Shall wait in silence for a voice like thine!

But to the honor of her sex, which is, in general, more disinterested
than the other, it was found that neither rank nor wealth had influenced
her heart in its election; and Halhed, who, like others, had estimated
the strength of his rivals by their rent-rolls, discovered at last that
his unpretending friend, Sheridan, (whose advances in courtship and in
knowledge seem to have been equally noiseless and triumphant,) was the
chosen favorite of her, at whose feet so many fortunes lay. Like that
Saint, Cecilia, by whose name she was always called, she had long
welcomed to her soul a secret visitant, [Footnote: "The youth, found in
her chamber, had in his hand two crowns or wreaths, the one of lilies,
the other of roses, which he had brought from Paradise."--_Legend of
St. Cecilia_.] whose gifts were of a higher and more radiant kind
than the mere wealthy and lordly of this world can proffer. A letter,
written by Halhed on the prospect of his departure for India, [Footnote:
The letter is evidently in answer to one which he had just received from
Sheridan, in which Miss Linley had written a few words expressive of her
wishes for his health and happiness. Mr. Halhed sailed for India about
the latter end of this year.] alludes so delicately to this discovery,
and describes the state of his own heart so mournfully, that I must
again, in parting with him and his correspondence, express the strong
regret that I feel at not being able to indulge the reader with a
perusal of these letters. Not only as a record of the first short
flights of Sheridan's genius, but as a picture, from the life, of the
various feelings of youth, its desires and fears, its feverish hopes and
fanciful melancholy, they could not have failed to be read with the
deepest interest.

To this period of Mr. Sheridan's life we are indebted for most of those