r field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous _Three!_[102]
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your Master--emulate him _here_!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence![103]
He was your brother--bear his ashes hence!
While Powers of mind almost of boundless range,[104]
Complete in kind, as various in their change, 110
While Eloquence--Wit--Poesy--and Mirth,
That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth,
Survive within our souls--while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness--long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die--in moulding Sheridan![105]

FOOTNOTES:

[98] {71}[Compare--

"As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun."

_Churchill's Grave,_ line 26, _vide ante,_ p. 48.]

[99] {72}[Sheridan's first speech on behalf of the Begum of Oude was
delivered February 7, 1787. After having spoken for five hours and forty
minutes he sat down, "not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud
clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in
the Gallery joined" (_Critical ... Essays,_ by T. B. Macaulay, 1843, iii.
443). So great was the excitement that Pitt moved the adjournment of the
House. The next year, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he took part
in the debates on June 3,6,10,13, 1788. "The conduct of the part of the
case relating to the Princesses of Oude was intrusted to Sheridan. The
curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded.... It was said that
fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he
concluded, contrived ... to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of
Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration"
(_ibid.,_iii 451, 452).]

[100] [_The Rivals, The Scheming Lieutenant_, and _The Duenna_ were
played for the first time at Covent Garden, January 17, May 2, and
November 21, 1775. _A Trip to Scarborough_ and the _School for Scandal_
were brought out at Drury Lane, February 24 and May 8, 1777; the
_Critic_, October 29, 1779; and _Pizarro_, May 24, 1799.]

[101] {73}[Only a few days before his death, Sheridan wrote thus to
Rogers: "I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to
put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and _take
me_.