1830.] The Club Room. 435 



letting loose a fee. Remember how the patriot fire blazed in him when 

 the fleet was in rebellion ; how he harangued when the Nore was 

 blocked up with mutineers ; he saw the country shaking, but what was' 

 that to him ? he saw the ministry likely to shake too, and bellowed 

 accordingly. But we escaped him at last; we were not gone far 

 enough on the road to ruin, to put power into his gambling hands ; 

 and the rogue was gallantly turned into the hold, after all. Sheridan 

 acted nobly then he saved the Whigs from being disgraced for 

 ever. 



Friezland. Ah, poor old Red-nose ! Sheridan had something in him 

 that made him always a bad Whig ; party had not frozen him up ; he 

 Avas generally a knave, and of the most incorrigible kind ; he seemed 

 the fitter, of course, for our faction. But, confound the fellow, he had, 

 now and then, a compunctious visiting ; a sudden sense of what was 

 due to human nature ; a sting of honour, that made him the most in- 

 secure dog possible for Whig objects. He was clever, useful, but not 

 always tractable, and, of course, never trustable. 



Rakely (to Megrim aside). In the name of all that is marvellous, 

 where did Friezland get that ? His brains are no more capable of en- 

 gendering three words of that speech than poor down-in-the-mouth 

 Durham, or that little bubbling emblem of his own soup-kettle, Taylor ; 

 he must have stolen it from the " Age," that inveterate 



Megrim. Hold your tongue on that subject, Rakely, or tell the truth. 

 The " Age" has hit both of us too hard to be a favourite with either. 

 But I see nothing cleverer from John-o'-Groat's house to the Land's End. 

 It never minces the matter, to be sure ; it lays on us all, most devilishly, 

 I admit ; it flogs right and left, and does not care a pin's point whether 

 it strips the skin off my shoulders or yours ; lays a radical Whig bare 

 from shoulder to flank, or scarifies an apostate Tory, until his nearest 

 and dearest friends fly from him as a pickled monster. But it does its 

 business heartily ; where others only half do it, like miserable turn-coats 

 and trimmers as they are j it cuts to the quick, and I, for one, can tell 

 you, that the fear of its just vengeance has crushed, in the bud, more 

 sprouting rascality than all the harangues of the very worthy and very 

 mealy-mouthed gentlemen of his Majesty's opposition. As to its old 

 character of ribaldry that day is gone by, evidently, to return no 

 more. It has higher things to do, and it does them powerfully. You 

 see how justly it abused us, the other day, for not saying something 

 about our old champion Tierney. 



Rakely. What could we say of him a Whig, that pretended to keep 

 up appearances, as they are called ; that made faces at what he thought 

 rash and silly measures : nay, I have been informed, actually went to 

 church on Sundays ? Did you ever hear Rogers's lines on him ? 



Megrim. Nonsense, of course, if they were his. But let us have no 

 more burthens laid on the little banker's head. That unfortunate Nes- 

 tor, as Byron laughingly nick-named him, has been made the scape- 

 goat of every desperate waggery ; the foundling-hospital-basket for all 

 bastard wit; the Parnassus-hulk for all the convicts against com- 

 mon sense that have been driven out of general society. 



Saveall. Every man is liable to imputations of the kind ; though, I 

 believe, I have escaped that of ever having said a good thing. But, to 

 do Rogers justice, he bears the general laugh, like a hero of ninety ; 

 talks of Byron, without, at least, any visible rage at his lordship's per- 



3 K 2 



