the inmost recesses of the royal palace; we have graphically described the state of alarm and anxiety felt by all, and are taught to look with veneration and admiration at the tenderness and solicitude

of the afflicted queen. Such a work is invaluable; and if it be not quite equal in interest to that melancholy but interesting narration which Clery has given us of his attendance upon Louis XVI. when in the Temple, it is only because, from the different catastrophes, our feelings are not so deeply impressed with sympathy and terror. No one could more faithfully delineate the first approach of one species of frenzy than Miss Burney has done. She thus speaks: “I had a sort of conference with his Majesty, or rather I was the object to whom he spoke, with a manner so uncommon that a high fever could alone account for it: a rapidity, a hoarseness of voice, a volubility, an earnestness, a vehemence rather-it startled me inexpressibly-yet with a graciousness exceeding even

all I met with before-it was almost kindness. The following day," she goes on with her diary, telling us, "I met him in the passage from the queen's room; he stopped me, and conversed upon his health near halfan-hour, still with the extreme quickness of speech and manner that belongs to fever, and he hardly sleeps, he tells me, one minute all night; indeed, if he recovers not his rest, a most delirious fever seems to threaten him. He is all agitation, all emotion, yet all benevolence and goodness, even to a degree that makes it touching to hear him speak. He assures everybody of his health, he seems only fearful to give uneasiness to others." November 1st, we find her describing him with a hoarse and altered countenance: "Nor can I ever forget him in what passed this night; when I came to the queen's dressing-room he was still with her. He was begging her not to speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He repeated his desire at least a hundred times, though far enough from needing it-the poor queen never uttered one syllable. He then applied to me, saying he was really very well, except in that one particular, that he could not sleep."

As we peruse these and similar passages in her diary, we are strongly reminded of the interview between Hamlet and Ophelia in the play-scene, and are struck with admiration of the knowledge which Shakespeare must have possessed of the workings of the mind under the first approaches of mental derangement. She proceeds to describe the deep distress of the queen, her solitary anguish, overpowered with terror lest she should betray her feelings, and express the inevitable danger towards which she saw the king

was gradually verging. Harassed by his state, believing it unknown to any but herself and her household, she at length found that a whispering of the infirmity of the king had commenced; and then read in the Morning Herald some anecdote which she was desirous that the editor should retract, and answer, at his peril, any further such treasonable paragraph. On the 5th of November a terrible scene occurred, which rendered all further hesitation as to the nature of his malady impossible. The king in the afternoon went out in his chaise with the princess royal for an airing ; he was all smiling benignity, but gave so many orders to the postillions, and got in and out of the carriage twice, with such agitation, as to excite Miss Burney's alarm. Retiring in her own room, she was struck in the evening with the uncommon stillness that reigned throughout the palace; nobody stirred, not a voice was heard, not a step, not a motion-there seemed a strangeness in the house most extraordinary. The equerries then passed to and fro with unusual gravity, whisperings only were exchanged-all was mysterious horror. At length the news was told her, that the king at dinner had broken forth into positive delirium, which had long been apprehended by all who saw him most closely; the queen was so overpowered as to fall into violent hysterics; all the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales burst into tears. The night that followed was a fearful one. Miss Burney was called upon to attend her Majesty. "My poor royal mistress! never can I forget her countenance-pale, ghastly pale, she was seated to be undressed, and attended by Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave and Miss Goldsworthy; her whole frame was disordered, yet she was still and quiet. These two ladies

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