mentioned because the amount drunk is accurately given by the unhappy
owner of the wine, Kelly, the composer, who, unfortunately, or
fortunately, was not present, and did not even imagine that the three
honourable gentlemen were discussing his little store. Yet Sheridan does
not seem to have believed much in his friend's vintages, for he advised
him to alter his brass plate to 'Michael Kelly, Composer of Wine and
Importer of Music.' He made a better joke, when, dining with Lord
Thurlow, he tried in vain to induce him to produce a second bottle of
some extremely choice Constantia from the Cape of Good Hope. 'Ah,' he
muttered to his neighbour, 'pass me that decanter, if you please, for I
must return to Madeira, as I see I cannot _double the Cape_'

But as long as Richard Brinsley was a leader of political and
fashionable circles, as long as he had a position to keep up, an
ambition to satisfy, a labour to complete, his drinking was, if not
moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates. But when a
man's ambition is limited to mere success--when fame and a flash for
himself are all he cares for, and there is no truer, grander motive for
his sustaining the position he has climbed to--when, in short, it is his
own glory, not mankind's good, he has ever striven for--woe, woe, woe
when the hour of success is come! I cannot stop to name and examine
instances, but let me be allowed to refer to that bugbear who is called
up whenever greatness of any kind has to be illustrated--Napoleon the
Great; or let me take any of the lesser Napoleons in lesser grades in
any nation, any age--the men who have had no star but self and
self-glory before them--and let me ask if any one can be named who, if
he has survived the attainment of his ambition, has not gone down the
other side of the hill somewhat faster than he came up it? Then let me
select men whose guiding-star has been the good of their
fellow-creatures, or the glory of God, and watch their peaceful useful