for that purpose, accompanied by his younger daughter. But the rapid
increase of his malady prevented him from proceeding farther than
Margate, where he died about the beginning of August, attended in his
last moments by his son Richard.

We have seen with what harshness, to use no stronger term, Mr. Sheridan
was for many years treated by his father, and how persevering and
affectionate were the efforts, in spite of many capricious repulses, that
he made to be restored to forgiveness and favor. In his happiest moments,
both of love and fame, the thought of being excluded from the paternal
roof came across him with a chill that seemed to sadden all his triumph.
[Footnote: See the letter written by him immediately after his marriage,
vol. i. page 80, and the anecdote in page 111, same vol.] When it is
considered, too, that the father, to whom he felt thus amiably, had never
distinguished him by any particular kindness but, on the contrary, had
always shown a marked preference for the disposition and abilities of his
brother Charles--it is impossible not to acknowledge, in such true filial
affection, a proof that talent was not the only ornament of Sheridan, and
that, however unfavorable to moral culture was the life that he led,
Nature, in forming his mind, had implanted there virtue, as well as
genius.

Of the tender attention which he paid to his father on his death-bed, I
am enabled to lay before the reader no less a testimony than the letters
written at the time by Miss Sheridan, who, as I have already said,
accompanied the old gentleman from Ireland, and now shared with her
brother the task of comforting his last moments. And here,--it is
difficult even for contempt to keep down the indignation, that one cannot
but feel at those slanderers, under the name of biographers, who calling
in malice to the aid of their ignorance, have not scrupled to assert that