[8] A fearful account of Sheridan's condition in his last days is to be found in the _Croker Papers_ (1884), chap. x. It is embodied in what purports to be a literal transcript of a conversational narrative by George IV., J. Wilson Croker being interlocutor and listener. [9] [OE]lia (Humphry Ward's version). [10] Thomas Chatterton, b. 1752; d. 1770. Tyrwhitt's edition, "Poems supposed to have been written by Thomas Rowley," etc., dates from 1777. [11] Foster's Goldsmith, vol. ii., p. 248. [12] Dr. Skeat--as a philologist--is naturally severe upon a thief of archaisms, whose robberies and arrogance did puzzle for a while even the archæologists. _Per contra_--there is a disposition among many recent critics to rank him high among the pioneers of the "New Romantic" movement in England; _Vid._ Rodin Noel--_Essays on the Poets_; also, _Athenæum_, No. 3073. [13] Sterne: b. 1713; d. 1768. _Life_, by H. D. Traill; a fuller one by Percy Fitzgerald. [14] Notwithstanding there was almost always evidence of gentlemanly instincts at bottom; and under the scoriæ of a dissipated life and habits the sparkling of a soul of honor. [15] In a sermon read by Corporal Trim (p. 209, _Tristram Shandy_, vol. i., London, 1790) are a good many strong points taken, without acknowledgment, from one of Richard Bentley's sermons, preached at Cambridge against Popery, on November 5th--shortly after the first attempt of "the Pretender." This strange similitude is not noticed in Dr. Ferrier's summing up of Sterne's sinning in this line. {219} CHAPTER VI. We had sight of George III. in our last chapter, and we shall catch sight of him again from time to time; for he was a persistent lingerer, and a most obstinate liver. We had glimpses, too, of that cheery, sunny-faced, eloquent, ill-balanced man, Charles James Fox, whom we ought to remember as a true friend to America, in those critical days when taxation was swelling into tyranny. William Pitt, whom we also saw, and to whom we would have been delighted to listen, would never have won greatly upon American sympathies; too cold, too austere, too classic, too fine. Sheridan, on the other hand, would, and did, conquer hearts everywhere; but unfortunately spending his forces in great paroxysms of effort; one while the greatest comedist, and again the greatest orator, always the greatest spendthrift; {220} and anon the greatest debtor, who only pays his debts by dying. Sterne covered better his deficiencies of money and of soul. Who could have put more or truer feeling into the story of the poor ill lieutenant of the inn, whom Corporal Trim (at Uncle Toby's instance) had gone to see, and of whom he makes report? And uncle Toby says he will fetch him home and set him afoot in his regiment. "Never," says Trim, "can he march." "But he _shall_ march," says uncle Toby. "He will die in his tracks," says Trim.