The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1848-03-18
The Fate of Sheridan.

The close of the career of this brilliant but
unfortunate man offers picture of melan.
tehOly interest whIle attlle same time it con.
veys u solemn warning:
Closely following his shipwrect of char
acter. Sheridan lost his seat in Parliament
This was almost equivalent 10 loss of his
personal liberty, for he was no longer safe
from arrest. From this time 10 his death. he
gathered in the harvest of long years ofhdo-
lencc, extravaganza, and vice. Disease was
secretly wearing away his originally power
FIJI constitution. His face, ouce so full of in
telligence and beauty, had become deformcd
and bloated with inteinperance. His old
friends looked co1dly upon him. Brilliant
powers of conversation aud fascinating adj
dress 10 longer characterized the faded wit
and shattered dcbauchee. The Prince Re-
gent, for whom he had so often sacrificed his
interest and honor, left him. "nakcd to his
enemies" All the notifications which could
result from wounded pride and vanity, aud
the sense of dGcaying intellect, thickcncd up
on him. His ruin was swift and sure. His
creditors seized upon everything which the
pawnbroker had not already taken. Even
Reynolds portrait ofhis first wife rs Saint
Cecilia passed from his possession. In the
spring oflSl5,he was arrested and carried TO
Il sDOtiSIS HOuSt, WlltEc TIC was GGluIIlGIl
two or three days, His life sufficiently shows
that his sense ofshame was not quick, but
he was deeply humilia;ed at this arrest, fee
ling it as ga PROCLAMATION of his person."
And now came the misery ofhis last scene.
He appeared to feel that his life was drawn
to n close. To some sharp remonstrHnces
from his wife on his continued irregularities,
he replied in an affecting letter. "Ncver IA
gain," he wrotc,"le one harsh word pass be-
tween us during the period, which may not
perhaps be long,that we are in the world to-
gether, and life, however clouded to me, is
spared 10 u.s." His last illness soon followed.
Even his dying bed was not free from the
incursion of writs and sheriffs. lie was ar
rested, and would have been taken away in
his blankets, had not his physician threaten
ed the officer with the consequence Of com
hitting murder. AT last, on the seventh of
July, 1916, in his sixty fifth years, he died.
Then came the mockery ola splendid bur
ial.-Dukes, royal and noble, bishops, mar
quessess, earls, viscounts. right honorables,
emulousIy swellcd the train of his funeral.
"France, 'said n French journalist at the time
sis the place for an author to live in and Eng
land the place for him to die in" In the Po-
cts Corner of Westminster Abbey, the only
spot remaining tnoccupied was reserved for
the body of him whose death bed was not
safe from the shcriff''s writ. Tom Moore, in
II fine strain ofpoetical indignation, publish
ed just after Sheridan's death, thus cuttngly
refers to the noble lords who "honored," the
funeral:
GLOW proud they can press to the funeral
array
Ofhim whom they summed in his sickness
and sorrow!
low bailiifs may seize his last blanket to-
day,
Whose pail shall be held up by mobiles to
morrow"
The task of tightening the misery Of Sher-
idan's last hours was left to such commoners
ms Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, and good
Doctor Balm.