6

when Rudliche calmly replied, with the true phlegm of ignorance, My dear friend, I think your resolution in regard to your books a very prudent one; but I do not perfectly conceive your plan as to the profit; for, though your volumes may be very curious, yet you know they are most of them second-hand.' vexed with the fellow's stupidity that I had a great mind to punish him by not disclosing a syllable more. However, at last my vanity got the better of my resentment, and I explained to him the whole matter.

-

I was so

...

"In examining the beginning of the Spectators, etc. I find they are all written by a society. Now I profess to write all myself, though I acknowledge that, on account of a weakness in my eyes, I have got some under-strappers who are to write the poetry, etc. In order to find the different merits of these my subalterus, I stipulated with them that they should let me feed them as I would. This they consented to do, and it is surprising to think what different effects diet has on the writers. The same who, after having been fed two days upon artichokes, produced as pretty a copy of verses as ever I saw, on beef was as dull as ditch

"It is a characteristic of fools," says some one, "to be always beginning,"-and this is not the only point in which folly and genius resemble each other. So chillingly indeed do the difficulties of execution succeed to the first ardour of conception, that it is only wonderful there should exist so many finished monuments of genius, or that men of fancy should not oftener have contented

themselves with those first, vague sketches, in the production of which the chief luxury of intellectual creation lies. Among the many literary works shadowed out by Sheridan at this time, were a Collection of Occasional Poems, and a volume of Crazy Tales,-to the former of which Halhed suggests, that "the old things they did at Harrow out of Theocritus" might, with a little pruning, form a useful contribution. The loss of the volume of Crazy Tales is little to be regretted, as from its title we may conclude it was written in imitation of the clever, but licentious productions of John Hall Stephenson. If the same kind oblivion had closed over the levities of other young authors, who, in the season of folly and the passions, have made their pages the transcript of their lives, it would have been equally fortunate for themselves and the world.

But, whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the translation of Aristænetus, as I have already stated, was the only fruit of their literary alliance that ever arrived at sufficient maturity for publication. In November, 1770, Halhed had completed and forwarded to Bath his share of the work, and in the following month we find Sheridan preparing, with the assistance of a Greek grammar, to complete the task. "The 29th ult. (says Mr. Ker, in a letter to him from London, dated Dec. 4, 1770), I was favoured with yours, and have since been hunting

for Aristænetus, whom I found this day, and therefore send to you, together with a Greek grammar. I might have dispatched at the same time some numbers of the Dictionary, but not having got the two last numbers, was not willing to send any without the whole of what is pub lished, and still less willing to delay Aristænetus's journey by waiting for them." The work alluded to here is the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, to which Sheridan had subscribed, with the view, no doubt, of informing himself upon subjects of which he was as yet wholly ignorant; having left school, like most other young men at his age, as little furnished with the knowledge that is wanted in the world, as a person would be for the demands of a market, who went into it with nothing but a few ancient coins in his pocket.

The passion, however, that now began to take possession of his heart was little favourable to his advancement in any serious studies; and it may easily be imagined that, in the neighbourhood of Miss Linley, the Arts and Sciences were suffered to sleep quietly on their shelves. Even the translation of Aristænetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters that this impatient ally was already counting upon the spolia opima of the campaign, before Sheridan

fairly brought his Greek grammar into the

field. The great object of the former was a visit to Bath; and he had set his heart still more anxiously upon it after a second meeting with Miss Linley at Oxford. But the profits expected from their literary undertakings were the only means to which he looked for the realising of this dream; and he accordingly implores his friend, with the most comic piteousness, to drive the farce on the stage by main force, and to make Aristænetus sell whether he will or not. In the November of this year we find them discussing the propriety of prefixing their names to the work-Sheridan evidently not disinclined to venture, but Halhed recommending that they should wait to hear how "Sumner and the wise few of their acquaintance" would talk of the book, before they risked any thing more than their initials. In answer to Sheridan's enquiries as to the extent of sale they may expect in Oxford, he confesses that, after three coffee-houses had bought one a-piece, not two more would be sold.

That poverty is the best nurse of talent has long been a most humiliating truism; and the fountain of the Muses, bursting from a barren rock, is but too apt an emblem of the hard source from which much of the genius of this world has issued. How strongly the young translators of Aristænetus were under the influence of this sort of inspiration appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters, and might easily, indeed, be concluded of Sheridan

from the very limited circumstances of his father -who had nothing beside the pension of 200!. a-year, conferred upon him in consideration of his literary merits, and the little profits he derived from his lectures in Bath, to support with decency himself and his family. The prospects of Halhed were much more golden, but he was far too gay and mercurial to be prudent; and from the very scanty supplies which his father allowed him, had quite as little of "le superflu, chose si nécessaire," as his friend. But whatever were his other desires and pursuits, a visit to Bath,-to that place which contained the two persons he most valued in friendship and in love,—was the grand object of all his financial speculations; and among other ways and means that, in the delay of the expected resources from Aristænetus, presented themselves, was an exhibition of 20l. a-year, which the college had lately given him, and with five pounds of which he thought he might venture "adire Corinthum."

Though Sheridan had informed his friend that the translation was put to press some time in March, 1771, it does not appear to have been given into the hands of Wilkie, the publisher, till the beginning of May, when Mr. Ker writes thus to Bath :-" Your Aristænetus is in the hands of Mr. Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-yard, and to put you out of suspense at once, will certainly appearance about the 1st of June next,