December 17th, 18th, 1813
Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other
hommes marquans
, and mine was this:—"Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been,
par excellence
, always the
best
of its kind. He has written the
best
comedy (
School for Scandal
), the
best
drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the
Beggar's Opera
), the best farce (the
Critic
—it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country." Somebody told S. this the next day, and on hearing it he burst into tears!
Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words than have written the Iliad or made his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to "my elders and my betters."
Went to my box at Covent Garden to-night; and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing S——'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her mother, "a three-piled b——d, b——d Major to the army," in a private box opposite. I
felt
rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young Babylonians of quality;—so I burst out a laughing. It was really odd; Lady ——
divorced
—Lady —— and her daughter, Lady ——, both
divorceable
—Mrs. ——, in the next the
like
, and still nearer ———!
What an assemblage to
me
, who know all their histories. It was as if the house had been divided between your public and your
understood
courtesans;—but the intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. On the other side were only Pauline and
her
mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between
her
and
mamma
, and Lady —— and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton and any
other house
, and the two first are limited to the opera and b—— house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is!—and myself, after all, the worst of any. But no matter—I must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity.
I
have
lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called "
The Devil's Drive
" the notion of which I took from Person's "
Devil's Walk
."
Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets on ——. I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise—and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so much, that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could.
Footnote 1:
"These names are all left blank in the original" (Moore).
Footnote 2:
Richard Person did not write
The Devil's Walk
, which was written by Coleridge and Southey, and published in the
Morning Post
for September 6, 1799, under the title of
The Devil's Thoughts
.
