luctant guests, who desired to keep uninjured what little brains they had? and was not the principal boast of a gentleman how many bottles he could stand? Did not Lord Cockburn's Memoirs open to us a vista of toast-drinking and inebriety perfectly inconceivable to our modernized tastes, but which was the "fashionable life" of that "Tom and Jerry" day? Sheridan was drunk as his companions were drunk, and with his drunken companions with a drunken prince royal and the drunken ministers of the crown -but there can be little doubt that the more finely organized the brain, the more fatal the consequences of such swinish excitement.

He is accused of more than carelessness in money matters. Moore has admitted that, if those around him had been as true as himself, his debts could have been paid over and over again. No doubt Sheridan was improvident. Artists, writers, all these merchant speculators in brain-produce, are proverbially SO. Nothing makes a man so improvident as an uncertain income; rich today, and poor to-morrow, is the root of all carelessness and woe to that man's regularity in affairs who imagines he can gather gold at will, in an "El Dorado" of his own wits!

But there again, taking him with his contemporaries, the harder measure dealt to Sheridan seems inexplicable. Fox's debts were paid three times-who paid Sheridan's? The Prince of Wales had his El Dorado in a submissive nation, and a subservient Parliament. It seems always to be forgotten that, in the burning of the theatre, both the real and speculative portion of Sheridan's means were destroyed. Had that galleon of his wealth not gone down, these Shylock scribblers might never have claimed their right to such cutting censures. The loss of a resource on which his whole fortune was embarked-like the breaking of banks, and the mercantile dishonesty which has suddenly impoverished so many in our own day-makes it impossible to judge what would have been the result, if success, instead of ruin, had

The accusation of gambling I pass. It is simply the most shallow of falsehoods; for though to Fox and many of his companions cards were an overwhelming temptation, Sheridan was extremely averse to them.

I might also pass the slander which would attack alike his memory as a husband, and the memory of the beautiful St. Cecilia as a wife. A more affectionate husband than Sheridan never lived. All the flatteries of society failed to wean him from the early love he won with his blood, and at the death of his wife his grief was such as to alarm his nearest friends. At no time of her harmless and innocent career would that lovely wife have been able to find in his neglect what Grace and Philip Wharton seem to consider a sufficient and natural excuse for conjugal infidelity. While Fox lived with a mistress-whilst the Prince of Wales declared upon his "honour" to the Senate of England that the woman was a mere paramour with whom he had gone through the sacred ceremony of marriage-while many round him were very masters in the art of debauchery— Sheridan's dream of happiness was still "domestic life!" If, as is sneeringly stated, he did not sufficiently agree with Lockhart's lovely lines

"When youthful faith hath fled,
Of loving take thy leave;
Be faithful to the Dead,

The Dead can not deceive,”—

if he sought later in life to renew the vanished dream, and bring "a glory out of gloom," it is at least a proof that his notions of the glory or the gloom of love lay in the bounded circle of HOME; and perhaps no more touching praise can be bestowed on his first wife than this, that while she lived his faults were not known as they were afterwards.

In politics, his worst foes cannot say he was not consistent-to his hurt, to the loss of personal advantage-anxious, not to advance private rivalries but public reforms; eager, chiefly in all questions that affected the oppressed, the

His friendship for a bad and ungrateful prince was, at least, a real enthusiasm; and if Moore's scornful lines

"The heart whose hopes could make it

Trust one so false, so low, Deserves that thou shouldst break it,”apply to him, he shared the common martyrdom of those who pin their faith on that tempted and selfish class whom we have Scriptural warranty for distrusting, and who, in all ages and all countries, have rewarded fawning better than fair service.

The account of Sheridan's death-bed is as nearly fabulous as any narration can be; but it is the current "copied" account, and passes muster with the rest. And now, we may fairly ask, if such "biographies" be true, how came this man, so abused, so run down, whose faults were so prodigious, whose merits were nil, to occupy the position he did when living? There is a great deal of sneering at his being the " son of an actor :" one of the favourite fables is, that he would have been blackballed at his club -as the "son of an actor"-but for a stratagem of the Prince of Wales. We will suppose this to be a fact instead of a fiction-we will suppose that a set of frivolous dandies did oppose the entrance into their club of that man whose tomb was to be in Westminster Abbey-we will further suppose that acting is the most degrading pursuit any man can follow; that it does not, (as the uninitiated might imagine) require the education of a gentleman, an understanding mind, a passionate heart, the kindling warmth that fires at noble thoughts, grace of gesture, feeling for poetry, and, lastly, the tongue of the orator with the scholar's brain, fitly to succeed in such an art,—but that, on the contrary, any fool may be taught to mimic,

-as parrots are brought to copy the coaxing intonation of "Poor Polly," or Grace and Philip Wharton to imitate authors. We will suppose that to be the child of an actor is an ineffaceable stain. We will not open our Peerage to learn whether the actresses and daughters of actors there inscribed, have held their

places nobly and purely amongst our variously allied aristocracy; or whether their children are the recreant, the defaulting, the vicious, and the fugitive, of the races who boast proud names. We will take it for granted that Burns's great line-"a man's a man for a' that,"-stops short of the tabooed profession, and that actors are the Pariahs of civilized life. How did it happen, then, that a man labouring under such a disadvantage of birth, and also described as a common-place swindler, drunkard, and driveller, excelled in everything he attempted, and, from the obscure son of the Bath actor and schoolmaster, became minister of state and companion of princes? What dazzled fools does it make all his contemporaries, that they admitted him unquestioned to a superiority which is now denied to have existed! What an extraordinary anomaly does that famous funeral in Westminster Abbey present, amid a crowd of on-lookers so dense that they seemed "like a wall of human faces," if it was merely the carrying of a poor old tipsy gentleman to his grave by a group of foolish lords!

The God-given power is not so disposed of. Nor will even the dark thunder-clouds of faulty imprudence blot out the light which shines so clearly above and beyond. Unless Richard Brinsley Sheridan had been immeasurably superior to the majority of the men amongst whom he lived, he could not have so overleapt the barriers of poverty, want of connexion, and class jealousies, as to attain the celebrity and position he did attain. He was immeasurably superior. And, while nominally acquiescing in the sneers levelled at his origin, I beg to say that those sneers merely prove the ignorance of the writers who so assail him. If he was the son of an actor, he was the grandson of a bishop; and a bishop so conscientiously rigid in his religious opinions that all the worldly prospects of his family were blighted by the self-sacrificing fidelity with which those opinions were maintained. To the older biographic dictionaries of England I can refer these gossips

of light literature to learn that, with the exception of the Napiers, scarcely any family has produced so continuous a series of remarkable men as that to which Richard Brinsley Sheridan owed his descent. For five generations-each succeeding each in the inalienable heritage of intelligence the Sheridans are noted in the biography of their country; Richard Brinsley only becoming more known than others because his career was more in the eye of the world. Did these five generations of men-poor, uninfluential, and, till lately, only remotely connected 'with titled races-owe to their own natural superiority, or not, the public mention thus accorded them?

It will, perhaps, seem trivial to mix with remarks on these greater lives any deprecation of attacks on myself; but, in one of the three abusive works which called forth this letter, the author has not even had patience to wait for the death of those she would assail, but presents us with scenes and interviews with the living; which, if all resemble the one she professes to have shared with me, might take their place among the "imaginary conversations of Walter Savage Landor." I have no recollection whatever of the author, or of hearing the stories she professes to have told me.

I could of my own knowledge contradict and disprove many of the assertions she makes respecting other persons, and many of the cruel anecdotes told of them. And I know not whether to smile or sigh when, after mentioning sundry reports to my prejudice, and then describing how she found me different from those reports, and how I received her "with frank and simple courtesy" (a painful lesson not to receive such persons at all), she nevertheless persists in believing the account she had heard to be correct, and my dissimilarity from that account to be a mere temporary suspension of evil!

This is the secret of all such biographies. "I MISJUDGED" is not the language possible to these greedy censors of their fellow-creatures. Rather, their language would be,-"Give us back our

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"marble sculpture is too pale for us; we know not what it means; it does "not embody life to our eyes. Give us "back our gilt, grinning, waggle-headed "Joss, with flags and beating of drums; we know not him you would present "to us, the ideal god of the hushed " and shadowy temple of genius. Give us back (among the rest) our drunken, "swindling, drivelling SHERIDAN; we "will not consent to be contradicted, re"buked, and informed that the man we "have libelled as mean and monstrous in "all his actions, had common faults, like common men,-but, shooting beyond "them in many great and noble qualities, "and in a surpassing ability of brain, "left a name to be remembered, and a "history which, if fairly written, would, "in spite of his misfortunes, be as just a "source of pride to his descendants, as the

memory was to him of the usefully"occupied, intelligent, active-minded ge"nerations of men whom he happily "claimed as forefathers. We will not be "told this, even by those who belong “to him, and to whom both his faults "and his merits must be better known "than to strangers."

Such a history, nevertheless, ISheridan's grand-daughter-hope to supply. Not taken, like these poorly-concocted sketches, from sources whose "veracity" the authors have "never examined," but from sifted evidence and real matter. Not from repeated extracts copied out of one bookseller's preface into another; nor including such foolish forgeries as the "epistle from Miss Linley to a female friend," which is quoted by "Grace and Philip Wharton;" but from family papers and royal and other letters in the actual possession of the living representative of the Sheridans,-the present member for Dorchester, a portion of which papers were in the hands of Tom Moore, for extract and guidance, while working (so unwil lingly as it now appears) at the Life he undertook to execute.

I will conclude this protest in better words than my own; in words quoted from the remarks of that very old-fashioned

close of his "Fragmenta Regalia," or "Notices of the Lives and Characters of Queen Elizabeth's Courtiers." And I quote him for the benefit of those authors who impudently affirm of a dead servant of the State, that he merited a felon's destiny, and of the Publisher who has thought fit to give so discreditable a memoir to the world.

Sir Robert Naunton speaks thus: "I have delivered up my poor essay. "I cannot say I have finished it, "for I know how defective and im"perfect it is. I took it in con"sideration how easily I might have "dashed into it much of the staine of "pollution, and thereby have defaced "that little which is done; I professe I "have taken care to master my pen, "that I might not erre animo; or of set purpose discolour each or any of the parts thereof. . . that modesty in me "forbids the defacements in men de"parted; their posterity yet remaining;

66.

and I had rather incur the censure of abruption, than to be conscious "and taken in the manner, sinning by eruption, or trampling on the graves of persons at rest, which, living, we durst

"not looke in their face, nor make our "addresses unto them, otherwise than "with due regard to their honour, and "with reverence to their vertues."

So spake Sir Robert Naunton; writing of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: and I copy his true sentences as a rebuking lesson in this reign of Queen Victoria. The good old man has found his place among "the graves of persons at rest;" but his noble rules survive: warning those who attempt the biographies of their superiors in intellect and fame, not to dash into such histories the easy "stain of pollution;" to master their 66 pen, so as not to err animo, or of set purpose," to avoid the "defacement of men departed, their posterity yet remaining," and to beware how they trample on the graves of those whom living they never would have dared to address, save with courtesy and due obeisance. Wishing his words what weight they may obtain among minds so inferior to his own,

I am, dear Sir,
Yours obliged,

CAROLINE NORTON.

The

WHO does not love diamonds? Where is there a mind in which the bare mention of them does not excite a pleasant emotion? Is there any one of rank too exalted to care for such baubles? highest potentates of the earth esteem them as their choicest treasures, and kingdoms have been at war for their possession; while there is none so low or so poor as to be unable to find pleasure in the admiration of their splendour. Shall we turn to the domain of intellect, where surely the gewgaws of ornament should be lightly esteemed? The diamond offers to the philosopher one of the most recondite and subtle problems that have ever engaged the human

mind; while the merest tyro in science may find in it the most instructive topics of study. Shall we look at it in an artistic point of view? The diamond is one of the most beautiful things in nature. No painter, were he ten times a Turner, could do justice to its effulgence; no poet, were he ten times a Shakspeare, could put its lustre into words. Light was the first and fairest gift of heaven to man; the diamond is fairer than light itself; it is light, only seven times beautified and refined. For one half the human race diamonds are delirium-the true eyes of the basilisk: their power over the sex we dare not do more than hint at, and the

lives

As

woman who would profess herself indifferent to their fascination simply belies her feminine nature. One of the most extraordinary romances in the history of the world was all about a diamond necklace; and who would venture to number the true romances occurring every year of our in which diamonds take part? regards the less decorative sex, the diamond forms altogether an exception to the usual idea of the propriety of ornament. A man who bedizens himself with gold or jewels in general is rightly pronounced an empty fop; but the wearing of a fine diamond will only mark its possessor as having a superior taste for what is most admirable and beautiful among the productions of nature. The minerals we call gems, jewels, "precious" stones, par excellence, are the most noble objects of inorganic creation; and the diamond is the queen of them all.

Let us then have a chat about Diamonds, which will interest everybody.

The localities where diamonds have hitherto been found, are Central India, Sumatra, Borneo, the Ural mountains, Australia, some parts of North America, and the Brazils; but the first and last sources only have been of any great extent. Down to a comparatively late period the continent of India was the only district of any importance, whence diamonds were obtained. The principal regions producing them were the high valleys of the Pennar near Cuddapah, and of the Kistna near Ellora (and not far from the hill fort of Golconda, the name usually associated with these ancient and rich mines), as also a rude, little known, mountainous district, containing the sources of Nerbudda and Sone; and a range of hills in Bundelkund, between the latter river and the Sonar. The produce of these mines was enormous, both in regard to number and size. One of the Mohammedan Emperors, who died at the end of the twelfth century, after a long reign of plunder, is stated to have amassed in his treasury 400lbs. weight of diamonds

duce from this part of the world has gradually fallen off, and is now entirely superseded by the more recently discovered mines of the Brazils.

The existence of these was revealed to the eastern world by an accident in the year 1727. A Portuguese of the name of Bernardino Fonseca Lobo, when at the gold mines of Minas Geraes, saw the miners using, as card counters, small stones which they said were found in the gold washings, and which he, having seen similar ones in the East Indies, conjectured to be rough diamonds. He brought a quantity to Lisbon, where his suspicion was confirmed, and public attention was at once drawn to the rich discovery. The European dealers, who had hitherto obtained their stones from India, fearing that they would be depreciated in value, spread the report that the pretended Brazilian diamonds had been surreptitiously sent from Goa to South America; but the Portuguese soon demonstrated their authenticity, and turned the tables upon the merchants, by actually sending them to Goa, and selling them in India as native produce. The discovery once made, the sources of supply were soon found, and worked extensively, and proved very productive. The stones abound more or less on the great north and south ranges of the country between 13 and 219 south latitude; but the principal working, so long known as the diamond district, and in which the town of Diamantina lies, is a high, mountainous, and sterile tract of country, situated between the heads of the rivers Doce, Arassuahy, Jequetinhonha, and the great river of San Francisco. The ancient province of Bahia has also more lately become one of the principal sources. In 1843 a mulatto miner, who had gone alone into the interior to search for new washings, was working up to his ankles in water, in the bed of a stream at Sincora, in this province, when, dropping the end of his crowbar, to rest himself, on the ground below, he was somewhat surprised at hearing it sound hollow. He repeated