Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-08
sheridan's Parliamentary Success = His
speech Against Warren Hastings.
The PhiIadelphia Press has the following:

sheridan's Parliamentary Success - His
Speech Against Warren Hastings.
The Philadelphia Press has the following
Sheridan's parliamentary success was
crowned by his eloquent declamations at the
impeachment of Warren Hastings Nobody
has ever suspected that he cared a sixpence
for those dark Accomplishment old women, the
Begums of Dude. But he rejoieed in the op.
portunity Of making great oratorical exhi-
bition, His first speech on the Hastings
case, was delivered in the House of Com
mons, and occnpied five hours and half
When he sat down, Sir William Dolben
moved an adjournment of the debate, assert
ing that in the state of mind in which Sheri-
dams speech left him, it was impossible for
him TO give determinate opinion. Mr.. STAN
hope, who seconded the motion, declared
that when he entered the House, he was per-
suaded of Warren Hastings's innocence, but
that the eloquence which he had just heard,
subjecting him to the wand Of an enchanter,
had left him unable to form a correct opinion
Of the merits of the case, at that time.
Others complimented the orator, in lam
Ruage scarcely less glowing. Pitt, to whom
Sheridan was opposed, as a politician and
partisan, declared, that it surpassed all the
eloquence of ancient and modern times, and
posse ssed every thing that genius or art
could furnish to agitate and control the hu-
man mind" Fox, moderator himself-he
always spoke like Demosthenes, as if the
pebbles were still in his mouth, so rugged
was his tteFance-affirmed that all he had
ever heard, all he had ever read, when COM
pared with il, dwindled into nothing, and
vanished like vapor before the sun.
Burke warmly pronounced it to be "the
most astonishing effort of eloquence, argu
ment, and wit united, of which there was
any record or tradition" Mr.. Windham
twenty years later, said that the speech de,
served all its fame, and was, in spite of some
faults Of taste, such as were seldom wanting,
either in the literary or in the parliamentary
performances of Sheridan, the finest that
had been delivered within the memory o.
man. Mr.. Fox, about the same time being
asked by the late Lord Holland, what was
the best speech ever made in the House o
| Commons, assigned the first place, without
| hesitation, to the great Grafton of Sheridan
on the Dude charge.
| And Horace Walpole, more deliberately
! writing bis opinion, confessed that Sheridan
had turned every body's head. "0ne heard
every. body in the street raving on the won.
ders of that speech; for my part, can moi
! believe it was SO supernatural as they say
| He affirms that there must be witchery in
| Mr.. Sheridan, who had no diamonds-as
Hastings had-to win favor with, and says
that the Opposition may be fairly charged
| with sorcery.
| Macaulay states, of this speech, that "the
impression which it produced was such as
has never been equaled. He sat down, moi
merely amid cheering, but amid the loud
clipping of hands, in which the Lords below
the bar and the strangers in the gallery
joined. The excitement was such that nc
other speaker could obtain O hearing. The
feTment spread fast through the town
Within four and-tWenty hours Sheridan
/ was offered $1,000 for the copyright
of the speech, if he would himself correct il
for the press"
To highten his intoxication of his success
Sheridans wife was present during the de-
livery of this speech-that wife described
by Macaulay as ''the beautiful mother of O
beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose deli
cate features, frightened up by love and
music, Art has rescued from the common de.
cay"
When his career was near its close, in
1878, on being told of Byron's having de
clared this Begun speech to be the very
best ever conceived or heard in England
Sheridan burst into tears.
In February, 1888, the trial of Warner
Hastings, Ex-Viceroy of India, commenced
in Westminster, Hall, the greatest rsmnan
in existence of Gothic palatial architecture
erected 500 years before by Richard II, OF
the foundations of hall of the same sizt
built by William Rufus at the close of the
twelfth century. On the Sd of June, 1888
Sheridan delivered his second anti-Hastings
oration-the subject again being the alleged
ill.treatment of the old ladies of Dude. Hi.
peroration ran thus: ..s.. ..r
"They (the House of Commons) exhort
you by every thing that calls sublimely
upon the heart of man, by the majesty o.
that justice which this bold man has libeled
by the wide fame of your own tribunal, by
the sacred pledges by which you swear in
the solemn hour of decision, knowing thai
that decision will then bring you the high
est reward that ever blessed the heart o.
man, the consciousness of having done the
| greatest act of mercy for the world that the
| earth has ever yet received from any HAND
| but Heavenl Ny Lords, have DONE"
Ofthis speech Maeaulay says: "The curl
osity of the public TO hear him was un
bounded. His sparkling and highly finished
| defamation lasted two days, but the hal
was crowded to suffocation. 1t was said
that fifty guineas had been paid for a single
ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, con
triEed, with knowledge of stage effec
| which his father might have envied, to sinl
| back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke
| who hugged him with the energy Of geuer
| Gus admiration" There is O sneer on thil
| last sentence which the writer might have
| spared, for the letters of Mrs. Sheridan
| written Immediately after the speech, to hel
| husbands friends and published in the Lif
! 6y Moore, clearly show that the great anG
! continuous effort for which he had wounC
himself up, had really prostrated mind anC
| body, for some time after his work had beer
accomplished SO greatly. t
| Burke, who with many faults, was warn
| friend and too confident in himself to fea
rivalry from any one, passed an eulogy upol
| Sheridan's second speech, much finer thai
| that which he praised.
| He said, "0f all the various species O
| oratory-of every kind of el0quence--tha
had been heard, either in ancient or modern
times; whatever the acuteness of the bar
| the dignity of the Senate, or the morality o
the pulpit could furnish, had not been equa
! to what that House had that day heard il
| Westminster Hall. No holy religionist nj
man of any description, as literary charac
| ter, could have come up, in the one instance
to the pure sentiments of morality, or, in tn,
other, to the variety of knowledge, force o
! imagination, propriety and yiyacity of allu
sion, beauty and eloquence of dietion, anC
strength of expression, to what they haC
that day heard. From poetry up TO elo
! quence, there was not a species of compost
! ton, of which a complete and perfect speci
men might not have been culled, from on
part or other of the speech to which he hat
| alluded ..5 r-.. -
| ANoTuEp Uu,fAN SAcprEtcE IN AEprC.