her beauty was so celebrated that she might have wed whom she would.  She had risen with him and shared his later anxieties.  Yet she had seen him forget, neglect her, and seek other society.  In spite of his tender affection for her and for his children, he had never made a home of their home.  Vanity Fair had kept him ever flitting, and it is little to be wondered at that Mrs. Sheridan was the object of much, though ever respectful admiration.[9] Yet, in spite of calumny, she died with a fair fame.  Decline had long pressed upon her, yet her last illness was too brief.  In 1792 she was taken away, still in the summer of her days, and with her last breath uttering her love for the man who had never duly prized her.  His grief was terrible; yet it passed, and wrought no change.  He found solace in his beloved son, and yet more beloved daughter.  A few months—­and the little girl followed her mother.  Again his grief was terrible:  again passed and wrought no change.  Yes, it did work some change, but not for the better; it drove him to the goblet; and from that time we may date the confirmation of his habit of drinking.  The solemn warnings had been unheeded:  they were to be repeated by a long-suffering God in a yet more solemn manner, which should touch him yet more nearly.  His beautiful wife had been the one restraint upon his folly and his lavishness.  Now she was gone, they burst out afresh, wilder than ever.

[9:  Lord Edward Fitzgerald was one of the most devoted of her admirers:  he chose his wife, Pamela, because she resembled Mrs. Sheridan.—­See Moore’s Life of Lord Edward.]

For a while after these afflictions, which were soon completed in the death of his most intimate friend and boyish companion, Tickell, Sheridan threw himself again into the commotion of the political world.  But in this we shall not follow him.  Three years after the death of his first wife he married again.  He was again fortunate in his choice.  Though now forty-four, he succeeded in winning the heart of a most estimable and charming young lady with a fortune of L5,000.  She must indeed have loved or admired the widower very much to consent to be the wife of a man so notoriously irregular, to use a mild term, in his life.  But Sheridan fascinated wherever he went, and young ladies like ’a little wildness.’  His heart was always good, and where he gave it, he gave it warmly, richly, fully.  His second wife was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester.  She was given to him on condition of his settling in all L20,000, upon her—­a wise proviso with such a spendthrift—­and he had to raise the money, as usual.

His political career was sufficiently brilliant, though his real fame as a speaker rests on his great oration at Hastings’ trial.  In 1806 he satisfied another point of his ambition, long desired, and was elected for the city of Westminster, which he had ardently coveted when Fox represented it.  But a dissolution threw him again on the mercy of the popular party; and again he offered himself for Westminster:  but, in spite of all the efforts made for him, without success.  He was returned, instead, for Ilchester.