possession of her imagination; and to this the following lines, written
at that time by Mr. Sheridan, allude:

TO THE RECORDING ANGEL.

Cherub of Heaven, that from my secret stand
Dost note the follies of each mortal here,
Oh, if Eliza's steps employ thy hand,
Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear.
Nor when she errs, through passion's wild extreme,
Mark then her course, nor heed each trifling wrong;
Nor, when her sad attachment is her theme,
Note down the transports of her erring tongue.
But, when she sighs for sorrows not her own,
Let that dear sigh to Mercy's cause be given;
And bear that tear to her Creator's throne,
Which glistens in the eye upraised to Heaven!

But in love, as in everything else, the power of a mind like Sheridan's
must have made itself felt through all obstacles and difficulties. He
was not long in winning the entire affections of the young "Syren,"
though the number and wealth of his rivals, the ambitious views of her
father, and the temptations to which she herself was hourly exposed,
kept his jealousies and fears perpetually on the watch. He is supposed,
indeed, to have been indebted to self-observation for that portrait of a
wayward and morbidly sensitive lover, which he has drawn so strikingly
in the character of Falkland.

With a mind in this state of feverish wakefulness, it is remarkable that
he should so long have succeeded in concealing his attachment from the