ROGUE OR FOOL?

NE day Sheridan met two royal dukes in St. James's street, and the younger flippantly remarked,

"I say, Sherry, we have just been discussing whether you are a greater fool or rogue. What is your opinion, old boy?"

Sheridan bowed, smiled, and as he took each of them by the arm replied, "Why, faith, I believe I am between both."

SHERIDAN AND HIS SON.

"The two Sheridans," says Kelly, "were supping with me one night after the opera, at a period when Tom expected to get into Parliament.

"I think, father,' said he, 'that many men who are called great patriots in the House of Commons are great humbugs. For my own part, if I get into Parliament, I will pledge myself to no party, but write upon my forehead in legible characters, "To be let." "And under that, Tom,' said his father, 'write, "Unfurnished."""

Tom took the joke, but was even with him

on another occasion.

Mr. Sheridan had a cottage about half a mile from Hounslow Heath. Tom, being very short of cash, asked his father to let him have some.

"Money I have none," was the reply.

"Be the consequence what it may, money I must have," said Tom.

"If that be the case, my dear Tom," said the affectionate parent, "you will find a case of loaded pistols up stairs, and a horse ready saddled in the stable. The night is dark, and you are within half a mile of Hounslow Heath."

"I understand what you mean," said Tom, "but I tried that last night. I unluckily stopped Peake, your treasurer, who told me that told me that you had been beforehand with him, and had robbed him of every sixpence he had in the world."

SHERIDAN'S COOLNESS.

Hayden, the painter, says that once, when Sheridan was dining at Somerset House and they were all in fine feather, the servant rushed in, exclaiming,

"Sir, the house is on fire!"

"Bring another bottle of claret," said Sheridan; "it is not my house."

WHO WILL TAKE THE CHAIR?

Once, being on a Parliamentary committee, he arrived when all the members were assembled and scated and about to commence business. He looked round in vain for a seat, and then, with a bow and a quaint twinkle in his eyes, said,

"Will any gentleman move, that I might take the chair?"

SHERIDAN AND CUMBERLAND. Cumberland's children induced their father to take them to see "The School for Scandal."

at what was going on on the stage he pinched them and said,

"What are you laughing at, my dear little folks? You should not laugh, my angels; there is nothing to laugh at;" and then, in an undertone, "Keep still, you little dunces!"

Sheridan, having been told this, said,

"It was very ungrateful in Cumberland to have been displeased with his poor children for laughing at my comedy, for I went the other night to see his tragedy, and laughed at it from beginning to end."

my word to the fact that once, if not twice, but once most assuredly, I did meet him in the company of gentlemen."

OPERATIONS.

During his last illness the medical attendants, apprehending that they would be obliged to perform an operation on him, asked him "if he had ever undergone one."

"Never," replied Sheridan, “except when sitting for my picture or having my hair

cut."

SHERIDAN'S OPINION OF THE PRESS.

He dreaded the newspapers, and always courted their favor. He used often to say,

"Let me but have the periodical press on my side, and there should be nothing in this country which I would not accomplish."

MRS. SIDDONS.

Mr. Rogers once said to him,

"Your admiration of Mrs. Siddons is so high that I wonder you never made open love to her."

"To her!" said Sheridan; "to that magnificent and appalling creature? I should as soon think of making love to the archbishop of Canterbury."

SHERIDAN'S HOAX ON THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS.

Lord Belgrave (afterward the earl of Grosvenor) having clenched a speech in the House with a long Greek quotation, Sheridan in reply admitted the force of the quotation so far as it went; "but," said he, “had the noble lord proceeded a little farther and completed the passage, he would have seen that it ap

plied the other way." Sheridan then spouted something ore rotundo which had all the ais, ois, ous, kon and kos that give the wonted assurance of a Greek quotation; upon which Lord Belgrave very promptly and handsomely complimented the honorable member on his readiness of recollection, and frankly admitted that the continuation of the passage had the tendency ascribed to it by Mr. Sheridan, and that he had overlooked it when he gave the quotation. On the breaking up of the House, Fox, who piqued himself on having some Greek, went up to Sheridan and asked him,

Sheridan, how came you so ready with that passage? It is certainly as you say, but I was not aware of it before you quoted it." It is unnecessary to say that there is no Greek at all in Sheridan's impromptu.

SHERIDAN AND HIS WILL.

Sheridan wished his son to marry a young lady of large fortune who was enamored of him, but knew that Miss Callander had won his heart. One day, when talking on the subject, Sheridan grew warm, and, expatiating on the folly of his son, exclaimed,

"Tom, if you marry Caroline Callander, I'll cut you off with a shilling."

Tom could not resist the opportunity of replying, and, looking archly at his father, said, "Then, sir, you must borrow it." Sheridan was tickled at the wit, and dropped the subject. The future proved how correctly Tom had judged.

AMBITION AND AVARICE.

Being asked, "Why do we honor ambition and despise avarice, while they are both but the desire of possessing?" "Because," said Sheridan, "the one is natural, the other arti

ficial; the one the sign of mental health, the other of mental decay; the one appetite, the other disease."

MR. PITT'S SINKING-FUND.

Though, from the prosperous state of the revenue at the time of the institution of this fund, the absurdity was not yet committed of borrowing money to maintain it, we may perceive by the following acute pleasantry of Mr. Sheridan (who denied the existence of the alleged surplus of income) that he already had a keen insight into the fallacy of the plan of redemption afterward followed.

"At present," he said, "it was clear there was no surplus, and the only means which suggested themselves to him were a loan of a million for the special purpose, for the Right Hon. gentleman might say, with the person in the comedy, 'If you won't lend me the money, how can I pay you?'"'

HIS ANSWER TO A CREDITOR.

He jocularly remarked one day to a creditor who demanded instant payment of a longstanding debt, with interest, "My dear sir, you know it is not my interest to pay the principal, nor is it my principle to pay the

interest.'

KELLY'S IRISH ACCENT.

Kelly, having to perform an Irish character, got Johnson to coach him up in the brogue, but with so little success that Sheridan said, on entering the green-room at the conclusion of the piece,

"Bravo, Kelly! I never heard you speak such good English in all my life."

SHERIDAN AND RICHARDSON. Richardson was remarkable for his love of disputation, and Tickell, when hard pressed

This disputatious humor of Richardson was once turned to account by Sheridan in a very characteristic manner. Having had a hackney-coach in employ for five or six hours, and not being provided with the means of paying for it, he happened to espy Richardson in the street, and proposed to take him in the coach some part of his way. The offer being acThe offer being accepted, Sheridan lost no time in starting a subject of conversation on which he knew his companion was sure to become argumentative and animated. Having by well-managed contradiction brought him to the proper pitch of excitement, he affected to grow impatient and angry himself, and, saying that "he could not think of staying in the same coach with a person that would use such language," pulled the check-string and desired the coachman to let him out. Richardson, wholly occupied with the argument, and regarding the retreat of his opponent as an acknowledgment of defeat, still pressed his point, and even hallooed "more last words" through the coach window after Sheridan, who, walking quietly home, left the poor disputant responsible for the heavy fare of the coach.

HIS IMPROVIDENCE.

His improvidence in everything connected with money was most remarkable. He would frequently be obliged to stop on his journey for want of the means of getting on, and to remain living expensively at an inn till a re

treasurer of the theatre on these occasions were generally headed with the words "Moneybound." A friend of his said that one morning, while waiting for him in his study, he cast his eyes over the heap of unopened letters that lay upon the table, and, seeing one or two with coronets on the seals, said to Mr. Westley, the treasurer, who was present,

I see we are all treated alike.”

Mr. Westley then informed him that he had once found, on looking over his table, a letter which he had himself sent, a few weeks before, to Mr. Sheridan, enclosing a ten-pound note to release him from some inn, but which Sheridan, having raised the supplies in some other way, had never thought of opening. The prudent treasurer took away the letter and reserved the enclosure for some future exigence.

Among instances of his inattention to letters, the following is mentioned: Going one day to the banking-house where he was accustomed to be paid his salary as receiver of Cornwall, and where they sometimes accommodated him with small sums before the regular time of payment, he asked, with all due humility, whether they could oblige him with the loan of twenty pounds.

"Certainly, sir," said the clerk. “Would you like any more-fifty or a hundred?"

Sheridan, all smiles and gratitude, answered that a hundred pounds would be of the greatest convenience to him.

"Perhaps you would like to take two hundred, or three?" said the clerk.

At every increase of the sum the surprise of the borrower increased.

"Have not you, then, received our let

ter?" said the clerk; on which it turned out that, in consequence of the falling in of some fine, a sum of twelve hundred pounds had been lately placed to the credit of the receiver-general, and that, from not having opened the letter written to apprise him, he had been left in ignorance of his good luck.

A DAY'S ADVENTURES.

Sheridan told the following stories of a day's adventures, the incidents of one being favorable to him, while those of the other are somewhat against him.

Having received an invitation to spend a day in shooting on a friend's estate, he repaired thither, but during the day strayed off upon the domain of a neighbor. The owner of the latter, coming along in company with his gamekeeper, arrested him for poaching; but, upon learning how the matter stood and who was the culprit, made the amende honorable, adding apologetically,

pointing to the ducks. "I am to get all I kill.”

"What kind of a shot are you?" inquired the farmer.

"Oh, fairish," replied Sheridan.

The farmer demanded a sovereign, but Sheridan would not consent to give more than a half sovereign, which the man pocketed.

Sheridan raised his double-barrelled fowling-piece and fired, bringing down some eight or ten of the denizens of the pond. While preparing to collect the spoils he turned to

the farmer:

"Ah, old fellow! you did not calculate I could bring down so many?"

"Oh," replied Rusticus, coolly, "I don't care: they are none of mine."

Sheridan left without debating the point or stopping to fill his bag, lest the real owner should come along and demand the full value of his slaughtered treasures.

F. STAINFORTH.

LOVE.

I DISDAIN

The day's sport produced but little game, and toward evening he wended his homeward way, much dispirited, with an almost empty bag. Passing a barnyard, he saw a large number of ducks swimming on a pond, and resolved to fill his bag with tame fowl in the absence of nobler game; so, addressing a farmer who was resting against the barn door, he inquired,

"What will you take for a shot at them?"

noise

Of kings and courts from us whose gentle souls

Our kinder stars have steered another way.
Fly to the arbors, grots and flowery meads
And in soft murmurs interchange our souls,
Together drink the crystal of the stream
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn
yields,

And when the golden evening calls us home
Wing to our downy nest and sleep till morn.

NATHANIEL LEE.