Closely connected with the pursuits of the statesman are those of the Orator. To shine in the senate, to dazzle by brilliant talent, and to sway contending parties by commanding intellect constitute his happiness. When directed to right ends and influenced by right principles, the career of the orator is not to be condemned. His office is to denounce vice and to shield virtue; and, like one who used this talent for Christian purposes—the eminent Wilberforce—to aid by eloquence the cause of evangelical truth. As an illustration, however, of its inability, when unsanctified, to produce happiness, we proceed, omitting minor examples, to sketch the career of RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, or The Orator.
This remarkable man was early distinguished for mental ability. To use the language of the poet
“His mind was an essence, compounded with art
From the finest and best of all other men's powers:
He ruled like a wizard the world of the heart,
And could call up its sunshine or draw down its showers.”
Like some other men of genius, he was averse to application and has been well described as having through life acted upon two rules: "Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow;" and "Never do yourself what you can get another person to do for you." His early career of frivolity and gaiety might of itself have pointed a moral; but it is with his career as an orator that we have now to do. Although sprung from the middle ranks and possessed only of slender means, he was enabled ere long to obtain a seat in Parliament. Shortly after gaining this distinction, the memorable trial of Warren Hastings for malversation in his office as governor-general of India took place. It was an occasion which called forth the eloquence of Burke and which developed the highest powers of the eminent statesmen who adorned that period of English history. Westminster Hall was the scene of the trial, and that place at the early stages of the proceedings was crowded with all that was great and intellectual in the land. "The whole scene," says Sheridan's biographer, "was one of those pageants in the drama of life which show us what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue." On this grand arena for intellectual display Sheridan shone conspicuous above all competitors. A speech which he delivered drew forth the following acknowledgment from one who listened to it: "All the various species of oratory, every kind of eloquence that had been heard, either in ancient or modern times, whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit could furnish, had not been equal to what the House had that day heard in Westminster Hall. From poetry up to eloquence there was not a specimen of composition of which some variety might not have been culled from that speech.”
Wonderful, however, as this oratorical effort was, it fell short in its results of another, which in the course of the same cause Sheridan made on the floor of the House of Commons. Not only did his speech draw forth the applause of all parties in that house, but it seemed to have entranced them and bound them with a magician's spell; for they were compelled to adjourn their deliberations to another day until the excitement produced by it had disappeared. When Sheridan sat down, Mr. Burke rose and said it was the most astonishing effort of eloquence, wit and argument united, which he had ever heard. Mr. Fox stated that all that he too had ever heard or read when compared with it dwindled into nothing and vanished like vapor before the sun. Mr. Pitt acknowledged that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate and control the human mind. Sir William Dolben immediately moved an adjournment of the House, confessing that in the state of mind in which Mr. Sheridan's speech had left him, it was impossible to give any determinate opinion. Nothing but a miracle he thought could have determined him to vote against Mr. Hastings, but he had just felt the operation of such a miracle.
Sheridan's fame as an orator was now the great topic of public conversation. "What my feelings are," wrote his brother, "you may imagine. It is with some difficulty that I can let down my mind to think of anything else but your speech." His father, as he walked the streets, was gratified by persons turning round and pointing to him as the parent of the great orator. Sheridan now stood on the pinnacle of his glory. He was the favorite of his political party, the intimate companion of his prince and of the highest nobility. He had gained the most flattering distinctions. But his talents were unsanctified, and he was destined to feel, by bitter experience, that the objects which he had so keenly pursued were deceptive as the mirage.
Un-sustained by Christian principle, he plunged into pleasures and expenses which left him a ruined man. Old age came upon him and found him impoverished and deserted by his friends. "His distresses," says his biographer, "increased every day. He was driven to part with what he most valued. His books, presented to him by various friends, now stood in their splendid bindings on the shelves of the pawnbrokers. The handsome cup given him by the electors of Stafford shared the same fate; and the portrait of his first wife, if not actually sold, vanished away from his eyes into other hands." One of the most humiliating trials was, however, yet to follow. He was arrested for debt and carried to a sponging-house. This abode formed a sad contrast to the princely halls of which he had before been the most brilliant and favored guest. The unhappy man burst into a flood of tears. He was released, but only to be exposed again to similar trials. "Oh, let me see you," he wrote, on another occasion of the same kind, to a friend; "I find things so settled that £.150 would remove every difficulty.... I am absolutely undone and brokenhearted!" Misfortunes crowded round his dying bed, and his last moments were haunted by fear of a prison. Forsaken by his merry associates, dispirited and world-weary, he closed his eyes in gloom and sorrow.
No sooner was he dead, however, than many a titled and wealthy associate, who had failed to minister to his sickness, flocked to attend his funeral-conduct which drew forth the indignant, though too indiscriminating, remonstrance of his compatriot Moore:
“Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
And friendship so false in the great and high-born;
To think what a long line of titles may follow
The relics of him who died friendless and Torn:
How proud they can press to the funeral array
Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow;
How bailiffs may seize the last blanket today,
Whose pall shall be held up by nobles tomorrow.”
Such was the career of the orator. Fame, popularity and intellectual greatness had all been his; but, directed to the service of this world and animated by its spirit, they had proved to their possessor false as the mirage. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal" (1 Cor. 13:11Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1 Corinthians 13:1)).