listening to him for a short time, I suddenly heard a roar of laughter
from all present, for I had actually unconsciously _answered him_,
'Yes,' 'No,' 'Exactly so,' and 'I quite agree with you!'

Undoubtedly much of Sheridan's depravity must be attributed to his
intimacy with a man whom it was a great honour to a youngster then to
know, but who would probably be scouted even from a London club in the
present day--the Prince of Wales. The part of a courtier is always
degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour
was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to
truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new
pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an
office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator
renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings! What a life
for the young poet who had wooed and won the Maid of Bath--for the man
of strong domestic affections, who wept over his father's sternness, and
loved his son only too well! It was bad enough for such mere worldlings
as Captain Hanger or Beau Brummell, but for a man of higher and purer
feelings, like Sheridan, who, with all his faults, had some poetry in
his soul, such a career was doubly disgraceful.

It was at the house of the beautiful, lively, and adventurous Duchess of
Devonshire, the partizan of Charles James Fox, who loved him or his
cause--for Fox and Liberalism were often one in ladies' eyes--so well,
that she could give Steele, the butcher, a kiss for his vote, that
Sheridan first met the prince--then a boy in years, but already more
than an adult in vice. No doubt the youth whom Fox, Brummell, Hanger,
Lord Surrey, Sheridan, the tailors and the women, combined to turn at
once into the finest gentleman and greatest blackguard in Europe, was at
that time as fascinating in appearance and manner as any one, prince or