The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1888-06-02
IRISH GRAVES IN ENGLAND.
BY MICHAEL MAcDONAGH.
RICHARD BRINsLEY SHERIDAN.

RICHARD BRINsLEY SHERIDAN.
And friendships so false, i'll the great and
highborn.
To think that Il long line of titles may follow
The remains Of him who died frendless and
How proud they can press to the funeral array
Of him whom they Stunned in his sickness and
sorrow;
How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day
Whose pail shall be held up by mobiles to-
So wrote Moore when Richard Brins-
ley Sheridan, the wit, the poet, the
orator, the politician, having died a
pauper-his last moments saddenEd and
embittered by the dunning of bailiffs-
received the posthumous tributes of a
magnificent funeral procession and a
grave in Westminster Abbey After
tasting all the sweets of lire-honors,
riches, great friends, satisfied ambition
Sheridan. for four years before hig death,
lived an obscure and INDECENT life,
Drury-lane Theatre, his property, into
which he had sunk an immense fortune,
WAS destroyed by fire. Instead OF deriv-
ing any benefit from the erection of the
new house, he seems to have suffered
the more, and to have thought he was
being swindled; for III several letters
written at this period he charges Whit
bread, lis partner in the speculation,
with unfair treatment. Lower and lower
he sank in the social scale. Neglected
and forgotten by his friends, he retired
to poor apartments in II Sav1lle~row,
where 80 wretchedly off did he become
that in the middle OF May, 1916, bailiffs
took possession OF the house on behalf
Of khis creditors. Sheridan at the time
was confined TO bed OF an illness which
terminated his life about month subse-
quently. On the 18th Of May we find
him writing to Samuel Rogers, the poet,
iii these agcnized terms.~-
81 am absolutely undone and heart
broken 80. They are going to put the
carpets out Of the window and break
into MIS-. Sheriaan's room and take me.
For Gods sake let NE see you;'
A short time subsequently a shsriif's
officer seized Sheridan and would have
carried fhe dying man to "spunging
house" "a place where debtors we're held
in custody till the payment of their
debts) Only the doctor who was attend
ing him frightened the bailif by the
declaration that by carrying out his pur-
pose he would be responsible for the
death OF his prisoner, which would inc
vitality follow.
The sac condition Of Sheridan had
now got into the public Press. An
anonymous writer in the Morning Post
appealed for succor for the dying
orator, and, anticipating with wonderful
claimed
II would prefer ministering in the
chamber of sickness to ministerlng al
the splepdld SORROWS that adorn the
hearse. ( say, life and succor against
Westminster Abbey and funeral
It was too late.-Sheridan was no more
when his erstWhile friends rich and
powerfui~-stirred themselves in his i'll
terest, and they gave to the dead a grand
funeral and grave in Westminster Alb
hey as some reeonpense for their neg
lect Of the living. Sheridan died at
Saville-row on Sunday. the 18th July, in
his 65th year. Ellis digestive organs had
become so feeble that bis stomach re-
jected even the little food he was able to
take, aud within two or three days Of the
end the power Of deglutition was SO COM
pletely destroyed that it was deemed
dangerous to put any food into his
mouth lest it should produce sntfocatlon.
The body was removed to the house
OF Mr.. Peter Moore III Great George
street, Westminster, and few days after
it was consigned to rest amid all the
splendor of funeral pageant in West
minister Abbey, The pallbearers were:
Duke Of Bedford, Earl Mulgrave,
Lord Holland, the Earl Of !,auderdale,
Bishop Of London; Lord Robert Spen-
Ger. The interment took place in
'Poet's Corner,' Immediately beneath
the monument to Shakespeare and
Campbell's statue. Among the eminent
men who are buried in the same section
of the Abbey are--Samuel johnson,
David Garrick, Handel, Thompson OF
''The Seasons Gay, Campbell, and
Charles Dickens, while Nolleken's bust
Of Goldsmith, from niche not Tar away,
looks down on the grave of his eminent
countryman, of whom Lord Byron wrote
--"He has written the best comedy
(sSchool for Scandal), the best drama
1,ooe 70 (f11Lo