In Parliament

Abstract

Sheridan reappeared in the new House of Commons by Fox’s¹ side. He possessed a ductility and versatility of talents which no public man in our time has equalled, and these intellectual endowments were sustained by a suavity of temper that seemed to set at defiance all efforts to ruffle or discompose it. Playing with his irritable or angry antagonist, Sheridan exposed him by sallies of wit or attacked him with classic elegance of satire, performing this arduous task in the face of a crowded assembly without losing for an instant either his presence of mind, his facility of expression or his good humour. He wounded deepest, when he smiled, and convulsed his hearers with laughter while the object of his ridicule or animadversion was twisting under the lash. Pitt² and Dundas,³ who presented the fairest marks for his attack, found by experience that, though they might repel, they could not confound, still less could they silence or vanquish him. In every attempt that they made, by introducing personalities or illiberal reflexions on his private life or dramatic occupations, to disconcert him, he turned their weapons on themselves.

The Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir N. W. Wraxall, ed. H. B. Wheatley (London: Bickers and Sons, 1884) hi, 367–8.