more strongly exemplified in one instance than another, it was in the last moments of Mr. Fox." The British Review is a very old-fashioned work, and we profess not to see in the deathbed scene of that eminent person, one tittle more of Christian faith than was evinced in the departure of Hume or Helvetius.

"As far as sympathetic solicitude," says his Biographer, "could administer relief or comfort, Mr. Sheridan received every consolation from the kind attention of a numerous acquaintance and an affectionate family. But there is abundant reason to hope that his last moments were cheered by the more abundant consolation that alone springs from faith and repentance. Some days before his death, the Bishop of London, who is a near relation of Mrs. Sheridan, desired Dr. Baine to ask if it would be agreeable to his patient to have prayers offered up by his bed side. When the commission was imparted to the sick, he assented with such an expression of fervent desire, that the bishop was instantly sent for, who lost no time in attending to the solemn call, and, accompanied by the physician, read several offices of devotion suited to the awful occasion. In these prayers, Mr, Sheridan appeared to join with humility and aspiration, clasping his hands, bending his head, and lifting up his eyes, significant of that penitential frame of mind which becomes every human spirit in its passage out of time into eternity. After this he seemed to possess much internal tranquillity until life ebbed gradually away, and he departed, without any apparent struggle or agony, in the arms of his affectionate consort, on Sunday, at noon, July the seventh, 1816, in the sixtyfifth year of his age. (Vol. ii. p. 387, 388.)

Of such a character as that of Mr. Sheridan it is not easy to put together the incongruous parts. He was a soldier of fortune, and formed only by the loose discipline of worldly tactics. His thoughts, words, and actions, appear to have had no higher scope than to charm the festive hour, to multiply his means of unprofitable pleasure, and to inhale the incense of popular applause. Nature had bestowed upon him the elements of greatness; and capacities, that, under a right cultivation, might have made him the ornament, the boast, and the blessing of these eventful times; but the total absence of every thing systematic, or regular, or restraining, in the first formation of his habits, left him at large the creature of accidental impressions, the pupil of his own passions, and vanities, and wants. Good-nature, a tendency to friendship, and a general kindness of disposition, are among the wild flowers that often grow up in this moral wilderness, and these qualities appear throughout the life of Mr. Sheridan; they shed a fragrance over his character, and still' decorate his tomb; but they often covered the path of error and dishonour, and assisted the fascinations of a ruinous example. Even his good qualities stood in each other's way, for want of that order and subordination which can only be the fruit of

Christian government; thus his kindness towards some made him unfair and even malignant towards others; his liberality, by inducing distress, sometimes drove him to meanness; his wit, which was unrivalled, found often an indulgence in malicious sarcasm, and his honour was too high for the duties of simple justice. Something of the generous, the noble, and the lofty, was often visible in his deportment and in his sentiments,-in the matter and in the manner of his procedure; but while the eye regarded it with rapture, and welcomed it as the harbinger of a happy change, the fleeting form relapsed into confusion, like the cloud of a summer-evening, when the parting ray that gilded it is gone.

"He

Of his eloquence it is impossible, with any feeling for the beauties of the art, not to entertain a very high estimation. Considering the little cultivation it could have received in his youth, it was next to miraculous. What renders it the more a subject of astonishment is its peculiarity of character. The property one would have expected to have seen in it most prominent and distinguishing is that voluble and easy flow which is often the mysterious and genuine gift of nature; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence was any thing rather than natural. It was studied, adorned, and artificial; and often consisted of a string of witticisms, having all the appearance of premeditation and contrivance. It was this character of his eloquence which laid him open to the following observations of Mr. Pitt. seldom condescends to favour us with his extraordinary powers of imagination and fancy; but when he does come forward, we are prepared for a grand performance. No subject comes amiss to him, however remote from the question before the house. All that his fancy suggests at the time, or that he has collected from others; all that he can utter in the ebullition of the moment; all that he has slept on or matured, are combined and produced for our entertainment. All his hoarded repartees, all his matured jests, the full contents of his common-place book, all his severe invectives, all his bold and hardy assertions, all that he has been treasuring up for days and months, he collects into one mass, which he kindles into a blaze of eloquence, and out it comes all together, whether it has any relation to the subject or not." Making some allowance for the exaggerations of resentment which undoubtedly dictated some part of this descrip tion, it cannot be deemed very far from a true portraiture of the style and manner, of Mr. Sheridan.

The speeches, however, of Mr. Sheridan in parliament are, with many defects, undoubtedly worthy to be ranked among the fairest specimens of British oratory: they are pithy, senten tious, antithetical, corruscating, neat, popular, ingenious, witty,

playful, and, for the most part, correct and clear. But they are not of that pure, spontaneous, and natural kind which have proceeded from the mouth of Mr. Fox; neither have they his senatorial wisdom: they had less of variety, less of genuine warmth, less of living pathos; were less rich in parallels drawn from history and common life, less logical, and less comprehensive. The deep tones, the solemn swell, the rotundity and continuity of expression, the moral elevation, the sedate utterance, the lofty declamation, the commanding manner, the perspicuity of detail and arrangement, the sober lustre and the mild effulgence of Mr. Pitt, were Mr. Pitt's alone; to him belonged that plenitude of information, that practicable, clear, and solid good sense, which neither habit, education, or genius, had permitted to Mr. Sheridan: still less was he gifted with Mr. Burke's endowments: he was greatly below him in observation, and mellowness of knowledge; below him greatly in profundity of thought, power of generalizing, philosophy of views, and all that goes into the constitution of wisdom. He was also far inferior to that great man in richness, variety, and fecundity of intellect; his inferior also, far his inferior, in compass of expression, control of imagery, and classic elegance; in all that constitutes the faculty of convincing and securing the moral mind greatly inferior indeed to that prince over the provinces of literature and reason.

It was in straining after these attainments that Mr. Sheridan frequently lost himself in the clouds. We confess that many parts of his famous speeches which have been selected as dazzling instances of superb oratory are quite above our understanding. As a specimen of this over-laboured oratory we will produce the picture exhibited of the sufferings of the aged Princesses of Oude, which is often cited with admiration. This picture is greatly aggravated by the introduction of the nearest relative of these high ladies as the instrument, in the hands of the Governor, of their persecution and oppression.

"Oh Faith! oh Justice!' he exclaimed, I conjure you by your sacred names to depart for a moment from this place, though it be your peculiar residence, nor hear your names profaned by such a sacrilegious combination as that which I am now compelled to repeat, where all the fair forms of nature and art, truth and peace, policy and honour, shrunk back aghast from the deleterious shade-where all existencies, nefarious and vile, had sway-where, amidst the black agents on one side, and Middleton with Impey on the other, the toughest bend, the most unfeeling shrink-the great figure of the piece, characteristic in his place, aloof and independent from the puny profligacy in his train, but far from idle and inactive, turning a malignant eye on all mischief that awaits him-the multiplied apparatus of temporising expedients and intimidating instruments-now cringing on his prey, and fawning on his vengeance-now quickening the limping pace of craft,

and forcing every stand that retiring nature can make in the heartthe attachments and decorums of life-each emotion of tenderness and honour, and all the distinctions of national characteristics, with a long catalogue of crimes and aggravations, beyond the reach of thought for human malignity to perpetrate, or human vengeance to punishlower than perdition, blacker than despair!'" (Vol. i. p. 348.)

The following may be taken also as a very characteristic instance of Mr. Sheridan's raised manner.

"In conclusion,' observed Mr. Sheridan, although within this rank but infinitely too fruitful wilderness of iniquities, within this dismal and unhallowed labyrinth, it was most natural to cast an eye of indignation and concern over the wide and towering forests of enormities, all rising in the dusky magnificence of guilt, and to fix the dreadfully excited attention upon the huge trunks of revenge, rapine, tyranny, and oppression;-yet it became not less necessary to trace out the poisonous weeds, the baleful brushwood, and all the little, creeping, deadly plants which were, in quantity and extent, if possible, more noxious. The whole range of this far spreading calamity was sown in the hot-bed of corruption, and had risen by rapid and mature growth, into every species of illegal and atrocious violence!' p. 276.)

(Vol. i.

Something of this display, this gaudiness, and this artifice, something too nearly approaching the meretricious in style, runs through the literary compositions of Mr. Sheridan. His productions for the closet and the theatre are full of traps to catch applause, an example of which is the famous speech in which Rolla addresses his countrymen on the prospect of an invasion; with respect to which Dr. Watkins observes, that "this animated harangue which was so highly seasonable and impressive on the stage, had been delivered long before by Mr. Sheridan himself in Westminster Hall, on the trial of Mr. Hastings, of which any one may be satisfied who will take the trouble to compare the play with the celebrated speech which he delivered upon that occasion." If this be so, which our haste prevents us from ascertaining, it affords also an example of the general propriety of Mr. Pitt's observations, above quoted, on the practice of Mr. Sheridan of hoarding his fine thoughts for use and effect as opportunities might occur. Dr. Watkins, who is certainly not prejudiced in favour of the subject of his narrative, relates some particulars respecting the manner in which Mr. Sheridan procured and brought out this piece, which reflects no credit upon the manager's candour and justice. But we really do think that such stories ought to be listened to with much more reluctance than our biographer seems to have felt. It is true he states the reports for and against Mr. Sheridan; but surmises calculated to blacken the memory of a man, whose numerous blemishes we cannot but deplore, but whose great and sometimes beneficial

share in the councils of the nation entitle him at least to the silence of posterity on all unproved attacks upon his honour, are not the proper materials for biography, nor a legitimate method of making up a book.

Dr. Watkins's criticisms on the literary performances of Mr. Sheridan are in general very just, and are indicative of a very moral mind in the writer. We particularly approve of his animadversions on the School for Scandal, and the Monody on Mr. Garrick. After all, however, candour cannot but admit that Mr. Sheridan's genius has well deserved the fame it has acquired. Whether the general tone and character of his moral conduct merited the distinction of having his pall borne by our metropolitan Bishop we will not decide. As a relation of his wife, and as the last being on earth with whom his immortal spirit held converse, it might be reasonable, edifying, and judicious; but we are sure that the interests of the souls which survive on earth the deaths of our great and illustrious countrymen, in arts, or arms, or councils, urgently require their merits to be duly appreciated, and the great conservative lines of moral distinction to be reverently and religiously regarded.

ART. XIV.-Outlines of Geology; being the Substance of a Course of Lectures delivered in the Theatre of the Royal Institution in the year 1816. By William Thomas Brande, Sec. R. S. F.R.S.E. F.G.S. Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and to the Apothecaries' Company, &c. 8vo. London, 1817., Murray.

THE term geology, as it is understood by the present cultivators of

it in Britain means the science which teaches the structure and constituents of the different rocky bodies of which the surface of our globe is composed, and the relative position of these rocks. Unfortunately, the word geology is of much older date than the science; having been applied to the successive rhapsodies from Burnet to Hutton and Playfair, which appeared in such numbers under the pompous titles of Theories of the Earth. These theories undertook no less a task than to explain how the earth was originally created, and by what means it was brought into its present state; or, rather how the authors of the theories would have created it, if they had been in the place of the Almighty. Dr. Hutton and Mr. Playfair went still further: they have been kind enough to inform us, not only by what means the earth has been brought into its present state, but how it is to be renovated from time to time, during the endless ages of eternity.