writing and in speaking, forms the characteristic distinction of this
school.

The Speech of Mr. Sheridan in Westminster Hall, though so much inferior
in the opinion of Mr. Fox and others, to that which he had delivered on
the same subject in the House of Commons, seems to have produced, at the
time, even a more lively and general sensation;--possibly from the nature
and numerousness of the assembly before which it was spoken, and which
counted among its multitude a number of that sex, whose lips are in
general found to be the most rapid conductors of fame.

But there was _one_ of this sex, more immediately interested in his
glory, who seems to have felt it as women alone can feel. "I have delayed
writing," says Mrs. Sheridan, in a letter to her sister-in-law, dated
four days after the termination of the Speech, "till I could gratify
myself and you by sending you the news of our dear Dick's triumph!--of
_our_ triumph I may call it; for surely, no one, in the slightest
degree connected with him, but must feel proud and happy. It is
impossible, my dear woman, to convey to you the delight, the
astonishment, the adoration, he has excited in the breasts of every class
of people! Every party-prejudice has been overcome by a display of
genius, eloquence and goodness, which no one with any thing like a heart
about them, could have listened to without being the wiser and the better
for the rest of their lives. What must _my_ feelings be!--you can
only imagine. To tell you the truth, it is with some difficulty that I
can 'let down my mind,' as Mr. Burke said afterwards, to talk or think on
any other subject. But pleasure, too exquisite, becomes pain, and I am at
this moment suffering for the delightful anxieties of last week."

It is a most happy combination when the wife of a man of genius unites