But where'er the winds blow, and where'er the waves flow,
We cheerily, merrily, sing as we go,

The wind and the wave for ever!

Alike we're ready to frolic or fight,

For pleasure no boys are more ready—
And we out with our guns if the foe come in sight,
Then "fire away, Lads, and stand steady!”
And spite of the number and force of the foe,
We pour in our shot, and we sing as we go,
The wave of Old England for ever!

When back returned we are safe on the shore,
Then smack go the lips of the lasses;

And the number of blessings this earth has in store
We count by the number of glasses-

Then sail off again, and where'er the winds blow,
We cheerily, merrily, sing as we go,

The wind and the wave for ever!

The last song had a prodigious somniferous effect upon the auditory: whereupon Mr. Samuel Rogers, feeling an internal movement of merriment, volunteered to sing the following delightful Latin ditty:

THE SHERIDAN FAMILY.

THE transmission of talent from generation to generation in the Sheridan family is really wonderful.* There was the Doctor, the friend of Swift, a joking,† smoking, drinking, jolly pedagogue, a Jacobite who lost his living for a jest; a maker of those whimsical verses and crotchets in which schoolmasters, and especially schoolmaster parsons, rejoice. It would require an essay of far more elaborate research, and more ample dimensions than we can at present afford, to discuss the causes of the universal bibacity of the tribe of pedagogues, (we never knew one who was not addicted to what Charles Lamb, in a rhyme, more riche than suffisante, calls

"Firking

The jolly ale firkin,”)

—and another essay, more learned, but less laborious, would be requisite to explain why the grinders of gerunds, the sweaters of supines, the long and short men ex officio, the discussors of aorists and paulo-post-futurums, of dialects, and dochmaics, should, as it were of necessity, when they write (which of course is but seldom), fall toward quibbles and clenches, macaronic verses, whimsical parodies, odd rhymes, mock poetry of all kinds; and that

*This article, professed to be a review of "The Undying One," one of the Hon. Mrs. Norton's earliest poems, published in the autumn of 1830.—M. See, among a thousand similar testimonia, that of Mary the cookmaid "Saunders the man says you are always jesting and mocking; Mary, said he (one day as I was mending my master's stocking,) My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school

I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool," &c.

poetry, too, such as it is uniformly leaning toward personal satire. We pass by, therefore, such speculations, in order to give our adhesion to Lord Cork's character of the Dean's friend. He was a pleasant, good-humored, gross, funny droll, stimulated by Swift into literature: he played his part as commanded, and buffooned it up to the bent of the wayward and misanthropical mind that called him into the arena of squibbing.

This connexion with Swift seems to have given the literary bias to the family. A hundred years ago, the commentatorial spirit was very rife, and it was considered almost as good a thing to be acquainted with a great author, as to be one in propriâ persona. It is rather amusing to see how carefully gathered are all Swift's fugitive pieces for instance, and with what a display of zeal the Orrerys and others of "that class and order of argumentators," have written notes in usum Delphini, upon the casual pieces of ribaldry that fell from his hand. As Sheridan's name was connected with these poems of the dean, and as Swift had written an immensity of nonsense about him, the doctor became at once as one of the classics. Had he existed now, he must have been content with the fame arising from a once-a-year article (and that a queer one) in some odd magazine—such, for instance, as Fraser's.

When people

His son was a player, lecturer, spouter, &c. thought the affairs of the drama worth thinking about, Thomas Sheridan's merits were matter of as deep discussion, and as profitable as Sir Robert Peel's honesty, or Sir Robert Wilson's independence, are made now-a-days. We do not take as much interest in plays as our grandfathers, and occupy ourselves with a different class of mountebanks, whose personation of the parts they play is far clumsier than that of the heroes of the sock and buskin. Many a pleasant volume have we read-all histories of players by the way are pleasant-of the various "wars and battlings" of this Sheridan at Smock Alley and elsewhere-and many a stupid critique as to the comparative merits of his Hamlet, or something else, with those of other performers. Pleasant are the memoirs, and stupid the critiques, on one and the same principle, which is that the actual truth to life makes their memoirs pleasant, and its absence renders all criticism on acting stupid. Just think, for a

moment, of any body you please to mention - Kean-Young— Liston-Harley-O. Smith-Mathews - Grimaldi — Ducrow— Charles Kemble-Macready-Keely-Power--all clever people-think of any of them, we say, endeavoring to embody Hamlet the Dane. The idea, on reflection, must be given up as absurd, and the criticism thereupon consequent, ridiculous. The best and fairest character of Sheridan is Churchill's, in the Rosciad, and we copy it, because Churchill could write verse, and, therefore, what he says is worth reading. Yet it is hardly remembered at present: such is the fate of temporary poetry. flashed," as Lord Byron says, "the idol of a moment."

"Next follows Sheridan -a doubtful name,

As yet unsettled in the ranks of fame.
This, fondly lavish in his praises grown,
Gives him all merit this allows him none.
Between them both, we'll steer the middle course,
Nor, loving praise, rob judgment of her force.
Just his conceptions, natural and great:
His feelings strong, his words enforced with weight,
Was sheep-faced Quin himself to hear him speak,
Envy would drive the color from his cheek:
But step-dame Nature, niggard of her grace,
Denied the social powers of voice and face;
Fixed in one frame of features, glare of eye,
Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie:
In vain the wonders of his skill are tried
To form destruction Nature hath denied.
His voice no touch of harmony admits,
Irregularly deep and shrill by fits:

The two extremes appear like man and wife,
Coupled together for the sake of strife.

His actions always strong, but sometimes such
That candor must declare he acts too much.
Why must impatience fall three paces back?
Why paces three return to the attack?
Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir,

Unless in motion semicircular?

Why must the hero with the nailer vie,

And hurl the close clenched fist on nose or eye?

In royal John with Philip angry grown,

I thought he would have knocked poor Davies down.
Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame

To fight a king so harmless and so tame?

"He

But, spite of all defects, his glories rise;
And art, by judgment formed, with nature vies.
Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's soul,
Whilst in his own contending passions roll.

View the whole scene with critic judgment scan,
And then deny his merit if you can.

Where he fails short, 't is Nature's fault alone;

When he succeeds the merit's all his own."

Poor Sheridan was a bankrupt in every thing. His theatre failed his elocution lectures did not succeed—he begged assiduously, but not with any great happiness of mendicancy. And yet his industry deserved a better fate. It is easy to find fault with his pronouncing dictionary-to laugh at such directions as order you to pronounce "bayonet," "bagnet," or "merchant," "marchant," or "suicide," "shooiside," or "pronunciation," "pronunshashun," or "tutelage," "tschootilidzh," &c. &c.; but still, making every allowance and deduction, he may claim the fair merit of having laid the foundation of such a work for the English language, in which his followers, Walker and others, who, with the usual gratitude of pilferers, revile those whom they rob, have done little more than make some mechanical improvements, or petty alterations in compliance with the fluctuations, of fashionable speech. These fluctuations, never very important, have been rendered of still less moment, by the fixity given by such a publication as Sheridan's dictionary.

His wife wrote various pamphlets in defence of her husband in his thousand and one squabbles-for he was always an ill-used gentleman; and committed, we believe, some pieces for the stage. She certainly wrote Sydney Biddulph and Nourjahad. The former of these novels, if we ever have read it, (a point that is dubious,) we altogether forget. The latter is a pleasant trifle enough, pilfered, we apprehend, from the French. The spes gregis of this couple-HAIL! RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN! His history is sufficiently before the world, but a life of him is still to be written. As for Moore's work, to use the pun of old George IV., he basely attempted the life of his friend. What the spiteful little poet designed in that book, was to depreciate and insult the memory of Sheridan. In the elaborate and tawdry style in which he writes, he hints away every merit poor old