The election drew towards its termination, but all the efforts of his friends had proved unavailing to secure Sheridan's return, although his minority was any thing but formidable. The interest that attended the contest had, at its close, become intense; and every spot, whence the candidates might be seen or heard, was crowded in the extreme. A sailor, anxious to acquire a view of the scene of action, after all his exertion to push his way through the crowd had proved fruitless, resorted to the nautical expedient of climbing one of the poles which supported a booth directly in front of the hustings, from the very top of which Jack was enabled to contemplate all that occurred below. As the orator commenced his speech, his eye fell on the elevated mariner, whom he had no sooner observed than he rendered his situation applicable to his own, by stating that "had he but other five hundred voters as _upright_ as the _perpendicular_ gentleman before him, they would yet place him where _he_ was--_at the head of the pole_." Often were his addresses to his constituents interrupted by the tumult that arose from the anxiety of the public to get within hearing of him. A person, mounted on horseback, had penetrated to the very centre of the crowd, with more regard for himself than consideration towards others, as the animal he rode, affrighted by the noise, became equally annoying and dangerous to those by whom he was surrounded. The outcry was excessive, and, while some strove to appease the clamour, others urged Sheridan to proceed. "Gentlemen," replied he to the latter, "when the _chorus of the horse and his rider_ is finished, I shall commence." His good humour was at no time disturbed during the election, although the observations of his noble Caledonian opponent manifested no amicable disposition towards the orator. As it terminated, a mutual friend of the rival candidates expressed a hope that, with the contest, all animosity should cease; and that the gallant officer should drown the memory of differences in a friendly bottle. "With all my heart," said Sheridan, "and will thank his lordship to make it _a Scotch pint_." His treatment of Coleridge, the poet, who had submitted a tragedy to his managerial decision, was wholly unmerited by the author, the success of whose piece subsequently so well justified the better claims it had on Sheridan's attention. In the cavern scene, where the silence of the place is presumed to be only broken by the slow dropping of the water from its vault, Sheridan, in reading it to his friends, repeated the words of one of the characters, in a solemn tone, "Drip! drip! drip!" adding, "Why, here's nothing but _dripping_:" but the story is told by Coleridge himself, in the preface to his tragedy, with that good humour and frankness becoming one sensible of his powers, and conscious that the witty use of an unfortunate expression (were it such) could but little affect the real and numerous beauties of the production.