Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/190

 184 Whitford Our very language takes a different lead, And playwrights drivel as she nods the head. Genius is only such by her regard, O'er Shakespeare 1 s self Badini is a bard: And Sheridan no more the child of praise, Lives but to die away at operas. Sheridan's political affiliations in the eighties seem to have had something to do with his comparative lack of popularity as playwright and theatrical manager. Anthony Pasquin declared in 1787: It mads me to see such superlative merit Metamorphosed by Pride to a petulant Ferret, Which Fox drags about with a sinister chain. 74 Pasquin suggests also that The Critic, though itself a great success, did its author more harm than good because it discred- ited the tragedy which he might otherwise have written: Once Brinsley in sport aim'd a desperate blow, Which shatter'd her influence, and murder'd her woe; Tho' Fame clapp'd her wings when she saw him indite it, He has since curs'd the 2,eal which impell'd him to write it; For he now lives in want, tho' his genius forbid it, And the Muse shews her wound, and tells Richard he did it. 75 Yet, in spite of a certain amount of political hostility, 76 Sheridan was long considered what Gifford called him in The Maeviad, the "soul of comedy." 77 In 1799, however, he committed what seemed to the satirists as to posterity something of an indiscre- tion; he produced his tragedy of Pizarro, a modified translation 73 The Sauce-Pan, 94. 74 Pasquin, II, 114. Cf. The Triumphs of Temper. (London, 1781), 84. 76 Ibid., II, 224. 76 Cf. for instance Mathias' The Political Dramatist of the House of Com- mons in 1795. . (London 1796), and also The Beauties of the Brinsleiad: or y A Sketch of the Opposition: a Poem. No. I (London, 1785). The latter was a first part, apparently never followed by a second, of a Tory "Rolliad" with Sheridan for its hero. He is described (p. 9) as " Skill 'd to delight the public or distract With tickling fiction, and with tortur'd fact." And his borrowing of plot from the Rehearsal for The Critic is explained by the fact that "for loyalty's sake' he would not wish it thought "He was the chief contriver of a plot." 77 Baviad and Maeiiad, 113.