The agitation and want of repose, which Mrs. Sheridan here complains of,
arose not only from the anxiety which she so deeply felt, for the success
of this great public effort of her husband, but from the share which she
herself had taken, in the labor and attention necessary to prepare him
for it. The mind of Sheridan being, from the circumstances of his
education and life, but scantily informed upon all subjects for which
reading is necessary, required, of course, considerable training and
feeding, before it could venture to grapple with any new or important
task. He has been known to say frankly to his political friends, when
invited to take part in some question that depended upon authorities,
"You know I'm an ignoramus--but here I am--instruct me and I'll do my
best." It is said that the stock of numerical lore, upon which he
ventured to set up as the Aristarchus of Mr. Pitt's financial plans, was
the result of three weeks' hard study of arithmetic, to which he doomed
himself, in the early part of his Parliamentary career, on the chance of
being appointed, some time or other, Chancellor of the Exchequer. For
financial display it must be owned that this was rather a crude
preparation. But there are other subjects of oratory, on which the
outpourings of information, newly acquired, may have a freshness and
vivacity which it would be vain to expect, in the communication of
knowledge that has lain long in the mind, and lost in circumstantial
spirit what it has gained in general mellowness. They, indeed, who have
been regularly disciplined in learning, may be not only too familiar with
what they know to communicate it with much liveliness to others, but too
apt also to rely upon the resources of the memory, and upon those cold
outlines which it retains of knowledge whose details are faded. The
natural consequence of all this is that persons, the best furnished with
general information, are often the most vague and unimpressive on
particular subjects; while, on the contrary, an uninstructed man of
genius, like Sheridan, who approaches a topic of importance for the first