_Sheridan_.


"In early life, Sheridan had been generally accounted handsome: he was
rather above the middle size, and well proportioned. He excelled in
several manly exercises: he was a proficient in horsemanship, and
danced with great elegance. His eyes were black, brilliant, and
always particularly expressive. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who painted his
portrait, is said to have affirmed, that their pupils were larger than
those of any human being he had ever met with. They retained their
beauty to the last; but the lower parts of his face exhibited, in his
latter years, the usual effects of intemperance. His arms were strong,
although by no means large; and his hands small and delicate. On a
cast of one of them, the following appropriate couplet is stated, by
Moore, to have been written:--

Good at a fight, but better at a play;
Godlike in giving; but the devil to pay!

"No man of his day possessed so much tact in appropriating and
adorning the wit of others. He pillaged his predecessors of their
ideas, with as much skill and effrontery as he did his contemporaries
of their money. It was his ambition to appear indolent; but he was, in
fact, particularly, though not regularly laborious. The most striking
parts of his best speeches were written and rewritten, on separate
slips of paper, and, in many cases, laid by for years, before they
were spoken. He not only elaborately polished his good ideas, but,
when they were finished, waited patiently, until an opportunity
occurred of uttering them with the best effect. Moore states, that