THE AVERAGE PRICES of NAVIGABLE CANAL SHARES and other PROPERTY, in July 1816 (to the 26th), at the Office of Mr. SCOTT, 28, New Bridge-street, London.Birmingham Canal, 730l. div. 36l, clear per Annum.-Coventry Canal, 7007, div. 447. clear.-Oxford Canal, 440/. 317. per Aunum.-Leeds and Liverpool, 2501. ex. div. 41. Half-year.-Monmouth, 1207. ex. div. 47. ditto.-Graud Junction (div. suspended), 120.--Grand Union, 531.-Kennet and Avon, 15.-Ellesmere, 76. div. 4.Chelmer, 70% div. 4.-Lancaster, 177 10s.-West-India Dock, 148, 1471. div. 107.— London ditto, 741.-Globe Insurance, 1051.-Chelsea Water Works, 8. 18s. 6d.Strand Bridge Annuities, 17. 15s. premium.-Ditto Shares, 177.-London Institution, 404.-Russel ditto, 15/. 15s. EACH DAY'S PRICE OF STOCKS IN JULY, 1816. Days Bank Red. 13 per Ct.perCt. 5 perCn. Long frish 5 Imp. Imp. perCt Cons. Cons. Navy Ann. pr.Ct 3perCt Ann. RICHARDSON, GOODLUCK, & Co. Bank Buildings, London. 67 665 168 944 163 5 Printed by NICHOLS, SON, and BENTLEY, Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE : LONDON GAZETTE GENERAL EVENING M.Post-M.Herald Morning Chronic. Times-M. Advert. P.Ledger&Oracle Brit. Press-Day St. James's Chron. Sun-Even. Mail Star-Traveller Pilot--Statesman Packet-Lond.Chr. Albion--C. Chron. Courier-Globe Eng. Chron. --Inq. Cour.d'Angleterre Cour. de Londres 15otherWeekly P. 17 Sunday Papers Hue & Cry Police Lit. Adv. monthly Bath 3-Bristol 5 Berwick-Boston Birmingham 3 Blackb. Brighton Bury St. Edmund's Camb-Chath. Carli.2--Chester 2 Chelms. Cambria. Cornw.-Corent. 2 Durham Exeter 2, Glouc.2 Halifax-Hants 2 Hereford, Hull 3 Huntingd.-Kent 4 Ipswich 1, Lancas. Leices.2--Leeds 2 Lichfield, Liver. 6 Maidst. Manch. 4 Newc.3.-Notts.2 Northampton Norfolk, Norwich N. WalesOxford 2 Portsea Pottery Preston-Plym. 2 Reading-Salisb. Salop-Sheffield2 Sherborne, Sussex Shrewsbury Staff.-Stamf. 2 Wolverh. Worc. 2. ....137 Review of New Publications. ....157 Meteorological Diaries for June & Aug. 98, 190 By SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. Printed by NicaoLs, Son, and BENTLEY, at CICERO'S HEAD, Red Lion Passage, Fleet-str. London; where all Letters to the Editor are particularly desired to be addressed, POST-PAID. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE For AUGUST, 1816. I suspend my inquiries into the pecuniary state of the country, to give room for a few observations on ano ther melancholy subject, which the long article that followed my last letler in your Friday's Paper has suggested. The death of Mr. Sheridan is a public loss; and his memory justly mingles itself with our national concerns. I know not from what ridan, was a provocation of a serious dye! I think that this will be found to be the key to all the praise, and to almost all the blame, of the intellectual portrait on which I am commenting. It sets out with au observation just in itself, and likely to catch the moralist, who moves not in the factitious heat of politicks, as sincere and well intended. But its consistency with the usual principles of judgment entertained and practised by the Party from whence it evidently comes, may well be doubted. It would have been deemed outrageously illiberal, had it. been put forth in the case of Fox; and we should have been dazzled by all the splendour of indignant declas. mation, to shew the philanthropy and wisdom of a more liberal and enlarged philosophy! As long as Mr. Sheridan served the purposes of a Party, his faults, which are now described with such unreLondon print the article in ques-lenting scrutiny, and condemned with such harsh severity, were deemed tion has been copied it is written with great talent; and sometimes harmless foibles, suited to point a jest, with much eloquence; but there is a or raise a good-natured sinile ; and to make the contrast of his wit and his spirit of severity and ill-will in it which I cannot approve. This malig- oratory the more striking and attractive. They never overshadowed the nant tone it does not seem difficult to trace to its source: I even imagine operation of his public opinions. And that I can give a shrewd guess at the when he pronounced his unrivalled band from which it flowed. speech on Hastings's Trial, or his patriotic sentiments on the Mutiny at the Nore, they lost nothing of their effect, because they came from a man overwhelmed with private debts, or unpunctual to private or domestic engagements. In the affecting lamentations which The Courier poured forth at the moment that the great Statesman was trembling on the verge of eternity, there broke out one or two expressions of contempt against the leaders of a powerful Party, which could not easily be forgiven or overlooked. To under-rate the Pettys, the Greys, the Grenvilles, the Hollands, and the Tierneys, and place them far below a She The Times. Of all the difficult subjects in ethics, the degree in which the public and private conduct of an individual are to be examined and tried in conjunc tion, is the most difficult to be defined. There are undoubtedly some kinds of faults, which pollute the Sources sources of action, public as well as private. There are others, in which the very self-neglect that gives rise to private embarrassments and all their numerous train of expedients, and indulgences, and injuries, is generated by a devotion to the larger grasp of public concerns. He who escapes as he can from straits into which he has fallen from the blindness of indolence, is very different from the daring wretch who enters into any hazard with his eyes open, because he is predetermined to regard no ties in breaking from a danger. Mr. Sheridan, if he was ever worthy of that idolatry of Party which he once enjoyed, ought not to have been deserted in his old age, and "at his utmost need." The continuation of a seat in Parliament would have at least secured him from the bloodthirsty and useless revenge of an enraged creditor. If it be pleaded, that indolence and habitual indulgence of that which might make him forget the oppressor and his oppression, rendered him no longer to be depended upon as a debater or a wit-look at the men of straw, who, for private convenience, fill so many of the rotten (aye and of the free and independent) Boroughs, of either side of the House, and say, whether Sheridan, if his faculties had been not merely clonded, but gone, could not have filled any one of them better than they! The horrible picture of this expiring luminary, beset by myrmidons, and watched by the terriers of the Law, forbear to delineate! I If the rules of judgment, which are now promulgated to cover the neglect of Sheridan in his old age, had been practised at the commencement of his public career, he would never, perhaps, have been allured and flattered into imprudences and confidences, of which the punishment was to come upon him when he was least able to bear it.. We are now told that Sheridan had many admirers but no friends amongst those great men with whom he once lived and co-operated. Would this have been said when Sheridan was living? What would any of these great men have declared, if any one had accused them of this in the zenith of Sheridan's splendour 2 "It is argued that Sheridan exhibited transcendent powers, but that he for feited all claims to patronage, power, wealth, and even comfort and security in old age, because he perverted these powers. It is inconsistently said, that he united the various and distinct mental and oratorical excellencies of Burke, Pitt, and Fox, and yet that he threw away his time and his talents. Were then the imagination and intellectual stores of Burke, the flowing language of Pitt, and the acuteness of Fox, attained without an effort, and exhibited without industry and practice, as well as native endowment? In short, the praise given in this sketch to his mental and senatorial faculties is so superlative, and I may add, even so extravagant, that to end with so much detraction, and plead for such cruel and unexampled abandonment, is an instance of the perverted prejudices of Party resentment, to which I can recollect no parallel! There are temporary meteors, whose brilliance is accidental or fancied, or impure, and who soon therefore sink again into darkness; but Sheridan retained his influence over the public mind so uniformly from the hour of his first emergence, in spite of the greatest disadvantages, that it is impossible to deny the genuine force, and I would add, real use of his faculties! We often see the publick unaccountably The "Yield to the fascination of a name;" but, if it be delusive, they are certain, ere long, to recover from it. mysterious ways in which the intellectual powers sometimes develope themselves, it is vain to systematize, or to deny results because the process has not been conducted according to the ordinary forms of human discipline. Sheridan did in fact, on innumerable occasions, either "set the table in a roar" by the flashes of his wit, or astonish and illumine listening Senators! He did this in spite of the days and years lost in indolence and intemperance. Yet what right have we to deny results, because they seem to us to be too favourable for the occupations which we know to have preceded ? The old adage, De mortuis nil nisi bonum may not perhaps be entirely just; but I cannot think it right or less than inhuman of such a man To tear the frailties from their dread abode" |