Ana
When some one proposed to tax milestones, Sheridan protested that it would not be constitutional or fair, as they could not meet to remonstrate.
Lord Lauderdale having declared his intention to circulate some witticism of Sheridan’s, the latter hastily exclaimed, “Pray don’t, my dear Lauderdale; a joke in your mouth is no laughing matter!”
Lord Erskine on one occasion said that “a wife was only a tin canister tied to one’s tail.” Lady Erskine was justly annoyed at this remark, and Sheridan dashed off this impromptu:—
“Lord Erskine, at woman presuming to rail,
Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one’s tail;
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his lordship’s degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? Considered aright,
A canister’s polished and useful and bright;
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That’s the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.”
Sheridan met two sprigs of nobility one day in St. James’s Street, and one of them said to him, “I say, Sherry, we have just been discussing which you were, a knave or a fool. What is your opinion on the subject?” Sheridan took each of them by the arm, and replied, “Why, faith, I believe I am between the two.”
Of his parliamentary opponent, Mr. Dundas, he once said, “The honourable gentleman is indebted to his imagination for his facts, and to his memory for his jests.”
When he was found intoxicated in the gutter by a night-watchman and was asked his name, he replied, “Wilberforce,” meaning the eminent teetotal advocate.
Once at a parliamentary committee he found every seat occupied, and looking round, asked, “Will any gentleman move that I may take the chair?”
Michael Kelly, the singer and composer, kept a shop at the bottom of the Haymarket, where he sold wine and music. He asked Sheridan for a sign, and Sheridan gave him the following:—“Michael Kelly, composer of wine and importer of music.”
MY AMBITION.
Ease often visits shepherd-swains,
Nor in the lowly cot disdains
To take a bit of dinner;
But would not for a turtle-treat,
Sit with a miser or a cheat,
Or cankered party sinner.
Ease makes the sons of labour glad,
Ease travels with the merry lad
Who whistles by his waggon;
With me she prattles all day long,
And choruses my simple song,
And shares my foaming flagon.
The lamp of life is soon burnt out;
Then who’d for riches make a rout,
Except a doating blockhead?
When Charon takes ’em both aboard,
Of equal worth’s the miser’s hoard
And spendthrift’s empty pocket.
In such a scurvy world as this
We must not hope for perfect bliss,
And length of life together;
We have no moral liberty
At will to live, at will to die,
In fair or stormy weather.
Many, I see, have riches plenty—
Fine coaches, livery, servants twenty;—
Yet envy never pains me;
My appetite’s as good as theirs,
I sleep as sound, as free from fears;
I’ve only what maintains me!
And while the precious joys I prove
Of Tom’s true friendship—and the love
Of bonny black-ey’d Jenny,—
Ye gods! my wishes are confin’d
To—health of body, peace of mind,
Clean linen, and a guinea!
Edward Lysaght (1763–1810).