cP^
Uu
MEMOIR
OF THE POLITICAL LIFE
OF THE RIGHT HON.
EDMUND BURKE.
rRIN'lED BY JOHN STARK, EDIVBUKGH.
MEMOIR
OF THE
POLITICAL LIFE OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
EDMUND BURKE
WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS WRITINGS.
" Durkc, the greatest of political philosophers."
Sir J. Mackintosh.
BY
GEORCIE CROLY, LL.D.
KECTOIl OF ST STEPHEN'S, WALBUOOK, LONDON.
v(jj,i;mk riKST.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD cl SONS, LDINBUlKill;
AND THOMAS CADELL, LONDON.
M.DCCC.XL.
fTTlTERT'lAYEFn
mi\i: CAfJFORNIA
bAMA JIA1{BA1U
PREFACE.
So:me years ago, when the feelings of the
people were strongly disturbed by theories' of
j)olitical change, a considerable number of works
were issued from the press, with the object of
allaying the })ublic excitement. Among the rest
the following pages appeared. It was thought,
that, in a period singularly resemblingthat which
immediately preceded the French Revolution
of 17H<), there might be some advantage in lay-
ing before the public, in a more succinct and ac-
cessible form than in his volumes, the opinions
of that extraordinary and powerful mind, which
had acted so large a part in saving England
and her monarchy from the errors of the French
throne, and the crimes of the llej)ublic.
VI PREFACE.
The rank of Burke, as a writer of consuin-
iiiate eloquence, liad been decided from the be-
ginning of his career ; the progress of the Re-
vohition placed him in equal eminence as a
Statesman ; and every year since has added to
his renown as a propliet. While the works of this
admirable mind are left to us, the country is in
possession of a storehouse of political wisdom,
from which she cannot supply herself too large-
ly, or too often ; she has a great Oracle, to
whose responses she cannot trust with a too so-
lemn reliance ; for the peculiar and pre-emi-
nent character of Burke's genius was its love of
reality. With the most palpable powers for
reaching the loftiest heights of speculation, he
is the least abstract of all speculators. With
the poetic fancy which so strongly tempts its
possessor to spurn the ground,
" Among the colours of the rainljow live.
And play in the jjlighted clouds,"
and with an opulence of language that, like the
tissues thrown on the road of an oriental prince,
covered the wild and the thorny before him
PREFACE. Vll
with richness and beauty, he never suffers him-
self to forget the value of f /tings. The applica-
tion of reason to the purposes of life ; the study
of the sources of moral strength ; the inquiry
into that true " wealth of nations," which makes
men safer from the shocks of society, are his per-
petual object. — He pours his river through the
moral landscape, not to astonish by its rapi-
dity and volume, or delight by its picturesque
windings, but to carry fertility on its surface,
and gold in its sands.
The papers which form the present publica-
tion originally appeared in Blackwood's Maga-
zine, a work which, by the constitutional truth
and manliness of its principles, had acquired
extensive credit witli a i)eople, who love fair-
dealing and fearlessness like their own. The
republicanism whicli tliey tlien offered their
contribution to oppose, has since broken out,
with still more formidable menace to the State.
Tlie boldest pretext of overthrow had hitherto
never gone beyond the " imj)rovemc'nt of the
Constitution." JJut, we now hear a demand for
Vm PREFACE.
a new fabric. What was once Reform, is now
Revolution ; Monarchy, once admitted by all
parties to be the natural Government of the
State, is now pronounced a prejudice, and the
popular aspiration is Democracy. And this
new terror is no dream of the study ; no thin
shape of mysticism floating before the eyes of
visionaries ; Ribandism and Chartism are its
substantial forms. However widely differing
in their origin, their determination is the same.
Travelling by different routes, they march to
the same point ; and whether hatred of the
Church leads them to subvert the Throne, or
hatred of the Throne, to subvert the Church,
neither will have achieved its object, until both
meet on the ruins of the Constitution. That
the property and intelligence of the Empire,
M'hen once roused, will resist courageously,
and if roused early enough will resist trium-
phantly, is beyond question. Rut it will be too
late, when the twin conspiracies shall have be-
come one, and when the people of England shall
see some new and monstrous shape of govern-
PltEFACE. IX
meiit deinaiiding their submission ; some huge,
crude, and presumptuous Babel of Society, at
once threatening Earth, and insulting Heaven ;
some new " City and Tower" of infidel build-
ing ; where the Democratic Principle, known
only by its evil attributes ; like an Indian
Idol, with its hundred hands grasping only
swords and serpents ; shall sit to be worshipped
with tlie horrid and sanguinary rites of supersti-
tion, or the still more horrid impurities of po-
pular passion, let loose to riot witliout fear of
God or man.
That the nation may yet emerge from those
trials ; we may be justified in believing, for she
liad emerged before. But it is equally evident,
that if she does, it must be by the same vigour,
and virtue, whicli then ensured Iter safety.
When Ikirke wrote his immortal " Reflections
on the French Revolution," there were thousands
in England as full of frenzy, as ever were the
wearers of crowns of straw. Every public sense
was in a state of illusion, France was the great
X PREFACE.
temptress, and to the multitude, her naked an-
tics were dignity, her blasphemies the language
of nature, and her unspeakable bloodshed the in-
evitable price of freedom. A crowd of writers,
some of remarkable popular ability, and all of
popular fame, laboured to increase and envenom
the national frenzy, some by dazzling the people
with projects of confiscation, others, by exciting
their jealousy of rank, and others, by alluring
the uneducated pride of the mind, and playing
before it theories of unlimited progress, and bril-
liant perfectibility. Those arts had nearly suc-
ceeded ; the soberness and sincerity of the na-
tional spirit were universally silenced for the
time ; the haughty effrontery and contemptu-
ous scoffing of the new school of freedom and
j)hilosophy, bore down all idea of resistance; and
the purer understanding of England seemed
spell-bound, like Milton's noble Lady ;
" In stony fetters fixt and motionless,"
while the shapes of this revolutionary revel
were triumphing and glittering before her. But,
PREFACE. XI
a more powerful presence was to come, and re-
buke them ; a genius of a loftier rank, and bor-
rowing its strength from sources above the cup
of the enchanter, burst in, broke his wand, and
turning the revellers into their true shapes of
grossness and vice, freed the captive of the
spell. This was the achievement of Burke, and
none was ever more effective, or more essential
to the peace of an emj)ire.
It is in no affectation of public danger, that
those who wish well to their country, now call on
it, to prepare. The whole course of public mea-
sures, for the last seven years, has been repub-
lican. The changes of public men within that
j)eriod have scarcely affected this strong ten-
dency of tilings. If the feeble have given way,
and tlie corrupt have only made the course more
headlong ; the firmest helmsmen of the State
have felt the current too strong for them, to re-
turn. Whether yielding, or resisting, every liour
has brought us nearer the verge of that miglity
cataract, of which we ah'eady hear the roar.
XU PREFACE.
The Extracts from Burke's published works
are made in an order ilkistrative of his personal
feelings, his public career, and the national exi-
gencies of his time. They are accompanied
with notices of the events of his private life,
chiefly from his Biography by Mr Prior ; and
with remarks connected \v'ith the circumstances
of the anxious period in which we live ; the
whole forming an anti-revolutionary Manual
of the wisdom of the wisest of men.
CONTENTS
or
VOLUME FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
Value of Biography — Birth of Burke — Early Scenery — Eduration
— Fondness for Milton — Destined to the Bar — Arrival in Lon-
don — Proposes to go to America — Attacks Bolingbroke — John-
son's praise of Burke — Earl of Charlemont — Connexion with
Single- Speech Hamilton, . . . _ Page 1
CHAPTER H.
Burke appointed Private Secretary t<j Rockingham — Member for
^^■endover — His first Speech — Chatham's Ministry — Pictuu- of
Party, --..-.. :J5
CHAPTER HI.
Death of George H — Fall of Chatham — Origin of the Modern
Wliigs — Burke's Pamphlet — His Klofjuence — Purchased Bca-
consfield — Speech on Subscription to the Articles — Letters to
Barry, _-,--. 57
XIV CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
Election for Bristol — Speech at the Hustings — Popular Delusions
— Famous Speech on American Affairs — Apostrophe to Lord
Bathurst — Keen Parody by Johnson, - - Page 89
CHAPTER V.
Prevents the Rockingham Secession — Franklin — Absentee Tax —
Alliance of France with America — Burke loses his Seat for Bris-
tol — Speech on the Household — French Finance — Neckar, 108
CHAPTER VI.
Public Opinion of the Speech — On GEconomical Reform — Elo-
quence of Public Men — Burke Retires from Bristol — Fine
Sketch of Howard — The Borough System — Crabbe the Poet —
Character of Fox — Modeni Whiggisni, - - 142
CHAPTER VII.
Fox, the leader of the Ministry — Death of Rockingham — Pitt Mi-
nister — The Coalition — The India Bill — New Era of Europe —
Grattan's Opinion of Burke, - - - - 1 04
CHAPTER VIII.
Nabob of Arcot — Burke's Speech on India Affairs — Hyder Ali —
Hastings — Dupleix, ..,.__ 183
CHAPTER IX.
Character of Burke by the Bishop of Rochester — Trial of Hastings
— Twelve Maxims of Genghiz Khan, _ - - 209
CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER X.
Speeches on the Trial — Styles of Sheridan and Burke Contrasted
— Striking Remark of Hastings, . _ _ Page 234
CHAPTER XL
French Infidelity — Providential Protection of England — Riots of
1780 — Power of Pitt — French Revolution — Burke's Shigular
Sagacity, . - - . . _ . 253
CHAPTER Xn.
Burke's Taste for the Arts — Reynolds — Barry — Burke's Criticism
on the Pictures at the Adelphi — True Cause of Republicanism, 270
CHAPTER Xni.
Debate on the Army Estimates — Burke's Schism with Fox — and
with Sheridan — Publication of the celebrated " Reflections' —
Public honours to its Writer — Visit of Paine to England — Pitt's
Views of the Revolution, - _ _ . . 287
MEMOIR
OF THE POLITICAL LIFE
OF THE RIGHT HON.
EDMUND BURKE.
CHAPTER L
Value of Biography — Birth of Burke — Early Scenery — Education —
Fondness for Milton — Destined to the Bar — Arrival in London —
Projjoses to go to America — Attacks Bolingbroke — Johnson's praise
of Burke — Earl of Charlcmont — Connexion with Single-Speech
Hamilton.
The people of England are attached to liberty, and
they are made for it. They have, by nature, a gravity
of mind, wliicb tends to save them from political rash-
ness. They have a manliness which repels disho-
nourable submission to force. Thus, superior by
their original temperament, alike to the extravagances
of democracy, and to the severities of despotism, they
alone, of all European nations, have been (jualihed to
build up that last and noblest labour of utilityand virtue,
a free Constitution.
Yet while nations are composed of men, they must
be liable to error. Opinion must exhibit those cur-
rents and changes which defy, or astonish, the wisdom
VOL. I. A
2 LIFE Ol' BURKE.
of the wise. Strong temptations to hasty apgrandl/e-
ment, or rash terrors of public loss, must try the practical
knowK'dgo of the state ; and England, with all her ex-
perience, vigour, and virtue, must take her share in
those contingencies which compel nations to revert to
tirst prir.ciples, and refresh their declining- years by
draughts from the original fountains of their fame. It
is for such purposes that the lover of his country pecu-
liarly values history. He opens the door of that great
repository of the crime and frailties, of the genius and
power, of ages which have gone down to the grave ;
less to gaze on them as curious specimens of the past,
than as true Instructors of the present. He sees in their
configuration the secrets of the living frame, the sources
of actual public strength, the organs of national re-
nown, the fine impulses which give activity and force
to the whole animated system of Empire.
But the most eftectual portion of history Is that which
gives down great men to the future ; for it furnishes
the mind of the rising generation with a model on
which it can shape Itself at once. The embodied vir-
tue of the champion of truth and freedom there stands
before us; the progress of ability and learning, of ge-
nerous ambition and faithful principle, Is displayed to
the eye In all its successions ; there Is nothing ideal,
nothing to be made up by fancy, or left to chance.
The standard of excellence Is palpable to the touch ;
and men can scarcely look upon this Illustrious evi-
dence of human ^capabilities, without unconsciously
emulating its labours, and sharing Its superiority.
In giving a rapid view of the life of the celebrated
VALUE OF BIOGRAPHY. li
Burke, these pages are less anxious to render the due
tribute to his talents, than to his principles. His genius
has long gaiued for itself the highest prize of fame. In
an aire eminent for intellectual distinction, Burke vin-
dicated to himself the admiration of Europe. Owing
nothing of his celebrity to birth, opulence, or official
rank, he required none of those adventitious supports,
to rise and move at ease in the highest regions of public
effect, dignity, and renown. There was no fear that
his plumage would give way in either the storm or the
Bunshiue ; those are the casualties of inferior powers.
He had his share of both, the tempest, and that still
more perilous trial, which has melted down the virtue
of so many aspiring spirits in the favour of cabinets.
But Burke grew purer, and more powerful for good,
to his latest moment; he constantly rose more and more
above the inlluence of party, until at last the politician
was elevated into the philosopher ; and in that loftier
atmos[»bere, from which he looked down on the cloudy
and turbulent contests of the time, he soared upward
calmly in the light of truth, and became more splendid
at every wave of iiis wing.
Tliis is no exaggeration of Iiis singular ability, or of
its course. Of all the memorable men of his day,
Burke is the only orator, whose eloquence has been
incorporated into the wisdom of his country. His
great contemporaries grappled triunq)bantly with the
emergencies of the hour, and having achieved the ex-
ploit of the hour, were content with what they had
done. But it is palpable, that I^urke in every instance
LIFE OF BURKE.
contemplated a larger victory ; that his struggle was
not more to meet a contingency, than to estahlish a
principle ; that he was not content with overwhelm-
ing the adversary of the moment, but must bequeath
with that triumph some new knowledge of the means
by which the adversary might be overwhelmed in every
age to come — some noble contribution to that grand
tactic by which men and nations are armed and mar-
shalled against all difficulty. The labours of his con-
temporaries were admirable ; the mere muscular force
of the human mind never exhibited more prodigious
feats, than in the political contests of the days of Chat-
ham, Holland, Pitt and Fox. The whole period from
the fall of the Walpole Ministry to the death of Pitt,
was an unrelaxing struggle of the most practised, ex-
pert, and vivid ability. But it was the struggle of the
arena — a great rivalry for the prize of the people —
the fierce and temporary effort of great intellectual
gladiators. When they were exhausted, or perished,
others followed, if with inferior powers, with close imi-
tation. But no man has followed Burke. No de-
fender of the truth has ever exhibited that fine combi-
nation of practical vigour with essential wisdom ; that
mastery of human topics with that diviner energy which
overthrew not merely the revolutionary spirit of his
day, but enables us to maintain the conflict against all
its efforts to come ; — like the conqueror of the Python,
leaving his own image to all time, an emblem of match-
less grace and grandeur, to ages when the enemy and
the era alike are no more.
3
BIRTH. 4:-
Edmund Burke, like most of those men who have
made themselves memorable by their public services,
was of humble extraction; the son of an Irish attorney.
Yet, as Ireland is the land of genealogies, and every
man who cares for the honours of ancestry, may in-
dulge himself at large among the wide obscurity of the
Irish lineages, Burke's biographers have gratified their
zeal by searching for his origin among the De Burghs
or Burgos, whose names are found in the list of
Strongbow's knights in the invasion under Henry the
Second. Edmund Burke justly seems to have thought
little upon the subject, and contenting himself with
being a son of Adam, prepared to lay the foundations
of a fame independent of the Norman. He was born
in Dublin, January 1, 1730, old style; of a delicate
constitution, wiiich in his boyhood he rendered still
more delicate by a love of reading. Being threat-
ened witli consumption, he was removed at ah early
age from the air of the capital to the house of his
grandfatiier at Castletown Roche, a village in the
county of Cork, in the neighbourhood of tiie old castle
of Kilcolman, once the residence of the poet Spenser,
and seated in the centre of a district alike remarkable
for traditional interest, and landscape beauty. Early
associations often have a powerful ellect on the mind ;
and it is not improbable that the rich and lovely scenery
of this spot bad some share in storing up those trea-
sures of brightness and beauty, that love for solemn
and lofty thoughts, which characterised in subsecjuent
life the spirit of this extraordinary man.
6 LIFE OF BURKE.
From Avandering- among the hills and streams of this
romantic country, of which the acknowledged picture
still lives in the " Fairy Queen," Burke Avas transfer-
red in his twelfth year to a school, kept by an intelli-
gent Quaker at Ballytore, between twenty and thirty
miles from Dublin. The opinion then formed of him
was not unlike that which we might conceive from his
later career. He was said to be fond of acquiring
great diversity of knowledge, to have evinced a re-
markable quickness of apprehension, and delighted in
the display of memory. He read many of the old ro-
mances of chivalrj^, and much history and poetr)'. His
habits were almost solitary, but he was gentle, good-
natured, and willing to assist and oblige. In a debate,
in 1/80, after the riots, Burke adverted to his educa-
tion under the roof of the quaker, Abraham Shackle-
ton. " I have been educated," said he, " as a Pro-
testant of the Church of England, by a dissenter^ who
was an honour to his sect, though that sect was consi-
dered one of the purest. Under his eye I have read
the Bible, morning, noon, and night, and have ever
since been the happier and better man for such read-
ing. I afterwards turned my attention to the reading
of all the theological publications on all sides, which
were written with such wonderful ability in the last
and present centuries. But, finding at length that such
studies tended to confound and bewilder rather than
enlighten, I dropped them, embracing and holding fast
a firm faith in the Church of England."
Burke was sent to the Dublin University in 1743.
EDUCATION. 1
There he acquired no particular distinction. In his third
year he became " a scholar of the house," an honour
then obtained without much difficulty, after an exami-
nation in the classical course of the College ; and pro-
bably also one of the premiums at the general exami-
nations of the students. On the whole, he appears to
have been either indolent, or adverse to the course of
reading pursued in the Irish University. Goldsmith
speaks of him as an idler ; v/hich may have been true,
in the sense of a taste for desultory reading. Leland,
then one of the tutors, always admitted that he dis-
played cleverness, but, " from his retired habits, was
unlikely to solicit public distinction !" The evident
fact, on all authorities, is; that while in College, he
was a literary lounger, satisfied with going through the
routine of the required exercises, but enjoying himself
only over novels and newspapers, plays and travels,
and the general miscellaneous publications of the day;
a style of reading which nothing but the painful exer-
tions of many an after year, even with the most power-
iul faculties, can retrieve; but which utterly confuses
and dilapidates inferior talents, generates all the trif-
ling and nnich of the vice of society, and (ills the pro-
fessions with loungers for life. Let no man sanction
his disregard of the ellbrts enjoined on him by his
University, under the example of IJurke ; unless he
can atone for his folly by the mind of Burke. And
let no man look with negligence on tin; prospects
opened o>it to manly and well-directed exertion in
those noble Institutions, unless he is prepared to begin
& LIFE OF BURKE.
life anew -when he has passed their walls ; to turn
that career into a lottery which might have heen a cer-
tainty ; and to encounter that long period of toil and
defeated hope, which must intervene before he can
break through the barriers of professional success, and
pioneer his way through the rugged ascents and deso-
late bleaknesses that lie before even the most gifted
and gallant adventurer.
Some slight records of Burke's literary predilec-
tions, at this period, remain. Shakspeare, Addison,
Le Sage, Smollett, and Fielding, were his frequent
perusal, as they were that of every man of his time. He
praised Demosthenes as " the first of orators," decla-
red Plutarch tobethe "pleasantestreading in thcAvhole
range of Memoirs," preferred the Greek historians to
the Latin, and was attracted by Horace, and enamour-
ed of Virgil. So far there was nothing singular in
his tastes. He thought as all the world has thought,
for these two thousand years. But he also preferred
Euripides, in all his tameness, to the simple vigour of
Sophocles ; professed his admiration of Lucretius, de-
sultory and didactic as he is ; and even ventured to
speak of the ^neid, in all its dreary languor, perhaps
the most inanimate poem that ever effused itself from
the pen of a real poet, as " superior to the Iliad," of all
the works of poetry, the most various, vigorous, and
natural, — the model of living description, noble senti-
ment, and mingled strength and splendour of character.
On those points he might assert liis full claim to sin-
gularity. But those were the opinions of a boy, proud
FONDNESS FOR MILTON. 9
and pleased with the first perception of deciding- for
himself, the first unfettered excursion into the wilder-
ness of criticism. He afterwards grew wiser, as he
grew calm.
But even in his immature age, he had largely formed
the taste for which he was subsequently so distinguish-
ed. Milton's richness of language, boundless learning,
and scriptural grandeur of conception, were the first
and last themes of his applause. Young, from whose
epigrammatic labour of expression, and clouded though
daring fancy, modern taste shrinks, was a favourite in
Burke's day ; and Burke followed the public opinion,
and satisfied himself that he was cultivating his mind
by committing a large portion of the dreamy wander-
ings of the Night Thoughts to memory. He also
Avrote some translations of the Latin poets, and some
original verses, which exhibiting his command of
rhyme, exhibit nothing more.
Burke's profession was naturally marked out by
that of his father. In Ireland, where no man is con-
tented with his own rank, the son of a tlirivlng attor-
ney is universally designed for the bar. Burke put
his name on the list of tlic future dispensers of justice
in that country of lawyers. But, by tiie custonj of the
time, he also entered himself of the Middle Temple; a
measure now unnecessary for the call to the Irish bar,
but still generally adopted, from its advantages in ac-
quainting the student with tlw; habits of the lOnglish
bar, and in allowing tlie advocate to transfer himself
to English practice whenever circumstances may in-
10 LIFE OF BURKE.
duce him to leave tlie Irish Courts for Westminster
Hall. Burke arrived in London in 1750. It is re-
markable, that he had already, in some degree, formed
the political views which characterised the most emi-
nent period of his life; thus the features of his mind, like
those of the countenance, in age, returned onl)- to their
first expression, and shewed that his politics were his
nature. While but a student in the University, he
had been roused, by his indig-nation at fictitious pa-
triotism, to write a pamphlet against Brooke, the au-
thor of that much-praised, but infinitely childish ro-
mance, the Fool of Quality, who aspired to the name
of a popidar champion, on the credit of having- com-
posed an insolent and absurd tragedy. His second tri-
bute to good order was a letter to Dr Lucas, a man
who bustled himself into importance with the mob of
the Irish metropolis ; and after a life of clamour, fac-
tion, and persevering folly; of the demand of rights
that were worth nothing, and the complaint of wrongs
that existed only in his own brain; died in the odour
of rabble sanctity, leaving his debts and liis family as
his bequest to popular benefaction.
The observant spirit, and philosophical turn of Burke's
early mind, are evinced in a correspondence which
he held with an Irish friend. He remarks, on his pas-
sage to the metropolis — " The prospects could not fail
to attract the attention of the most indifferent; country
seats sprinkled round me on every side, some in the
n)odern taste, some in the style of old De Coverley
Hall, all smiling on the neat but humble cottage;
ARRIVAL IN LONDON. 11
every villao'e as neat and compact as a bee-hive, re-
sounding with the busy hum of industry; and inns like
palaces."
He then sketches the mighty City, intelligently, yet
with the ambitious and antithetical touch of clever in-
experience — " the buildings are very tine; it may be
called the Pink of Vice ; but its hospitals and chari-
table institutions, whose turrets pierce the skies, like
so many electrical conductors, avert the wrath of Hea-
ven. Its inhabitants may be divided into two classes,
the undoers and the undone ! An Englishman is cold
and distant at Hrst ; he is cautious even in forming an
acquaintance : he must know you well before ho en-
ters into friendship with you ; but if he does, he is not
the first to dissolve the sacred bond ; in short, a real
Englishman is one who performs more than ho pro-
mises ; in company, he is rather silent ; extremely pru-
dent in his expressions, even in politics, his favourite
topic. The women are not quite so reserved, they
consult their glasses to the best advantage, and as na-
ture is very libcM al in her gifts to their j)ersons, and
even to their minds, it is not easy for a young man to
cscajjc their glances, or to shut his ears to their softly
flowing accents.
" As to the state of learning in this city, you know
I have not been long enough in it to form a i)roper
judgment of the sidtjcct. 1 (b)n't think, however, there
is as much respect paid to a man of letters on this side
of the water, as you imagine. I don't find that genius,
the *rath primrose, that forsaken dies,* is patronised
12 LIFE OF BURKE.
by any of the nobility. So that writers of the first
talents are left to the capricious patronage of the pub-
lic."
All this is like the letter of any other lively obser-
ver. But the passage which follows, fantastic as it is,
is the property of Burke. " Notwithstanding discou-
ragement, literature is cultivated in a high degree —
Poetry raises her enchanting voice to heaven — His-
tory arrests the wings of time in his flight to the gulf
of oblivion — Philosophy, the queen of arts, and the
daughter of Heaven, is daily extending her intellectual
empire — Fancy sports on airy wing, like a meteor on
the bosom of a summer cloud — and even Metaphysics
spins her cobwebs and catches somejiies." His judg-
ment of that great scene, in which he was so early, and
so long to be, distinguished, is curious. " The House
of Commons not unfrequently exhibits explosions of
eloquence, that rise superior to those of Greece and
Rome, even in their proudest days. Yet, after all, a
man will make more by the figures of arithmetic than
the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the trade
wind, and then he may sail secure over the Pactolean
sands."
He then touches on the stage ; which, like every
worshipper of the tradltiontil excellence of the drama,
he concludes to have fallen off utterly from its original
merits ; a complaint renewed in every succeeding age,
and probably with much the same forgetfulness of the
true state of the former. We are to remember, too,
that liiuke's lamentation was in the days of Garrick,
ARRIVAL IN LONDON. 13
Barry, Mrs Yates, and a whole g-alaxy of first-rate
performers ; sustained by the activity, if not the ge-
nius, of such dramatists as Murphy, the elder Colman,
Farquhar, and a long list of ingenious men, who kept
the theatres in continued exertion, and whose labours,
in not a few instances, still survive for the pleasure
and interest of posterity. " As for the stage, it is
sunk, in my opinion, to the lowest degree ; I mean
with regard to the trash that is exhibited on it. But
I don't attribute this to the taste of the audience, for
when Sliakspeare warbles his native wood-notes, the
boxes, pit, and gallery are crowded, and the gods are
true to every word, if properly winged to the heart."
The whole letter is a striking picture of his feelings,
on the subjects most impressive to a young and suscep-
tible mind. " Soon after my arrival in town, I visited
Westminster Abbey. '^I'he moment I entered, I felt
a kind of awe pervade my mind, which I cannot de-
scribe ; the very silence seemed sacred. * * * Some
would Imagine that all those monuments were so many
monuments of folly. I don't think so. What useful
lessons of morality and kouihI jdiilusophy do they not
exhibit ! W'licn the high born b(;aiity surveys her face
in the polished Parian, tliough dumb the marble, yet
it tells her that it was placed to guard the remains of
as fine a form, and as fair a face as her own. They
bhew, besides, how anxious we are to extend our loves
and friendships beyond the grave, and to snatch as
much as we can from oblivion, such i;t our natural love
of immortality. But it is here that letters obtain their
14 LIFE OF BURKE.
noblest triumph ; it is here that the swarthy daughters
of Ciichnus may liang their trophies on high. For
wlicn all the pride of" the chisel, and the pomp of
heraldry, yield to the silent touches of time, a single
line, a half-worn out inscription, remain faithful to
their trust. Blest be the man who first introduced
these strangers into our islands, and may they never
want protection or merit. I have not the least doubt,
that the finest poem in the English language, I mean
Milton's II Penseroso, was composed in the long re-
sounding aisle of a mouldering cloister or ivyed abbey.
Yet, after all, do you know that I would rather sleep
in the southern corner of a little country churchyard,
than in the tomb of the Capulets ? I should like, how-
ever, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust.
The good old expression, ' family burying-ground,'
has something pleasing in it, at least to me."
At this period he appears to have spent some time
in rambling through England, for his recovery from a
tendency to consumption ; and to have lingered away
the rest of his hours in desultory reading. He thus
passed, or perhaps wasted, the years from 1730 to
1753. But such a mind must have had many mis-
givings in such a course, and be was at length stimu-
lated to tfi'urt, by the vacancy of the Professorship of
logic in Glasgow. The founder, or the earliest or-
nament, of the metaphysical school of Scotland, was
an Irishman, Francis Hutcheson. This circumstance
might have appeared to Burke as offering some en-
couragement to an attempt, whose immediate motives,
PROPOSES TO GO TO AMERICA. 15
whether want of money, or want of occupation, must
now be sought lor in vain. The attempt itself has
been disputed ; but it is fully established by evidence,
that in 1752, or 1753, he was a candidate for the chair
of Logic in Glasg-ow ; fortunately for his own re-
nown, and the reverse for that of the electors and the
college, he was an unsuccessful one. His triumphant
rival was a name, whose laurels seem to have been
limited to Glasgfow, a Mr James Clow.
He had already given up the bar; whether through
11 health, disinclination to the severe restrictions of its
first steps, or the miscellaneous style of life and study
which had become favourite and familiar with him.
He supped and talked at the Grecian CofFee-house,
then the evening resource of all the clever idlers of
the Inns of Court. He was asked to dinner by Gar-
rick, then delighting all the world, and whoso civilities
must have been highly flattering to an obscure Irish
student. He made an occasional trial of his powers
in old Mackliu's Debating Society; and in the inter-
vals of his leisure he is said to have employed himself
in joining the general war of pamphlets against the
Newcastle Administration.
But this rambling life must have been insuflicient
f(»r the vigour of Burke's mind ; itcoidd scarcely have
received much approbation from his jiulgment. The
idea of shifting the; scene altogether at length occur-
red to him ; and the prospect of an ajjpointment in
Americ.1, seems to have engrossed him for a while.
But liib father's dislike to the idea of his lo(diing for
16 LIFE OF BURKE.
fortune in lands so remote from Ireland, checked this
cherished object ; and Burke, in a letter which begins
with " Honoured sir," and expresses with his usual
grace the feelings of a gentle and dutiful spirit, gave
up the design.
He still lingered two years longer ; unknown, but not
idle ; for at the end of three years, in 1 756, he publish-
ed his " Vindication of Natural Society," and his cele-
brated " Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful."
The " Vindication" deserves praise for its authorship,
panegyric for its intention. Bolingbroke had given
from }outh to age, the unhappy example of genius ren-
dered useless, rank degraded, and opportunities thrown
away. Gifted with powers which might have raised,
or sustained, the fortunes of empire, his youth was dis-
tinguished only by systematic vice, his manhood by
unprincipled ambition, and his age by callous infideli-
ty. His life is yet to be written ; and it would form
an unrivalled lesson to those who solicit Avorldly dis-
tinction by giving popularity to crime. It would show
the profligate statesman defeated in all his objects, and
the still more profiigate champion of unbelief alike
stung by the censures and the neglect of wiser man-
kind. Burke's would have been the pen to have done
justice to such a subject. We should have seen his
fine sagacity detecting the courtly insidiousness, the
smiling hostility, and the inveterate malice of the enemy
alike of government and religion. His heart would have
taught him to brand the sullen rage of the infidel, his
loyalty to expose the restless disaffection of the rebel,
ATTACKS BOLINOBROKE. 17
and his sense of virtue to scourge the impurity of the
man of the passions. Burke's singular knowledge of
past puhlic transactions, and his personal experience of
the life of statesmen, would have given the force of
maxims to his conclusions ; and in the punishment of
this showy impostor, we should have had the most
eloquent, majestic, and instructive of all lessons to the
rising mind of nations.
The " Vindication" was an attack, less on Boling-
broke's Jacohite politics, than on his irreligion. A
gross and pernicious scorn of all the truths wliich man
should hold sacred, had been the fashion of the age.
It had been generated among the misty metaphysics
of Germany, and rapidly swelled to its full growth in
the public and personal licentiousness of the court of
France. From France, England, disdaining to borrow
the meanest implement for the meanest uses of life, had
stooped to borrow the favourite notions of party in the
State, and in the Church. Bolingbroke, exiled for
his political intrigues, filled up the dreariness of his so-
litude by copying French intidclity ; and paid his debt
of gratitude to England by preparing the poisons of
Berlin and Paris for the lips of his countrymen. It
was to the honour of Hiu'ke, that, in his youth, and in
the midst of a general delusion f)f all who constituted
the leaders of public taste, he should sacredly discern
where the truth lay, and nianl'ully came (ortli armed
in its cause. His process was unanswer.ilile. Nomi-
nally adopting the tenets of Holiiigb okc, he pushed
them on tc; [)ractiral absurdit). -^pp'yi'ig 'o sofiety
YOL. I. u
18 LIFE OF BURKE.
the modes of argument which the infidel liad applied
to relig-ion, he showed that thej' justified ahsuvdities
against which common sense revolts, and crimes against
which the common safety arms itself; that the plea
which might serve to overthrow Christianity, would
be equally forcible against the existence of order ; and
that the perfection of the infidel system would reason
mankind into the uselessness of a Monarchy, as rapidly
as into the burden of a Revelation.
In a passage, which seems to come glowing from
the pen of Bolingbroke in his hour of triumph, his
young antagonist thus happily at once seizes on the
sounding amplification of his style, and ridicules the
philosophical folly of his argument :
" In looking over any state, to form a judgment on
it, it presents itself in two lights, the external and the
internal. The first, that relation which it bears in point
of enmity or friendship to other states. The second,
that relation which its component parts, the governors
and the governed, bear to each other. * * * * The
glaring side of all national history is enmity. The
only actions on which we have seen, and always will
see all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruc-
tion of one another. ' War,' says Machiavel, * ought
to be the only study of a prince ;' and by a prince he
means every sort of state, however constituted. ' He
ought,' says this great political doctor, ' to consider
peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him lei-
sure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute mili-
tary plans.' A meditation on the conduct of political
ATTACKS BOLINGBItOKE. 19
societies made old Hobbos Imagine tliat war was the
state of nature ; and trul}-, if a man judged of the in-
dividuals of our race by their conduct when united and
packed into nations and kingdoms, he might imagine
that every sort of virtue was foreign and unnatural to
the mind of man.
" The first accounts which we have of mankind are
but so many accounts of their butcheries. All empires
have been cemented in blood ; and in these early ages,
when the race of mankind began first to form them-
selves into parties and combinations, the first effects of
the combination, and indeed the end for which it seems
purposely formed and best calculated, was their mu-
tual destruction. All ancient history is dark and un-
certain. One thing, however, is clear : There were
conquerors and conquests in those days, and conse-
qiiently all that devastation by which they are formed,
and all that oppression by which they are maintained.
We know little of Sesostris, but that he led out of
Egypt an army of above 700,000 men ; that he over-
ran the Mediterranean coast as far as Colchis ; that In
some places he met l)ut little resistance, and of course
hhod not a great deal of blood, but that lie found In
others a people who knew the value of their liberties,
and sold them (\v.av. Whoever considers the army
which this coiujuoror headed, the space he traversed,
and the opposition he freq\iently met, wilh the natural
accidents {»f sickness, and the dearfh and badness of
provision to whidi lie )iiii-l have been subjrcl in the
variety of climates and countries his march lay through
20 LIFE OF BURKE
— if he knows any thing-, he must know that even the
conqueror's army must luive suffered greatly. It will
be far from excess to suppose that one-half was lost in
the expedition. If this was the state of the victorious
the vanquished must have had a much heavier loss, as
the greatest slaughter is always in the flight ; and
great carnage did in those times and countries ever at-
tend the first rage of conquest. It will therefore be
very reasonable to allow on their account as much as,
added to the losses of the conquerors, may amount to
a million of deaths. And then we shall see this con-
queror, the oldest whom we have on record, opening
the scene by the destruction of at least one million of
his species, unprovoked but by his ambition, without
any motives but pride, cruelty, and madness, and with-
out any benefit to himself, (for Justin expressly tell us
he did not maintain his conquest,) but solely to make
so many people in so distant countries feel experi-
mentally how severe a scourge Providence intends for
the human race, when it gives one man the power over
many, and arms his naturally impotent and feeble rage
Avith the hands of millions, who know no common
principle of action, but a blind obedience to the pas-
sions of their ruler."
Thus pursuing his way through ancient history, and
still designating it as one common display of misery
and massacre ; the whole resulting from the facts that
society exists, and that it has rulers at its head ; he
comes to the scene which Europe exhibited on the fall
of the great tyrant dynasty of Rome. " There have
ATTACKS BOLINGBUOKE. 21
been periods when no less than nniversal destruction
to the race of mankind seems to have been threatened.
Such was that, when the Goths, the Vandals, and tlie
Huns, poured into Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, and
Africa, carrying destruction with them as they ad-
vanced, and leaving horrid deserts everywhere behind
them. ' Vastum ubique silentium, secret! coUes, fu-
raantia procul tecta, nemo exploratoribus obvius,' is
Avhat Tacitus calls ' facies victoria?.' It was always
80 ; but here it was emphatically so. From the north
proceeded the swarms of Goths, Vandals, Huns, Os-
trogoths, who ran towards the south into Africa itself,
which suffered as all to the north had done. About
this time, another torrent of barbarians, animated by
the same fury, and encouraged by the same success,
poured out of the south, and ravaged all to the north-
east and west, to the remotest parts of Persia on one
hand, and to the banks of the Loire on the other, de-
stroying all the proud and curious monuments of hu-
man art, that not even the memory of tiie former in-
habitants might survive. ♦ • * ♦ J s|,;,ii only, iu one
word, mention the horrid effects of bigotry and ava-
rice in the conquest of Sj)anish America ; a con«juest,
on a low estimation, effected by the nnu-dcr of ten
miUions of the species. * * * * J need not enhirge
on the torrents of silent and inglorious blood wbicfi
have glutted the tiiirsty sands of Afric, or discoloured
the polar snow, or fed the savage forests of Amcrictt
for so many ages of cf)ntinual u ar. * * • * I go
upon a naked and moderate calculation, just enough,
t>2 LIFE OF BURKE.
without a pedantical exactness, to give your lordsliip
some feeling- of the effects of political society. I charge
the whole of those effects upon political society. The
numhers I particularized amount to about thirty-six
millions. * * * * In a state of nature, it had becu
impossible to find a number of men sufficient for
such slaughters, agreed in the same bloody purpose.
Society and politics, which have given us such de-
structive views, have given us also the means of sa-
tisfying them. * * * * How far mere nature would
have carried us, we may judge by the example of those
animals which still follow her laws, and even of those
to which she has given dispositions more fierce, and
arms more terrible than any ever she intended we
should use. It is an incontestlble truth, that there is
more havoc made in one year by men of men, than has
been made by all the lions, tigers, panthers, ounces,
leopards, hysenas, rhinoceroses, elephants, bears, and
wolves upon their several species, since the beginning
of the world, though those agree ill enough with each
other, and have a much greater proportion of rage
and fury in their composition than we have. But with
respect to you, ye legislators, ye civilizers of mankind,
ye Orpheuses, Minoses, Solons, Theseuses, Lycur-
guses, Numas, your regulations have done more mis-
chief in cold blood, than all the rage of the fiercest
animals in their greatest terrors or furies has ever
done, or ever could do."
He then, from a long and detailed examination of
the chief provisions and orders of sociely, draws the
ATTACKS BOLINGBROKi:. 23
conclusion; that man Is a loser by association with his
kind, by government, by jurisprudence, by commerce,
by every shape and step of civilisation ! Of course, this
conclusion revolts common sense ; and the wildest de-
clairaer against religion will protest against thus send-
ing man back to the forest, and stripping him of all the
advantages of society, on account of the disadvantages.
He will protest against arguingfrom the abuse of society
in the rule of a certain number of violent men, to its
vast, general, and beneficial uses to the infinite multi-
tude. But the same protest is as directly applicable
to the rejection of religion on account of the casual
evils connected with its progress, the religious wars
fomented by human passions, the corrupt practices of
venal priests, the tyranny of jealous persecutors, the
guilty artifice, or the blinding superstition. If the
essential good is to be rejected for the sake of the ac-
cidental evil ; civilisation must be cast away, as well
as religion. But if the mighty stock of human
good which religion bequeathes to mankind, the im-
measurable consolations, the high motives, the pure
guidance, the noble and perpetual stimulants reaching
through all the depths of the human race, reaching too
through them all undebascd by human guilt, and main-
taining the connexion of man in all his grades uiili
Deity, arc to weigh heavier in the balance than the
mere human abuses of religion; then let us acknou'-
ledgc that the infidel is not simply weak, but criminal,
that he shuts his eyes against light for the love of dark'
24 LIFE or BURKE.
ness, and that he is convicted of folly by all that re-
mains to him of reason.
The concluding fragment of the essay is striking, as
an evidence of the early period at which Burke had
matured his pen. The style is no longer the fantastic
and figurative declamation of Bolingbroke ; it is Burke,
as he stood before the world in the latest days of his
triumph over the atheistic and revolutionary impulses
of Europe ; strong, yet dignified ; energetic, yet cloth-
ed in the garb of that philosophic melancholy, which
afterwards impressed his practical wisdom so power-
fully upon the general heart.
He speaks in the person of Bolingbroke to a friend.
" You are but just entering into the world. I am
going out of it. I have played long enough to be
heartily sick of the drama. Whether I have acted my
part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more
candour than I, or than the present age, with our pre-
sent passions, can possibly pretend to. For my part,
I quit it without a sigh, and submit to the sovereign
order without murmuring. The nearer we approach
to the goal of life, the better we begin to understand
the true value of our existence, and the real weight of
our opinions. We set out, much in love with both,
but we leave much behind us as we advance. But the
passions which press our opinions are withdrawn, one
after another, and the cool light of reason, at the set-
ting of our life, shows us what a false splendour played
upon those objects of our more sanguine seasons."
This tract is remarkable for its declaration of opi-
ATTACKS BOLINGBUOKE. 25
nions on the right side, when it was the pride of every
man who pretended to literature, to stand on the
wrong. But it is scarcely less reniarkahle, as actually
forming- the model of much of that revolutionary writ-
ing, which so recklessly laboured to inflame the popu-
lar passions, on the first burst of the French insurgen-
cy. Burke, in his virtuous ridicule, had involuntarily
prepared an armoury for Paine in his profligate serious-
ness. The contemptuous flights of the great orator
had pointed out the way for the Jacobin to ascend to
the assault of all that we were ciccustomed to reve-
rence and value. The burlesque charges of feeble
government, misjudging law, ministerial weaknesses,
and national prejudices, were eagerly adopted by the
champions of overthrow, as irrefragable arguments
against the altar and the throne ; and Burke must
have seen with surprise, or increased scorn, the ar-
rows which he had shot out in sport, and for the
mere trial of his boyish strength, gravely gathered up,
and fitted to the Jacobin string, to be used against the
noblest and most essential institutions of the empire.
The essay attracted considerable notice. Chester-
field and VVarburton were said to have regarded it for
awhile as an authentic work of the infidel lord. The
opinion prevailed so far ; tliat Mallet, who, as the re-
siduary legatee of his blaspjjcmies, thought himself the
legitimate d(;fender of his fame, volunteered a pub-
lic disclaimer on the subject ; and the critics were
thencefortii left to wonder on whose shoulders tho
mantle of the noble personage had fallen. Still 13urko
VOL. I. c
26 LIFE OF BURKE.
was unheard of; but his second performance was des-
tined to do justice to his ability. In the same year was
pubUshed the Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful.
No work of its period so suddenly sprang into popu-
larity. The purity, vigour, and grace of its language,
the clearness of its conceptions, and its bold soarings
into the clouds of metaphysics, which, dark and con-
fused as they had rendered all former theory, were
by the flashes of Burke's fine imagiuiition, turned in-
to brightness and beauty, attracted universal praise.
Its author was looked for among the leading veterans
of literature. To the public astonishment, he was found
to be an obscure student of twenty-six, utterly vm-
known, or known only as having attempted a canvass
for a Scottish professorship, and having failed. He
now began to be felt in society. The reputation of
his book preceded him, and he gradually became on a
footing of acquaintance, if not altogether of intimacy,
with some of the more remarkable names connected with
life and literature; the Earl of Bath, Markham, soon
after Archbishop of York, Reynolds, Soame Jenyns,
Lord Littleton, Warburton, Hume, and Johnson. This
was a distinction which implied very striking merits in
so young a man, unassisted by rank or opulence, and
with the original sin of being an Irishman, a formi-
dable disqualification in England fifty years ago. His
treatise had been the pioneer to his storm of the sul-
len rampart of English formality. But, to have not
only climbed there, but made good his lodgment, evi-
dently implies personal merits of no ordinary kind.
Johnson's praise of burke. 27
To good-humoured and cordial manners, and singular
extent and variety of knowledge, he added great
force and elegance of conversation. Johnson's, even
the fastidious Johnson's, opinion of him, is well known,
as placing him already in the very highest rank of in-
tellectual companionship. — " Burke, sir ;" said he, " is
an extraordinary man, his stream of talk is perpetual."
Another of his dicta was, " Burke's talk is the ehulli-
tion of his mind ; he does not talk from a desire of
distinction, but because his mind is full." — " Burke is
the onhj man whose common conversation corresponds
with the general fame which he has in the world.
Take up whatever topic you please, he is ready to meet
you." In another instance, where some one had been
paying Johnson himself the tribute due to his memo-
rable powers, he again gave the palm to his friend.
" Burke, sir, is such a man, that if you meet him for
the first time, in the street, where you were stopped
by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped tiside for
shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a
manner, that when you parted, you would say, — that
is an extraordinary man. Now, Sir, you may be long
enoiigii with me, without finding any thing extraordi-
nary."
A portion of this fortunate quality must he attributed
to his fondness for general sfiuly, and to the vigorous
memory by which he retained all that he had accjuir-
ed. But a nnuh larger portion nmst be due to that
salient and glowing power ot thought, that vivid men-
tal seizure, by wliich all his knowledge became a
28 LIFE OF BUUKE.
member ofliis mind; that elective attraction for all
that was original, brilliant, and intellectual, by which
ever)- new acquisition resolved itself into an increase,
not of his intellectual burden, but of the essential ac-
tivity and strength of his faculties. He had a great
assimilating mind.
Johnson's often-recorded expression, " that no man
of sense would meet Mr Burke by accident under a
gateway, to avoid a shower, without being convinced
that he was the first man in England," once found a di-
rect and amusing illustration in the testimony of an
utter stranger. Burke, in passing through Litchtield,
had gone with a friend to look at the cathedral, while
the horses were changing. One of the clergy, seeing
two gentlemen somewhat at a loss in this noble build-
ing, politely volunteered as their cicerone. The con-
versation flowed, and he was speedily struck with sur-
prise at the knowledge of one of the travellers. In
his subsequent account of the adventure to some friends,
who met him on his return, " I have been convers-
ing," said he, " for this half hour, with a man of the
most extraordinary powers of mind, and extent of in-
formation, which it has ever been my fortune to meet,
and I am now going to the inn to ascertain, if possible,
who the wonder is." The traveller had completely
overlaid the cicerone, even in his local knowledge.
On every topic which came before them, whether the
architecture, history, remains, income, or learning of
the cathedral, or persecutions, lives, and achievements
of its ancient chapter, he had been boundless in
Johnson's praise of burke. 29
anecdote and illustration. The eleroyman's surprise
was fully accounted for, by being- told at the inn that
this singular companion was " Mr Burke," and the ge-
neral regret of all to whom he mentioned the circum-
stance, was, that the name had not been known in time
for them to have taken advantage of so high a gratifi-
cation.
But, for three years more, this memorable man was
confined to the struggles of private life. He was still
actively, though obscurely, employed in writing or
editing a" History of the European Settlements in Ame-
rica," in seven solid volumes, which obtained but slight
public notice ; in laying the foundations of a History of
England, which, however, never reached beyond a few
sheets ; and in establishing, in 175b, in conjunction with
Dodsley, the Annual Register. But in this work, the
genius of the author wears a disguhe. We look in vain
forthe fire and fancy, which seemed to be essentials of his
authorship. And one of the most remarkable features
of the whole performance, is the strong self-denial with
which the pbilosojiluu- and llu; orator li;i(l already learn-
ed to tame down the ardour of his mind. But the work
was judiciousand manly: it came forth too at a time w lieu
the public re<|uire(l soujething higher I ban a chronicle
of the passing day; and, like all works which lill up a
chasm in j)ublic curiosity, it succeeded to a remarkable
e.vtent. I' ivc or six (!(litioiis of'tlii! earlier volumes were
rapidly received. Still, income from such sources must
be precarious. He had now married, had a son ; yet he
had hitiierto made no advance in an actual provision for
30 LIFE OF BURKE.
life ; and a few years more of the natural toils which
beset a man left to his own exertions for the support
of a family, would probably have driven him to Ame-
rica, his old and favourite speculation against the
frowns of fortune in Europe. At length the life for
which he was made, the stirring and elevated interests
of political and parliamentary distinction, appeared to
open before him. He owed this change to an Irish-
man, the Earl of Chai*lemont.
Ireland still remembers the name of that estima-
ble person with gratitude. A narrow fortune, and
reluctant public abilities, did not prevent him from
being a great public benefactor. He was the en-
courager of every plan for national advantage, the
patron of literature, the head of the chief literary
institution of Ireland, and of every other, tend-
ing to promote the good of the country. Though
living much on the Continent, and in England, in
early life, and long associated with all that was emi-
nent in rank and talents in Great Britain, he generous-
ly and honestly fixed his residence on his native soil,
tui'bulent as it was, remote from all the scenes conge-
nial to his habits, and perplexed with furious party.
For this determination, he seems to have had no other
ground than a sense of duty. And he had his reward.
No man in Ireland was ever reverenced with such une-
quivocal public honour. In all the warfare of party, no
shaft ever struck his pure and lofty crest. Old con-
nexions, and the custom of the time, which made every
man of independent fortune enter public life on the side
EARL OF CHARLEMONT. 31
of opposition, designated him a Whig. But no man
less bowed to partisanship, no man more clearly wash-
ed the stains of faction from his hands, no man was fur-
ther from the insanity of revolution. With gentle,
but manly firmness, he repelled popularity ; from the
moment when it demanded his principles as its pur-
chase. With generous, but indignant scorn, he raised
up his voice equally against the insidious zeal which
would substitute an affected love of country for pa-
triotism ; and the insurrectionary rage which would
cast off the mild dominion of England, for the licence of
democracy at home. He finally experienced the fate
of all men of honour thrown into the midst of faction.
His directness was a tacit reproach to its obli<iuity ; as
his simple honour was felt to be a libel on its ostenta-
tious hypocrisy. He had been elected by public ac-
clamation, to the command of the Irish Volunteers, a
self-raised army of 100,000 men. He had conducted
this powerful and perilous force through an anxious
time, without collision with the government, or with
the people. But, when I'rench principles began to in-
fest its ranks, he remonstrated ; the remonstrance was
retorted in a threat of the loss of his popularity ; he
embraced the alternative of a man of honour, and re-
signed. But the resignation was fat;d to his threaten-
ers. Wlu'u be laid the staff out of his hands, be laid
down with it the credit of the \'olunt(>crs. They lost
the national coniuUnicc. from that moment. Uutb- and
violent agiUitors first usurped the power, thendividedit,
and then fjuarrelled for the division. The glaring evil
3'2 LIFE OF BURKE.
of the bayonet drawn for political objects, startled
the common sense of the country, and drove it to take
reftig-e with the minister. The National army, which
had been raised amid the shouts of the nation, was now
cashiered by its universal outcr3\ The agitators
went down among the common wreck; and, in the
universal swell and uproar of the popular mind, the
fame and virtues of the venerable commander of the
Volunteers, alone floated undiminished to the shore.
But, if for one quality alone, the name of this noble-
man ouoht to be held in memory. Perhaps no other
public individual of his day extended such prompt and
honourable protection to men of ability, in their ad vance-
ment in the various ways of life. He had two boroughs
at his command in the Irish House of Commons, and
in all the venality which so daringly distinguished
partisanship in that House, no one ever heard of the
sale of the boroughs of Lord Charlemont. He applied
his influence to the high-minded purpose of introdu-
cing men of talents into the Legislature.
An accidental intercourse with Burke, chiefly in
consequence of the character which he derived from
the treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful; induced
this nobleman to serve his interests, by a connexion
with the Secretary for Ireland, so well known by the
name of single-speech Hamilton.
Hamilton's character is a problem to this hour. A
single efl'ort of eloquence had placed him among the
hopes of the British senate. He never repeated it.
Its reputation, and the friendship of Lord Halifax,
SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTON. 33
then President of the Board of Trade, made him a
member of the Board in 1756. But Hamilton still con-
tinued silent. In four years after, he was made Secre-
tary for Ireland, on the appointment of his noble friend
as Lord Lieutenant. In the Irish House, the neces-
sities of his situation, as Prime Minister of the Vice-
royalty, overcame his nervousness, and he spoke, on
several occasions, with effect. But, on his return to
the English Parliament, his powers were again shut
up ; and, by a strange pusillanimity, a tenderness of
oratorical repute, unworthy of the member of an
English public assembly ; during the remainder of his
life, his voice was never heard. Yet, probably no
man led a more anxious and self-condemning life.
During this period, public distinction, and distinction
peculiarly by eloquence, seems to have never left his
thoughts. He compiled, he wrot»^ lu; made common-
places of rhet(»ric, he was perpetually preparing for
the grand explosion, to which he was never to lay
the triiin. He saw, an<l we may well suppose with
\vli;it bitter stings to his vanity, the contemporaries
whose talents lie bad scorned, hastening on in the
path which he longed yet feared to tread, and snatch-
ing the laurels that had onc(! bung down, soliciting
his hand. He saw a new generation start np while
he pondered, enter upon contests whoso magnitude
rendercMl all tlu* past trivial, and display powers which
threw the mere rhetorician bopcb'ssly into the shade.
Still be continued criticising, preparing for the great
effort that was never to be made, and calculating on
34 LIFE OF BURKE.
the fame which he had ah-eady sufTcred finally to
escape ; until he sank out of the remerahranco of so-
ciety, and dwindled into the grave. Literary history
has seldom afforded an example of self-opinion so com-
pletely its own punisher ; his extravagant sense of the
merit of a single effort, strangled every effort to come;
he was stifled in his own fame; his vanity was suicidal.
With a superior of this order, jealous, anxious, and
severe, it was impossible that Burke's open tempera-
ment, and gallant dependence on his own powers, should
long cordially agree. At the end of two years, he sud-
denly abandoned the private secretaryship ; to which
he declared that Hamilton, in the spirit of tyranny,
had annexed degrading conditions; and in 1763 re-
turned indignantly to England, to take the chances of
beginning the world again.
CHAPTER II.
Burke appointed Private Secretary to Rockingham — Member for
Wendover — His first Speech — Chatham's Ministry — Picture of
Party.
But the world on \Yliicli he now fixed his eyes, wore
a different aspect from the humble and cheerless scene
which he had so long- contemplated in his closet. His
Irish Secretaryship had made him feel his faculties for
public life ; it had thrown him on those waves which
mifht waft him on to the most brilliant fortune. It
had invigorated every muscle of his mind by the prac-
tical labours of othce. Those two years, toilsome as
they were in the passing, and painful in the recollec-
tion, had made him a statesman ! He was tlicncefor-
ward marked with tlie stamp of puljlic life. Wc hear
no more day-dreams of meianclioly inch'pendence in
America. From this moment, he was connnitted to
the cause in Knghmd. He buckled on his g(dden ar-
mour, and entered the lists for life, within llie realm
which no inan more contributed to a<lorn ami (o save.
Within two years after his return from Ireland, he
commenced this career. In 17G5, the Marquis of
•J(3 LIFE OF BURKE.
Rockinoham was appointed Premier. Burke was re-
coniineiuled to him as private secretary, and the Mi-
nister ghidly availed himself of the services of a man,
already so distinguished for literary excellence and of-
ficial conduct. This reconmiendation, equally fortu-
nate on both sides, was chicHy due to Mr Fitzher-
bert, a man of birth and accomplishment, who had
known Burke at Johnson's celebrated club. Of Filz-
herbert himself, Johnson has left the following- graphic
sketch : — " There was no sparkle, no brilliancy in
Fitzherbert ; but 1 never knew a man who was so ge-
nerally acceptable. He made every body perfectly easy,
overpowered nobody by the superiority of his talents,
made no man think the worse of himself by being- his
rival, seemed always to listen, did not oblige you to
hear much from him, and did not oppose what you
said." Can conversational praise go higher ?
Burke's tardy progress to the position for which
nature, g-enius, and acquirement had formed him, is
another among the thousand proofs of the fallacy, that
talents make their own fortune. We see, in his in-
stance, a man of the highest abilities, with those abi-
lities directed to the express labours of public life, as-
sociating- with a round of leading persons in life and
literature, blameless in his private conduct, undegrad-
ed by pecuniary difficulty, ardent in spirit, and giving
evidence of admirable qualities for the service of the
state ; and yet this man of talent and diligence, of vi-
gorous learning and public virtue, left to linger in ob-
scurity for ten of the most vivid years of his being;
SECRIIWIIY TO ROCKlNcniAM. 37
adniired yet overlooked, applauded yet neglected, down
to tlie point of abandoning- England, and fixing him-
self a reluctant exile in the wilderness. We see
him rescued from this fate by the mere accident of
club companionship — indebted for the whole change in
his prospects, for the interposition between eminence
in England and banishment in America, to the casual
civility of a fashionable man of conversation.
The evident truth is, that genius is Jiot the quality
for public fortune. It is too tine, too fastidious,
too delicate in its sense of degradation, and too proud
in its estimate of its own powers, to take the bitter
and humiliating chances of the world alone. It has
the talon, and the wing, and the eye that drinks in
the congenial splendours of the sun. But those very
attributes and organs are its disqualifications for the
work that must be done by the mole-eyed and subter-
ranean routine of public lil'c. This is the character of all
long established governments. Public employ, the ob-
ject of the most generous of all ambitions, is surround-
ed with a system of artificial obstacles, a circumvalla-
tion of dependence, thr(jug!i which no man can make
his way by his single strenglli. Patronage holds the
key of tlie portal. Family influence, personal con-
nexion, private obligation, all must sign the passport
that admits the nciv man within the lines and ram-
parts of this singularly jealous and keenly guarded cita-
del. If is only in the great general changes of the
state, in the mid>t of mighty r(!Volutions, and sweeping
overthrows of established authority, when the old Inil-
38 LIFE OF BURKE.
warks are broken down into fragments, and all lies
naked to the step; that young vigour can despise an-
cient vigilance, force its way over the ruins, and be
master, in its own right; indebted but to its own soli-
tary prowess and self-dependent energy.
Yet all may be for the best. Even in the re-
straints laid upon the saliency of genius, there maybe
that larger good, which redounds in securing states
from rash ambition, the besetting sin of powerful minds.
It may be useful, even to the productive services of
such minds, that they should undergo in part the train-
ing which belongs to delay and disappointment. The
pride of talent may be wisely taught, that the feelings
of a race whose mediocrity it would be ready to trample
under its feet, that the common-places and formali-
ties of the system, that even the feeble prejudices
which grow up round institutions, like the moss and
Avild blossoms, harmless ornaments round the walls
of our castles, are entitled to some share of its regard;
that there are other ministers of good on earth than
the impetuous stride and burning glance of genius;
that the general genial harvests of social life are not to
be ploughed in by the lightning, nor reaped by the
whirlwind. At least, we may well rejoice in the alter-
native, which leaves us the tjuiet of society, undisturb-
ed by revolution. To pass in peace through life is the
first gift of government to nations. A few " bright
particular stars" may thus be lost to the national eye, —
flashing for a moment, and then sunk below the hori-
zon for ever. But we may well be content with a sky
MEMBER FOR WENDOVER. 39
which gives us the light of day, and the seasons in
their time ; unstartled by the terrors or the wonders of
those flaming- phenomena which, if tliey descend to in-
crease the splendour, may come to shock the harmony
of the sphere.
Burke was now brought into Parliament for Wen-
dover, in Buckinghamshire, by the influence of Lord
Verney, and on July the 17th, 1765, received his ap-
pointment, as private secretary to the Minister. Yet
even at this moment his fortunes were on the verge of
wreck. His country operated against him ; and, as in
the crude conceptions of the English populace, every
Irishman must he a Roman Catholic and a Jacobite ; the
old Duke of Newcastle, a man who through life exhi-
bited the most curious combination of acutenessand ab-
surdity, of address in office, and eccentricity every-
where else; instantly adopting the wisdom of the coffee-
houses, hurried to the Marquis of Rockingham, to pro-
test against his bringing this firebrand into the maga-
zine of gunpowder which then composed the Ministry.
The Martpiis, a simple man, was terrified at what he
had done; but a Ktraightlorward one, lie had the manli-
ness to mention the statement inmiediately to liis new
associate. Burke, probably not without some con-
tempt for the uu(h'rstauding8 of both tlie iu)ble Lords,
satisfactorily shewed that it was even possible to be an
Irishman atul a I'rotestaut at the same time ; and refer-
ring to his career in his College, where he had obtain-
ed a scholarship, — an honour rcser\('d ex|)ressly for
Protestant students, — he at length succeedeil in ap-
40 LITE OF BURKE.
peaslnfT' the trppidations of (he two Ministers, and esta-
blishing- the facts, — that, being a Protestant gentleman
by birth, he was not a Jesuit; and being educated in the
Irish University for the bar, he was not educated at St
Omers for the priesthood.
But it may be easily conceived, that this rapidity of
suspicion was not palatable to the feeling-s of the indi-
vidual. He instantly retorted upon the Premier ; and
declared, that to retain office was thenceforth incompa-
tible with his honour ; that suspicion so easily roused
and so readily adopted, would naturally introduce re-
serve into their intercourse ; and that conceiving a
half confidence to be worse than none, he must imme-
diately resign. The Marquis listened ; but he was a
native English gentleman ; the dignity of conscious spi-
rit and virtue in Burke attracted only his applause.
He desired that the subject should be entirely forgot-
ten, professed himself more than ever gratified by the
manliness of his conduct, and refused to hear of his re-
signation. Burke, of course, gave way to this generous
refusal ; and proved himself worthy of the most perfect
confidence, by his zeal and services during the life of
his noble friend, and by many an eloquent tribute to his
grave. In one of his speeches in Parliament, several
years after the death of the Marquis, he thus feelingly
alluded to his appointment and his patron : —
" In the year sixty-five, being in a very private sta-
tion, far enough from any idea of business, and not hav-
ing the honour of a seat in this House, it was my for-
tune, unknowing and unknown to the then Ministry,
Chatham's ministry. 41
by the intervention of a common friend, to become con-
nected with a very noble person at the head of the
Treasury department. It was indeed in a situation of
little rank and of no consequence, suitable to the me-
diocrity of my talents and pretensions ; but a situation
near enough to enable me to see, as well as others,
what was going; on. And I did see in this noble per-
son such sound principles, such an enlargement of
mind, such clear and sagacious sense, and such un-
shaken fortitude; as bound me, as well as others bet-
ter than me, by an inviolable attachment to him from
that time forward."
The new JNlinistry opened the session of Pai'liament
on the 14th of .January 1766. Burke immediately
shewed the value of his accession. His first speech
was on American aftairs, and his force, fancy, and in-
formation astonished the House. Pitt, (Lord Cha-
tham,) whose praise was fame, followed him in the de-
bate, and pronounced a panegyric (a most unusual con-
descension) on the new orator. He observed that,
" the young mendjer had proved himself a very able ad-
vocate. He had himself intended to enter at length
into the details, but lie li;id Ix-en anticipated with so
much iiig(!n\jify :ind cldciuciiee, that there was little
left for him to say. He congratulatcul him on his suc-
cess, and his friends «)m I Ik; value of the accpiisition
\vljicli till y had made."
'i'he stirring limes through which we have ]>assed,
and tlu! still more stirring times which seem to lie be-
fore us, throw an air of li^ilitncss over transactions
VOL. r. u
42 LIFE OF BURKE.
deemed momentous in the days of our fathers. The
last quarter of a century shoots up between, like the
pillar of the Israelites, covering- all behind us with
cloud, and all before us with tlame. We have become
accustomed in all things to a larger wielding of power,
for larger consequences, — not armies but nations
marching- into the field — not empires but continents
convulsed with overthrow, or rejoicing in the fracture
of their chains, — conspiracies of kingdoms, and tri-
umphs of the woi'ld. To us the strifes of domestic
party, which excited the passions of our ancestors, have
the look of child's play; and we hear the angry declama-
tion and the prophetic menace, with something not far
from scorn for the men who uttered and the men who
believed. The whole has too much the air of a battle
on the stage. And it must be acknowleged, that the
mimic spirit of the hostility Avas well authenticated, in
the perpetual changes of the actors, in the rapid shift-
ings of their costume, in their adoption, night after
night, of new characters, and their being constant
to nothing but a determination to be always before
the public, until age or national contempt drove
them from the scene.
But other things and other times are in reserve for
their offspring. We already see the gathering of
storms that shall try the strength of every institution of
England, and mankind. A new evil has been let
loose upon the earth, from a darker source than any
that the timid crimes, or colourless follies, of past ages
ever opened. French Jacobinism has spread through
PICTURE OF PARTY. 43
the world. Its Babel has been cast down in France
J
but the fall has diminished nothino- of its malignity, and
nothing of its power. Its confusion of tongues there,
has only inducted it into the knowledge of every lan-
guage on earth ; and the scattered strength of atheism
and revolt has gone forth to propagate the kingdom of
violence, and the idolatry of the passions, round the
globe. The multitude thus in every quarter of the con-
tinent are already in the hands of Jacobinism. A spi-
rit of fantastic and scornful innovation is abroad, mar-
shalling every casual discontent into its levy against the
laws and thrones of all nations. Every complaint of
idleness, of folly, or of fortune, swells the same muster-
roll of grievance, until the array shall be complete, the
signal is given, and with rebellion in the van, and ra-
pine in the rear, the whole sullen host is moved against
the last refuges of government, and religion. Un-
less some hand mightier than that of human champion-
ship drive back the tempter to his dungeon, the ruin of
all that deserves our honiage is inevitable. The rise
or fall of rival administrations will then cease to be a
matter of moment to any living- being, lie their merits
what they may, they will hold their power but by the
caprice of the crowd. If they are virtuous, they will
but raise the scatt'old for themselves ; if they are vi-
cious, they will but wash it w ith the blood of others.
All the old generous impulses of public service, all the
glowing and lofty aspirations which gave men nerve in
their ascent up the steeps of honour, and made the
ruggedncssof the lu'igbt, and the tempests on its brow,
44 LIFE OF BURKE.
only dearer portions of the triumph, will be at an end ;
there will be but one motive to power, pelf, one check
to treason, fear. Successive administrations will be
gathered and dissolved with the rapidity of a snow-
fall. Their rise and progress will be no more noted,
and no more worth being noted, than the floating of
bubbles down the stream. The names of parties will
be equally obnoxious, or equjiUy forgotten. One great
faction will absorb all. A hundred-headed democracy
will usurp the functions of government, and turn cabi-
nets into bureaus for registering the plunder, or tribu-
nals for shedding the blood of the nation.
Is this an imaginary picture of the rule of the mul-
titude? Or is it some sullen remnant dug up from the
sepulchres, where the crimes of antiquity lie, fortu-
nately, hid from the world ? It is a creation of our own
day, its fiery track is felt still throughout every field
of Europe. In France we saw a power, Avhich had no
name in courts or cabinets, start up with the swiftness
of an exhalation, and spread death through the state.
England was saved. A man, of the qualities made for
the high exigencies of empires, guided her councils,
and appealing to the memories and the virtues of the
country, rescued the constitution. Let the successors
to his power be the successors to his intrepidity, and,
no matter by what name they are known, we shall
honour them. No voice shall call their triumph in
question, or be fretfully raised in the general acclama-
tion that follows their car to the temple of victory.
But the day for the old feeble compliances is past in
PICTURE OF PARTY. 45
every kingdom of Europe. The day for stern deter-
mination, prompt vigour, sleepless vigilance, and sacred
fidelity, is come. The materials of revolt are heaped
high, and fermenting in every province of the Conti-
nent. We know the conflagration that is prepared at
home, we have heard the insolent menace of the hun-
dred thousands that are to march with banners flying,
from our manufacturing towns to meet the insurgent
million of the capital, and concoct laws for King, minis-
ters, and nation, under the shadow of the pike. But
we should remember too, how such menaces were met
before ; how the throne was strengthened by the very
blast that was to scatter its fragments through the
world ; how the temple, instead of a ruin, was turned
into an asylum for the grateful virtues of the land;
how the national terror was transmuted into valour
and patriotism; and how, even in the rolling of the
thunders that still shook the continent, England was
taught to see but the agency of a power above man,
armed for the preservation of her empire.
Burke's early diKtinction in rarliaiiunit was the re-
sult of a mind remarkably constituted for public effort ;
but it was also the r«'.sult of that active and masculine
diligence which characterised him through life. Con-
tenjplating statesmanship as holding the highest rank
of intellectual jtursuits, and not unnaturally excited by
the lustre of its rewards, he bad, from an early period,
applied bimscllto (he study of politics. As he advanced
nearer its confines, he had cultivated jjublic sjx'aking,
in some instauces at debating dulis, by attending the
4G LIFE OF BURKE.
debates in the House of Commons, and by making him-
self acquainted with the principal subjects which were
likely to attract discussion. Such was his diligence,
that on the subject which must have been the most re-
pulsive to his imaginative mind, the details of the com-
mercial system, he was soon conceived to be among
the best informed men in England.
This was the day of ministerial revolution — cabi-
nets were abortions. The reign had commenced with
an unpopular ministry, solely sustained by the charac-
ter of the monarch. But no ministry can stand long
on any strength but its own. The King, weary of
upholding the Bute cabinet against its original ten-
dency to go down, at length cast it off, and it sank, never
to rise again. The Grenville ministry succeeded to
its place, and its unpopularity. It was charged with
the Bute principles without their palliatives, with pur-
chasing place by the spoils of the people, with crushing
the national liberties with one hand, while it was sur-
rendering the national honour to foreigners with the
other; Avith being a government of nepotism, favouri-
tism, and secret patronage, a Bute ministry in mas-
querade. The general outcry at once demanded its
overthrow, and the restoration of Pitt. The King,
with a submissiveness which fully contradicts the
charges of obstinacy, now offered the government to
the man of the popular choice.
Burke, in a letter to the celebrated Flood, written
in 1765, with admirable sagacity, narrates the course
of the negotiation, and almost predicts its results.
PICTURE OF PARTY. 47
" There is a strong probability that new men will come
in, and not improbably with new ideas. There is no
doubt that there is a iixed resolution to get rid of them
all, (unless perhaps of Grenville,) but principally of the
Duke of Bedford. So that you will have mnch more
reason to be surprised to find the ministry standing, by
the end of the next week, than to hear of their entire
removal." His idea of Lord Chatham is singular ; yet
the event shewed his knowledge of that memorable
man's character. " Nothing but an intractable tem-
per in your friend Pitt can prevent a most admir-
able and lasting system from being put together. And
this crisis will shew whether j)r'ulc or patriotism be
predominant in his character ; for you may be assured,
he has it now in his power to come into the service of
his country upon any plan of politics he may think pro-
per to dictate, with great and honourable terms for
himself and every friend he has in the world, and with
such a strength of power as will be equal to every thing
but absolute despotism over the King and kingdom.
A few days will shew whether he will take (his part,
or that of continuing on his back at Hayes talhivij
fustian! excluded from all ministerial, and incapable
oi all Parliamentary service. Tor liisgoutis worse than
ever, but his pride may disable him more than hisgout."
The history amply confirmed the conjecture. The
Duke of Cumberland was sent by the King to offer
the premiership to Pitt. He reftised it. The ministry,
elated by the discovery that a substitute was not to be
found, and indignant at the attempt to find one, raised
48 LIFE OF BURKE.
their demands upon the King. But the royal re-
sources were not yet exhausted, and within two months
the Marquis of Rockingham was phiced at the head of
a new cabinet. Burke's paneg-yric on the new premier
was the exuberance of a glowing' fancy,set in motion by
a grateful heart. Still it was an eri'or. The Marquis
was not the leader to collect the scattered energies of
party, and shape them into system. Compared with
Bute, he wanted conciliation ; and with Grenville,
knowledge of life and business. Honest but frigid,
relying- on personal rank for official dignity, and for
public contidence on hereditary prejudices, and forget-
ting the new force which had risen to disperse all such
prejudices, he found himself suddenly in the rear of
public opinion ; saw even his own adherents starting for-
ward before him ; soon saw his whole force broken up,
and, after a struggle of a few months between pride and
feebleness, retreated from a field into which he ought
never to have entered. Burke, on this event, pro-
bably as a matter of duty, wrote his defence, '^A short
History of a short Administration," a work of a few
pages, and dry as it was brief. — A cold epitaph, and
only the fitter for the tomb that it covered.
Pitt now came in triumphantly, with the people
yoked to his chariot; with the Kingmorerelucfant, but
nearly as much yoked as the people. He rapidly form-
ed an administration, and commenced his career with
an energy which justified the national election. But,
with all the qualities which could raise him to the high-
est rank, he wanted the one important quality which
PICTURE OF PARTY. 49
. could alone keep him there. He made no allowances
for the feelings, the habits, or the weaknesses, of other
men. In a despotic government, perhaps, he would
have been minister for life, and the admiration, if not
the terror, of Europe ; his clearness of political vision,
the lofty mastery with which he grasped the thunders
of the state, and the unerring vigour with which he
launched them ; his natural habits of command, his se-
vere integrity, and his brilliant, bold, and indefatigable
ambition, would have achieved all the miracles of des-
potic policy, and raised a small kingdom into power, or
extended a large one into European supremacy. But
the time for this display of umiiitigated strength was
past in England. Even in France, the era of the
Richlieus and Mazarines was no more. Great schemes
of independent government were no longer to be creat-
ed. The minister must work witli such materialsas were
supplied to him ; and Chatham, who under a Philip the
Second, would have turned the Netherlands into a de-
sert ; or stilled their hostility by throwing the Aveight
of the world upon them ; or who, midcr a Henry
the Eighth, wouhl have alike trampled out the Refor-
mation, or blasted its enemies with the breath of his
nostrils ; was forced, in the day of George the Third,
to concede an<l compromise, to feel the tenure of his
power dependent on men whom he could scarcely
stoop to acknowledge as his associates, to ballast the
vessel of the State with even the fragments of former
party ; and having done all, to sec the helm wrenched
from his hand I
VOL. I. E
50 LIFE OF BURKE.
The difficulty of forming the new cabinet, and the
disunions which so quickly gave the King the power
of dissolving it, were popularly caricatured by Burke.
" He (Lord Chatham) put together a piece of joinery,
so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed, a ca-
binet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified
mosaic, such a tesselated pavement without cement,
here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white, pa-
triots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans,
Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open ene-
mies, that it was indeed a very curious show, but ut-
terly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on. The
colleagues whom he had assorted at the same board,
stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, — Sir,
your name ? Sir, you have the advantage of me. — Mr
Such-a-one — I beg a thousand pardons. I venture to
say that it did so happen, that persons had a single of-
fice divided between them, who had never spoken to
each other in their lives."
Burke, on the fall of his friends, withdrew for a few
months to Ireland. He felt, with a just sense of his
own reputation, that overtures Avould probably be made
to him ; and, with a sense of delicacy sufficiently re-
markable in a young statesman, determining to avoid
even the imputation of waiting to be purchased, he
took his departure within two days of the ministerial
retirement. But the changes of cabinets were now
comparatively unimportant to his fortunes. He had
shown what he was, and he could be forgotten no
more. He had now risen to the surface, and no fall
PICTURE OF PARTY, 51
of ministers could carry him down with them again.
Once set floating on the tide of public affairs, he had
within him a buoyancy that nothing could overweigh;
the probability even was, that every swell and agita-
tion of future political life would only lift him stillhigh-
er, and difficulty itself render his qualities more con-
spicuous in the general struggle.
The impression made on his friends in London, is
strikingly recorded in a letter of Johnson to Langton,
in 1766. " We have the loss of Burke's company since
he has been engaged in public business, in which he
has gained more reputation than perhaps any man at
his first appearance ever gained before. He made two
speeches in the House, for repealing the Stamp Act,
which were publicly commended by Mr Pitt, and have
filled the town with wonder. Burke is a great man,
and is expected soon to attain civil greatness." The
Chatham Ministry followed the fate of its predecessors.
Raised in defiance of the throne, it was naked on the
side of prerogative ; and wliile it was engaged in de-
fending itself from the new hostility of tlic people, it
received a blow against which it had made no prepa-
ration ; tlie Cabinet fell under the royal hand. Pitt,
too proud to capitulate, and deserted by his troops,
gave up the contest at once, and left his power to be
partitioned among the deserters. Tlie ])uko of Graf-
ton was placed at the head of a Ministry formed of re-
creants of all parties; and one ctf tbe most inelfective
and characterless cabinets that England ever saw, be-
gan its operations, with a populace intlamed to the
52 LIFE OF BURKE.
most exti-aordinar)' excesses, with a failing finance, and
a general convulsion of the commercial system. To
this massof hostility was soon added the whole body of
the colonies in uproar, hurling scorn on the mother
country, denying and defying her laws, disputing her
rights, and exhibiting the rebel banner waving from
their shores, at once to repel the authority of England,
and welcome the alliance of her enemies.
Burke was now the acknowledged leader of that part
of opposition which professed the principles of the
Marquis of Rockingham; Mr Grenville of that which
had fallen with himself from power. But, no two men
could have fewer conceptions in common. Differing
in all points of policy, they were kept together only
by their hostility to the weak and wavering cabinet,
whose overthrow they hourly contemplated. At length
a pamphlet entitled, " The present State of the Na-
tion," written by either, Mr Grenville, or his former
secretary Mr Knox, under his dictation, and contain-
ing some sarcasms on the Rockingham Ministry,
brought Burke into action. He flew to the defence of a
cause which he considered as his own ; and in a masterly
answer,* at once retorted the charges, and added to
his fame all that profound thought, and animated elo-
quence could give. But the chief excellence of all
this eminent person's works is, that they are for the
general experience of mankind ; they are not the arti-
ficial instruments of the hour, but instinct with a spirit
of life which keeps them keen and burnished as ever,
' Observations on a late " State of the Nation."
PICTTTRE OF PARTY. 53
from generation to generation. Hurrying as his con-
ceptions rise from the fervour of the moment, and tran-
sitory as may be the circumstances of their origin, they
have in them nothing transitory, nothing of the meteor;
they take their place at a height above the vapours of
the time, and minister illumination to every age to
come. He thus powerfully speaks of the fatal facility
with which public men slide into apostacy — (The Bed-
ford party had at this period seceded from their old
friends, and joined the administration) —
" It is possible to draw even from the very prosperi-
ty of ambition, examples of terror, and motives to com-
passion. I believe the instances are exceedingly rare,
of men immediately passing over the clear, marked line
of virtue, into declared vice and corruption. There
are a sort of middle tints and shades between the two
extremes ; there is something uncertain on the con-
fines of the two empires, which they first pass through,
and which renders the change easy and imperceptible.
There are even a sort of splendid impositions, so well
contrived, that at the very time when the patii of recti-
tude isjjuitted for ever, men seem to be advaucing into
some higher and nobler road of public conduct. Not
that such impositions are strong enough in themselves ;
but that a powerful interest, often couceahid from those
whom it affects, works at the bottom and secures the
operation. Men are thus dcfbauched away from those
legitimate connexions, which they had formed on a
judgment, early perhaps, but sufiicieutly mature, and
wholly unbiassed."
54 LIFE (7F BURKE.
His picture of the bond slaves of party, who beghi
by sacriticing their principles, and then sacrifice their
friends, is incomparable. " People not well grounded
in the principles of public morality, find a set of maxims
in office ready made for them, which they assume as
naturally and inevitably as any of the insignia or in-
struments of the situation. A certain tone of the solid
and practical is immediately acquired. Every former
profession of public spirit is to be considered as a de-
bauch of youth, or, at least, as a visionary scheme of
unattainable perfection. The very idea of consistency
is exploded. The convenience of the business of the
day is to furnish the principle for doing it. Then the
whole ministerial cant is quickly got by heart. — The
prevalence of faction is to be lamented. — All opposi-
tion is to be regarded as the effect of envy and disap-
pointed ambition. — All administrations are declared
to be alike. — Flattering thenjselves that their power
is become necessary to the support of all order and
government, every thing which tends to the support
of that power is sanctified, and becomes a part of the
public interest.
" Growing every day more formed to affairs, and
better knit in their limbs; when the occasion (now
their only rule) requires it, they become capable of
sacrificing those very persons to whom they had be-
fore sacrificed their original friends. It is now only
in the ordinary course of business to alter an opinion,
or to betray a connexion. Frequently relinquishing
one set of men and adopting another, they grow into
PICTURE OF PARTY. 55
a total indifference to human feeling, as they had be-
fore to moral obligation, until, at length, no one ori-
ginal impression remains on their minds, every princi-
ple is obliterated, every sentiment eifaced.
" In the meantime, that power which all these
changes aimed at securing, remains still as tottering
and uncertain as ever. They are delivered up into
the hands of those who feel neither respect for their
persons, nor gratitude for their favours ; who are put
about them in appearance to serve, in reality to govern
them ; and when the signal is given, to abandon and
destroy them, in order to set up some new dupe of
ambition, who in his turn is to be abandoned and de-
stroyed. Thus living in a state of continual uneasiness
and ferment, softened only by the miserable consola-
tion of giving now and then preferments to those for
whom they have no value, they are unhappy in their
situation, yet find it impossible to resign ; until at
length, soured in temper, and disappointed by the very
attainment ol their ends, in some angry, in some haugh-
ty, iu some negligent moment, they incur the displea-
sure of those upon whom they have rendered their very
being dependent. Then, * perierunt tcmpora Imuji scr-
vitii ;' thoy are cast off with scorn, emptied of all na-
tural character, of all intrinsic worth, of all essential
dignity, and deprived of" every consolation of friend-
ship. Having rendered all retreat to old princi|)k's
ridiculous, and to old regards impracticable ; not being
able to counterfeit pleasure, or t<» discharge discon-
tent, it is more than a chanc<', that in the deliriun) of
56 LIFE OF BURKE. •
the last stage of their distempered power, they make
an insane political testament, by which they throw all
their remaining- weight and consequence into the scale
of their declared enemies, and avowed authors of their
destruction. Thus they finish their course. Had it
heen possible, that the whole, or even a great part of
those effects on their fortunes, could have appeared to
them in their first departure from the right, it is cer-
tain that they would have rejected every temptation
with horror."
We shall now have to follow Bux'ke through more
various and elevated transactions ; in which he was no
longer the contemplatist, but the leader, of the contest.
The sounds of war and anarchy were coming from
America, they were reverberating from Ireland, they
were preparing to be answered by a tenfold roar from
France ; every principle of national stability was about
to be tried in its turn. Morals, Loyalty, and Go-
vernment, were to undergo the fiercest ordeal known
in history ; and at every trial, the genius and wisdom
of Burke were to be among the most conspicuous
guides of the land.
CHAPTER III.
Death of George II — Fall of Chatham — Origin of the Modern Whigs
— Burke's Pamphlet — His Eloquence — Purchased Bcaconsfield —
Speech on Subscription to the Articles — Letters to Barry.
The death of George II., in 1760, closed one of the
most successful reig-ns of England. At home, the po-
pularity of the Stuarts, first broken on the field of bat-
tle, had been extinguished on the scaffold ; abroad, the
continental hostilities, long threatening the overthrow
of British itifluence, had closed in a scries of encount-
ers which gave new honours to the British military
name. The capture of Calcutta by Clive, in 1757,
had laid the foundations of an empire in India. The
successes of Amherst and Johnson at Crown-point and
Niagara, followed by the capture of (Quebec, in 17.^9,
had completed the conquest of Canada, and laid the
foundations of an Empire in the West. To complete
the circle of Iriumph, the victory of Ilawkc; in Qui-
beron Bay, had destroyed the chief fleet of I'rance,
within sight of her own shore. In the midsl of all
those prospects of national prosperity, the (tld King
suddeidy died, at the age of seventy-seven, after a reign
of thirty-three years.
58 LIFE OF BURKE.
The King's character had been fitted for the time.
He was a firm, temperate, and sincere man ; steady
in the possession of his power, but unambitious of
its increase ; not forgetting his natural ties to the
place of his birth, but honest to the obligations of
his throne ; attached to Hanover, but proud of Eng-
land. History has passed sentence upon him, and
it will not be reversed by time. " On whatever
side," says a narrator of his reign, " we look up-
on the character of George H., we shall find ample
matter for just and unsuspected praise. None of his
predecessors enjoyed longer felicity. His subjects
were still improving under him in commerce and arts ;
and his own economy set a prudent example to the na-
tion, which, however, they did not follow. He was
in temper sudden and violent ; but this, though it in-
fluenced his private conduct, made no change in his
public, which was generally guided by reayon. He was
plain and direct in his intentions, true to his word,
steady in his favour and protection to his public servants,
not parting with his Ministers till compelled by the force
of faction." Living for the useful public qualities,
rather than the splendid, the King had not the power
to attract popular admiration ; but it was impossible to
refuse him public respect. With a clear head, and a
bold heart, he conducted in the spirit of the Constitu-
tion, a constitutional empire. The great Minister of
his latter day was Lord Chatham — a splendid innova-
tion on the routine of ministry ; a new political lu-
minary, which had risen to give new energy to the
FALL OF CHATHAM. 59
state, and throw sudden brightness over the decaying
day of the Newcastle Administration. Chatham was
still Premier on the accession of George III. ; but
his power was not of a nature to last. His personal
haughtiness had grown by success, until it alienated his
friends, and, finally, estranged his sovereign. A divi-
sion in the Cabinet on the question of a Spanish war,
shewed him that his dictatorship was at an end, and
disdaining to be less than the embodied ministry, he
threw up the seals. His successor, Lord Bute, was
overthrown in his turn by three causes, each of which
at other times would have led to fortune, — the favour
of his King, the favouritism of the King's mother, and
his being a Scotsman. 1 he rapid succession of minis-
terial changes which, subsequently, for some years, left
England with but the name of a government, had the
disastrous effect of teaching the people to look with
scorn upon ministerial honour. When public men
trafficked alternately with the necessities of the King,
and the passions of the people, the nation soon learn-
ed to consider office as a trade. All official changes
are formidable tests of character; but a perpetual re-
volution, in the shape of the hourly rise and fall of pub-
lic men ; the violent professions of one day contrasted
with the violent abjurations of the next; the lofty-
pledges followed by the abject compliances ; the claims
of the reigning Ministers to confidence iningle<l with
the complaints of the fallen Ministers of treachery ; ra-
pidly turned the people into universal scoffers, erected
a tribunal of state offences in every street, and sum-
60 LIFE OF BUUKE.
inoning the multitude to a jurisdiction to which their
reason was incompetent, left Government at the mercy
of their prejudices. The final result was, to de-
grade all public servants in the national eye ; but the
immediate was, to shake the supremacy of the great fa-
milies in the administration of the country.
Chatham himself had been an intruder on the proud
aristocracy of the Cabinet. But, wherever his banner
waved, victory must have sat upon it ; his extraordinary
powers were not made to be repulsed by their frigid
forms ; if he could not enter by the gate, he boldly
scaled the walls, and was unquestioned master of the
stronghold. The King, whom he could not conciliate,
he kept in awe ; and the Ministry, whom he could not
instruct, he held in obedience. The popular voice fol-
lowed him in all his enterprises. But in his fall he com-
pletely tore down with him the veil which had hither-
to covered the ministerial weakness of the great fami-
lies. They struggled long to regain their ancient right
to dispose of the Cabinet ; but the struggle constantly
became more unsuccessful ; until the still greater son of
that great man finished the contest, by throwing open
government to men of all ranks, and making public abi-
lity the established ground of oHicial distinction.
Yet no maxim is more incontrovertible, than that all
change in the old principles of a country is hazardous.
Nothing could seem more pregnant with good than this
dismissal of antiquated feebleness for young vigour ;
nothing more suited to infuse a new wisdom into the
national councils than the extinction of those obsolete
ORIGIN OF THE MODERN WHIGS. 61
pi'ejudices, which found their protection only in wealth,
and referred for political virtue only to the rolls of the
Heralds' College ; nothing more congenial to the new
vividness and intelligence of the empire, than that some
portion of that vast harvest of ability and knowledge,
which was hourly growing up with the g-rowing influ-
ence of the middle orders, shoukl be gathered for the
public use ; nothing more essential than that the hourly
opening mine of public genius should be worked for the
benefit of the empire.
All would have been fortunate, if the operation
could have stopped here. But the almost immediate
result of abolishing- this patent of the great ftimilies,
was to create a new and singularly dangerous influence
in the State. The high aristocrats, stifl" with the pri-
vileges of generations, suddenly assumed the flexibili-
ty of popular canvass ; the populace in their turn hail-
ed their new allies, and grew intoxicated in their fa-
miliarity Avith the Peerage. The extremes of society
met. The old Court suit, with all its embroidery, was
thrown off fur the costume of the club ; the contest for
power was adjourned from the Cabinet to the streets;
and the men who would have frowned down, with he-
reditary haughtiness, the slightest approach of the or-
der immediately b«dow themselves, jjhniged at once
among the lowest grade, and bound themselves to the
populace by a bond which now will never be dissolv-
ed, but in their ruin.
On tluH overthrow of the ancient patentees of po-
wer, Burke was induced to write his famous pamphlet.
62 I-IFE OF BUllKE.
entitled " Thoughts on the Cause of the Present
Discontents." The public clamours which assailed
Lord North's Ministry, at this period (1770) threat-
ened dang^crous tumult. Burke, the friend and fol-
lower of Lord Rockingham, and involved in his ex-
clusion, naturally imputed a large share of the clamour
to the loss of his ministerial councils. The pamphlet
has the uniform characteristic of his writings, —
the particular topic expands into the general in-
struction. — Even out of the barrenness of an eulogy
on Lord Rockingham, he could raise maxims for the
wisdom of mankind. He thus describes the origin of
the aristocratic caste in statesmanship :
" At the Revolution, the Crown, deprived, for the
ends of the Revolution itself, of many prerogatives,
was found too weak to struggle against all the difficul-
ties which pressed on so new and unsettled a Govern-
ment. The Court was obliged to delegate a part of
its powers to men of such interest as could support,
and of such fidelity as would adhere to, its establish-
ment. This connexion, necessary at first, continued
long after convenient, and, properly conducted, might
indeed, in all situations, be an useful instrument of
Government. At the same time, through the inter-
vention of men of popular weight and character, the
people possessed a security for their just proportion of
importance in the State."
Having accounted for the rise of the aristocracy to
power, he accounts for their fall. In this statement,
his pencil is dipt in Rockingham colours : but those
burke's pamphlet. 63
colours were pure, and the outline is admirably true.
He tells us, that when the Court felt itself beginning
to grow strong, it began also to feel the irksomeness
of dependence on Ministers, and resolved to deal with
more obedient Cabinets. " The greatest weight of
popular opinion and party connexion was then with
the Duke of Newcastle and Mr Pitt. Neither of
those held his importance by the neio tenure of the
Court ; they were not, therefore, thought to be so
proper as others for the services which were required
by that tenure. It happened, very favourably for the
new system^ that under a forced coalition there rank-
led an incurable alienation and disgust between the
parties which composed tlie administration. Mr Pitt
was first attacked. Not satisfied with removing him
from power, they endeavoured by various artifices to
ruin his character. The other party seemed rather
pleased to get rid of so oppressive a support, not per-
ceiving that their own fall was prepared by his, and
involved in it. Many other reasons prevented them
from daring to look their true situation in the face.
« « • • « * 'I'lif. power of Mr Pitt was vast and me-
rited, but it was in a great degree personal, and there-
fore transient. The power of the great aristocratic
families was rooted in the country. With a good deal
less of popularity, they possessed a far more natural
and fixed infiuence. Long possession of government,
vast propcrtv, obligations of favr)urs given and re-
ceived, connexion of office, ties of blood, of alliance, of
friendship, the name of Whig, dear to the majority of
64 LIFE OF BURKE.
the people, the zeal, early begun and steadily continu-
ed, to the royal family, all these together formed a
body of power in the nation."
Inconsistency is the fiivourite topic of the libellers
of Burke. But the language which he held in this
pamphlet is the language which he breathed from his
expiring tongue — sacred honour for established insti-
tutions, hatred of worthless change, and just respect for
the natural influence of rank, birth, and property. The
change was not in the writer, but in the men. The
French Revolution was the boundary-line between
the aristocrat of his first day and his last, — the torrent
which, whoever crossed, left his former robes on the
edge, and came out naked. He as powerfully asserts
the superior claim of the first class of the nation to
govern the State, in 1770, as he asserted it in the full
fury and tempest of 1793.
" One of the principal topics," he observes, " of
the 7iew school, is a terror of the growth of an aristo-
cratic power, prejudicial to the rights of the Crown,
and the balance of the Constitution. It is true, that
the Peers have a great influence in the kingdom, and
in every part of the public concerns. While they are
men of property, it is impossible to prevent it, except
by such means as must prevent all property from its
natural operation, — an event not easily to be compass-
ed, while property is power ; nor by any means to be
wished, while the least notion exists of the method by
which the spirit of liberty acts, and of the means by
which it is preserved. If any particular Peers, by
3
burke's pamphlet. 65
their uniform, upright, constitutional conduct, by their
public and their private virtues, have acquired an in-
fluence in the country, the people, on vp^hose favour
that influence depends, will never be duped into an
opinion, that such greatness in a Peer is the despotism
of an aristocracy, when they know and feel it to be
the pledge of their own importance.
" I am no friend to aristocracy, in the sense, at least,
in which that word is usually understood. If it were
not a bad habit to moot cases on the supposed ruin of
the constitution, I should be free to declare, that, if it,
must perish, 1 should rather, by far, see it resolved
into any other form, than lost in that austere and inso-
lent domination. But whatever my dislikes are, my
fears are not from that quarter."
It is clear, that in this passage, the writer alludes to
an aristocracy assuming the sole functions of Govern-
ment, — not an English, but u Venetian aristocracy, —
an oligarchy, at once sbit'lding itself from responsibility
by itH uumlicrs, and ovcjrau ing the p('oj)le by its dark
and Kullen vioK-iico. 'I'lie power to which he alludes
as the object of drea<l, is that of a faction behind tlic
throne. It is ecpially clear, that even Hurko's wisdom
tnistook the true; hazard of the Constitution; tliiit in
contemplating the power of an intriguing Court, he
overlook«'d the tyramiy of an irresponsible populace;
that in guarding tiu! Constitutional tree iVoni the
southern, sickly breezes of Court patronage, he forgot
the hurricane th.it would Hhattcrand root it out (if the
ground. j>nt even his sagacity may bo forgiven for
VOL. I. F
66 LIFE OF BURKE.
being unable to anticipate the horrors of revolutionary-
rage. The depths of the rebel heart were not yet con-
vulsed and laid open by the sense of uncontrollable
power ; the terrible deposits of the revolutionary vol-
cano were not yet shaken and kindled into flame.
It is also to be remembered, that during this discus-
sion, the question was not of Whigs or Tories, accord-
ing to their later qualities. In Burke's earlier day, the
Whigs were but another name for the landed interest,
the great body of family and fortune of the country,
claiming to be all but hereditary governors of the
empire ; but little connected with any inferior class,
and scarcely recognising the existence of the populace ;
no more dreaming of an appeal to the multitude for
the support of their measures, than they would have
dreamt of allying them with their blood ; a genuine
English aristocracy. They had the disqualifications
produced by time upon all things human, and they were
perhaps too proud to be easily accessible to the pub-
lic feelings; too fully satisfied with their ancient posses-
sion to think, that while all went well with the Peer-
age, the nation could suffer any serious evil ; and too
fond of the silk and ermine of their state to be prepar-
ed to cast them off, and grapple naked with those new
public difficulties which new times were bringing on,
and which demanded the whole unemban*assed muscle
and activity of the man.
JStill, in that class, there was once a great safeguard
for both the Crown and the people ; a nobleness more
of mind than even of rank ; an embodying of generous
and stately principle, derived from an early superiority
Burke's pamphlet. 67
to the motives and habits which the common exigencies
of things sometimes impose on men struggling through
the more obscure ways of life ; a patrician dignity,
which spread from the manners to the mind, and if it
did not give full security against the assumption of a
power beyond right, yet prevented all the meaner
abuses of the functions of government, all personal
and petty tyranny, all the baser tamperings witli po-
pular corruption, and all the ignoble jealousy, livid
rancour, and bloodthirsty persecution, inseparable from
power suddenly consigned to the hands of the multi-
tude.
In adverting to the remedies proposed for public re-
novation Buike touches upon the two grand expedients,
which are now received with such cheers. Triennial
Parliaments, and the exclusion of all men holding
office, from Parliament. His language on those heat-
ing topics, shews how maturely he had formed his ear-
liest political impressions.
" If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it
wouhl indce'l be as little troublesome to me as to an-
other, to extol those remedies so famous in specula-
tion ; but to wbicli tlieir greatest admirers have never
attempted seriously to resort in practice. I confess,
tben, I have no sort of reliance upon eitlier a Triennial
Parliament or a Place Hill. With regard to the former,
perhaps it might rather serve to counteract tlian to
promote the ends that an; jnoiiiottil Ii\ it. To say
nothing of the horriide disorders among tlie |)eeplo
attending fre«pieiit elections, I sbould be fearful of
committing, every three years, the independent gen-
68 LIFE OF BURKE.
tlemen of the country in a contest with the Treasury.
It is easy to see which of the parties would be ruined
first. Whoever has taken a careful view of public
proceedings, so as to ground his speculations on his
experience, must have observed how prodigiously
greater the power of Ministry is in the first and last
Session of a Parliament, than it is in the intermediate
periods, when members sit a little firm in their seats.
The evil complained of, if it exists in the present state
of things, would hardly be removed by a triennial
Parliament ; for, unless the influence of Government
in elections can be entirely taken away^ the more fre-
quently they return, the more they will harass private
independence ; the more generally will men be com-
pelled to fly to the settled, systematic influence of
Government, and to the resources of a boundless civil
list. Certainly something may be done, and ought to
be done, towards lessening- that influence in elections.
***** " But nothing can so perfectly remove
the evil, as not to render such contentions, too fre-
quently repeated, utterly ruinous, first to independence
of fortune, and then to independence of spirit. With
great truth, 1 may aver, that I never remember to
have talked on this suV)ject with any man much conver-
sant with public business, who considered short Par-
liaments as a real improvement of the Constitution."
He next examines the merits of a Place Bill, a mea-
sure which unquestionably will be one of the favourite
proposals, at the first convenient season, of that extra-
vagant and angry faction, which, making its way into
public influence by intrigue, will retain it by perfidy ;
burke' S PA31PHLET. 69
which flourishes the knife for national rights, and will
yet perform its promise, by plunging it into the bowels
of the Constitution.
" The next remedy," says he, " is a Place Bill.
The same principle guides in both ; I mean, that is
entertained by many, of the infallibility of laws and
regulations in the cure of public distempers. With-
out being as unreasonably doubtful, as many are un-
wisely confident, I will only say, that this also is a
matter very well worthy of serious and mature reflec-
tion. It is not easy to foresee, what the effect Avould
be, of disconnecting with Parliament the greater part
of those who huld civil employments, and of such
mighty and important bodies as the military and naval
establishments. It were better, perhaps, that they
should have a corrupt interest in the forms of the Con-
stitution, than that they should liave none at all. This
is a question altogotlier diflerent from the disfjualilica-
tion of a particular description of revenue oflicers from
seats in Parliankcnt, or, perhaps, of all the lower sorts
of them from \oles in elections. In X\n\ former ease,
only the lew are aflecled ; in tlu^ latter, only tiie in-
considerable. But a grcMt olbeial, a great profession-
al, a great military and naval interest, all necessrwily
comprehending many [)eople of the first weight, ability,
wealth, and spirit, has been gradually formed in the
kingd(»ni. 'lliose uvw intercHts iimst be let into a sluwc
of representation ; else possibly they may be inclined
to destroy those institutions of which they arc not per-
mitted l<i p;irl;iKe. • » » * «
" It is no inronyidcrable part of wisdom, to know how
70 LIFE OF BURIvE.
much of an evil ought to he tolerated ; lest hyattempt -
ing- a degree of purity impracticahle in deg-euerate
times and manners, instead of cutting- off the suhsist-
ing ill practices, new corruptions might be produced,
for the concealment and security of the old. It were
better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all should af-
fect the mind of a member of Parliament. But, of all
modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the
Government is the least disgraceful to the man who
holds it, and by far the most safe to the country. I
would not shut out that sort of influence which is open
and visible, which is connected with the dignity and
the service of the State ; when it is not in my power
to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions,
of direct bribery, and of those innumerable methods
of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the
hands of the Court, and which will be applied, so long
as the means of corruption, and the disposition to
be corrupted, have existence among us. Our Consti-
tution stands on a nice equipoise, with steep precipices
and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it
from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may
be a risk of ovcrsettin;r it on the other. Every pro-
ject of a material change in a Government so compli-
cated as ours, combined at the same time with exter-
nal circumstances still more complicated, is a matter
full of difficulties, in which a considerate man will not
be too ready to decide, a prudent man too ready to
undertake, or an honest man too ready to promise."
'The incompetence of the Ministry had at length in-
volved them in general quarrel, — quarrel with America,
bukke's eloquence. 71
quarrel with foreign Powers, and quarrel at home.
Wilkes, the printers who published the debates in Par-
liament, and the Mayor and Aldermen, who were im-
prisoned for resisting the authority of the House of Com-
mons, were the civil antagonists. In every conflict with
them all, the Ministry were worsted. Burke took a
vigorous share in those perpetual debates, and made
continual progress in the public admiration. Hisspeak-
ing was a style totally new to the House and the na-
tion. But two eminent orators had appeared in Par-
liament for a century : Boliugbroke, rich, dexterous,
and fluent, the prince of rhetoricians : Chatham, con-
densed, pointed, and brilliant, irregular in his concep-
tions, and unequal in his eiForts ; but when he put
forth his strength, striking with prodigious power, —
the weight, directness, and fire of a thunderbolt. Yet,
like the thunderbolt, his eloquence was generated by
the storm, and fit only for the storm. Burke's larger
scholarship and fintr philosoi»hy displayed an eloquence
not less fluent than the one, or less vivid than the
other ; but still more cheering, magnificent, and fruit-
ful of noble thoughts au<l generous purposes. When
he spoke, he seeme<l to be speakiugless for tbc triumph
of his party, than for the wellbeing of the buuian race.
All his speeches wore profound wisdom a(hninistering
to daily practice. The House, perpetually astonished
by the optdent variety of bi'^ kiioub'dgc, by bis sud-
rh'u illiHtrations gathered from ex cry art ami srij-nce,
by the living splendours u bicb he caught from every
region of human research, and reflected iqion tlie sub-
ject before them ; were yet more astonished by tlio
72 I'll'E OF BURKE.
practical simplicity of the richest efforts of his imagina-
tion. The holdest impulse of its strength was never
suffered to whirl him hoyond the " visihle diurnal
sphere." His original purpose was keptsteadilyin view.
He might luxuriate, and play his powers, in the realms
of brilliant abstraction for atime ; but his eye never wan-
dered ; he struck down instantly upon the point —
and at once dazzled, delighted, and convinced. It
had been said that, under Walpole's Ministry, the de-
bates were worthy only of a club of Dutch burgo-
masters ; Burke brought back the spirit, which should
never have departed from an assembly of freemen.
He gave the debates at once Attic elegance, and Bri-
tish vigour.
Other times and other men followed. Violent
faction disturbed the tastes of national debate. The
fierceness of civil struggle, and the terrors of a
war which threatened to overwhelm the empire, at
length indisposed men to oratory. Pitt and Fox be-
came the arbiters of the House. The directness of
theirstylewas more congenial to their severe and trying
time, than the lavish grandeur and poetic magnificence
of Burke. But his triumph has returned. The
speeches of the great Minister and his great rival have
gone down with them to the tomb. Burke's have as-
sumed only a loftier character in the estimation of all
men since his death. They are now the study of every
mind that thirsts to drink pure political wisdom from
one of its highest luiman sources. Their fount has
not svmk into his grave ; fed by nature and genius, it
will be fresh, clear, and healthful, until the last ages
of the national mind.
PURCHASED BEACONSFIELD. 73
The fall of the Rockingham Ministry had displaced
Burke ; and with his delicacy of taking- office, under
the slightest presumption of a change of principle, it,
for some time, secluded him from puhlic service. But
in this interval he was neither idle nor unhappy. In
general society, he was still one of the leaders of all that
was intellectual. His almost houndless information,
his well-regulated wit, and his fine and peculiar mas-
tery of all that was polished, or pointed, in the English
language, gave him a superiority in conversation,
which was rendered still more pleasing by the uniform
kindness, simplicity, and good-humour of his manners.
In his domestic life he was fortunate. His wife was an
estimable woman, strongly attached to him, and proud
of his fame. His two brothers were amiable and in-
telligent men, united with him in close friendship, and
whom he hoped yet to advance to fortune. He had
purchased with his paternal property, and by a sum
raised on mortgage, which Lord Rockingham ad-
vanced, Gregories, a lioiiJ^e with some land, in the
neighbourhood of BoaconsHeld. Tiiere he fdnned^
read, and wrote. In London, liom which his house
was but twenty-four miles distant, he mingled with the
highest circles of active life, enjoyed all the concen-
trated animation and ability of the accomplished and
opulent ; and in ParHamcnt continually indulged his
genius, and enlarged his fame by an »'lo(|uencc, whicli,
in its peculiar spirit, has never fdimd a superior.
It has been remarked, as a characteristic of all emi-
nent minds, that whatever pursuit they adopt, they
VOL. I. o
74 LIFE OF BURKE.
adopt it with peculiar vigour. Burke, at all times at-
tached to a country life, was a farmer in the intervals
of his lahours as a statesman ; and he gave himself up to
his crops with a diligence that would have done credit
to a man who had never strayed heyond the farm-yard.
In one of his letters to an Irish friend, about 1771, he
thus mentions his successes at the plough-tail : — " We
have had the most rainy and stormy season that has
been known. I have got my wheat into the ground
better than some others ; that is, about four-and-
twenty acres. I purposed having abont ten more ;
but, considering the season, this is tolerable." He
then proceeds to a detail of his exploits in the produc-
tion of bacon ; enquires to what weight hogs are ca-
pable of being fed in Ireland, and anticipates victory in
giving the weight of his own ; discusses the market-
prices of things, and explains a new project of sowing
peas, which is to save a fallow, and of course make a
handsome return to the projector, &c.
But he soon returned to more congenial occupa-
tions ; and was seen in Parliament, standing forth the
champion of common sense and the State. His love of
political peace, his adherence to established order, and
his prophetic fears of the change that might be wrought
npon the spirit of the constitution, by rashly tampering
even with its externals, were not the late prejudices of
his political life, but the original principles of his mo-
ral understanding. On a petition, so early as 1772,
from 250 Clergy of the Establishment, against sub-
scription to the Articles, he resisted the opinion of
nearly the whole of his friends, and spoke directly
SPEECH ON SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ARTICLES. 75
against the point of the petition. " I can compi*ehend,"
was the suhstance of his speech, " how men may de-
cline entering- a church where they are to be bound by
a declaration of their opinions. Well, then, let them
not enter it. But, if it is important that a church
should have any settled opinions at all — and who shall
deny this ? — it is surely important that those opinions
should be distinctly declared, and not less important
that the ministers and teachers of that church should be
faithful transmitters of its tenets; otherwise the church
may be paying an enemy, and the people may he listen-
ing to a renegade. But while the petitioners profess
to hehnrj to the Establishment^ and profit hy it, no hard-
ship can be implied in requiring some common bond of
agreement, such as the subscription to the Thirty-nine
Articles, for the fidelity, the union, and the obedience
of its members."
But even every trait which private life developed in
this admirable mind, bore the same stamp of habitual
value for the common sense of human nature. Ills prin-
ciple was, a considerate respect for the ciistoms of gene-
ral life, aiul a persuasion that Time, their fouiuler, was
a wiser guld(! than Iimovation, their overtlirower.
Burke's humanity had encumbered liim Avlth Barry,
afterwards the well-known and eccentric painter. He
had sent him to take the range of the Italian schools,
and from 1765 to 1770 supported him nearl\ a( bis
sole expense. Barry was the most impracticable of
men. He posgesscd some vigour of conception In his
art, but unfortunately prepared himself for constant
76 LIFE OF BURKE.
failure by a constant miscalculation of his powers. He
revenged his failure by contempt for the public taste ;
and cheered his arrogance, on the very verge of ruin,
bv pronouncing that the success of his contemporaries
was the result of intrigue. His vanity and stubborn-
ness at length totally alienated from him the good offi-
ces of his profession ; his determined neglect of appear-
ances, and his intentional roughness of manner, repel-
led all higher patronage ; and thus, gradually exiling
himself from the society in which his talents might have
given him a place, and abandoning the opportunities of
the profession by which he was to live; he shrank into
wolfish solitude. He still lingered out some bitter
years ; furious at being taken at his word, and suffer-
ed to relinquish the world, which he affected to de-
spise ; and furious at the professional neglect, which he
professed to regard as the stamp of his superiority.
Burke's generous friendship adhered to him to the
last, though often exposed to slights in return ; and
through good report and evil report, he sheltered the
remnants of his fame. Barry died at length, worn out
by a perpetual struggle against the calamities which he
had summoned for his own undoing. He had lived in
projects, and in projects he died ; dreaming of unattain-
able triumphs, and longing but for another year, to
throw all living excellence into eclipse, and sit down
by the side of Michael Angelo.
Burke corresponded with this unfortunate man,
while he was making the tour of the Italian galleries;
3
LETTERS TO BARRY. 77
and his letters are admirable models alternately of cri-
ticism and conduct.
In one of those he says, " With regard to your
studies, you know, my dear Barry, my opinion. I do
not choose to lecture you to death ; but, to say all I
can in a few words, it will not do for a man qualified
like you, to be a connoisseur and a sketcher. You
must be an artUt ; and this you cannot be, but by
drawing with the last degree of noble correctness.
Until you can draw heauty^ with the last degree of truth
and precision, you will not consider yourself possessed
of that faculty. This power will not hinder you from
passing to the ' great style' Avhen you please, if your
character should, as I imagine it will, lead you to that
style in preference to the other. But no man can draw
perfectly, who cannot draw beauty. My dear Barry,
I repeat it again and again, leave oft' sketching. What- W ^
ever you do, Jinish it." '^ '^
He next attempts to warn this unmanageable painter,
of that idlest oi'iiW habits; attempting every thing at once.
" At Home, you are, 1 suppose, ever still so inucli
agitjited by the profusion of fine things on every side
of you, that you have hardly had time to sit down to
methodical and regular study. When you do, you will
certainly select the l/est parts of the best things, and at-
tach yourself to them wholly. Permit mo, once more
to wish you, in the beginning, at least, to contract the
circle of your studies. 'I'lic extent and raj)i(Ii(y of
your mind carries you to too great a diversity of tilings,
and to the completion of a whole before you are tpiite
78 LIFE OF BURKE.
master of the parts, in a degree equal to the dignity of
your ideas. This disposition arises from a generous
impatience, whicli is a fault ahnost characteristic of
great genius. But it is a fault nevertheless."
He still insists with the zeal of a friend, and the feel-
ings of a true judge of the art, upon the necessity of
first acquiring perfection in drawing. Barry had,
doubtless, in his vague style, talked of composing all
kinds of subjects. To temper this vanity of the idler,
Burke gives him the advice which would have formed
the artist. " I confess, I am not much desirous of your
composing many pieces, for some time at least; com-
position 1 do not value near so highly as in general.
I know none who attempt, who thus do not succeed
tolerably in that part. But that exquisite masterly
drawing, which is the glory of the great school where
you are, has fallen to the lot of very few, perhaps to
none of the present age, in its highest perfection. If
I were to indulge a conjecture, I should attribute all
that is called greatness of style and manner of drawing
to this exact knowledge of the parts of the human body,
of anatomy and perspective. For, by knowing exact"
ly and habitually, without the labour of particular
and occasional thinking, what was to be done in every
Hgure they designed, they naturally attained a freedom
and spirit of outline ; because they could be daring
without being absurd. Whereas ignorance, if it be
cautious, is poor and timid ; if bold, it is only blindly
presumptuous. This minute and thorough knowledge
of anatomy, and practical as well as theoretical per-
LETTERS TO BARRY. 79
spectlve, by which I mean to include foreshortening,
is all the effect of labour and use in particular studies,
and not in general compositions."
Barry, it appears, had fallen into the habit of charg-
ing the ill success of his art on the contrivances of the
picture-dealers, an old, and a sufficiently childish, topic
with all artists who are destined to obscurity. Burke,
with his usual calmness of view, pointed out the weak-
ness of this perpetual tirade.
" You have given a strong, and I fancy, a very faith-
ful, picture of the dealers in taste with you. It is
very riglit that you should know and remark their lit-
tle arts ; but, as fraud will intermeddle in every trans-
action of life, where we cannot oppose ourselves to it
with effect, it is by no means our duty or our interest,
to make ourselves uneasy, or to multi[)ly enemies on
account of it. In particular, you may be assured, that
the traffic in antiquity, and all the enthusiasm, folly, or
fraud that may be in it, never did, and never can, hurt
the merit of living artists. Quite the contrary in my
opinion. For J have ever observed, that whatever
it be that turns the minds of men to any thing relative
to the art«, even the most remotely so, brings artists
more and more into credit and repute. And though
now and then, the more broker and dealer in such
things runs away with a great deal of the profit, yc')
in the end, ingouious men will Hud tlicrnsclvos gainers
by the dispositions which are nourished and cherished
in the world by such pursuits."
Ti»e advice was thrown away. Barry's ill-manners
80 LIFE OF BURKE.
and discontented spirit had soon brought him into col-
lision with the artists and persons connected with the
arts in Rome. Of this he complained to Burke ; but
seems to have intimated that his acquirements would
be benefited in consequence, probably by the seclusion
which he thus brought upon himself. Burke's letter
is incomparable, as a manual of general advice to all
who must struggle among mankind. To the fanciful or
the fastidious, — to those who weakly think themselves
above iheir circle, or bitterly conceive that the neglect
of their circle is to be averted only by hostility ; and
more peculiarlj^, to all ranks of those irritable races,
whose life must be a perpetual run under the fire of
criticism ; the motto of this fine document ought to be,
" Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna."
" Until very lately, 1 had never heard any thing of
your proceedings from others ; and when I did, it was
much less than 1 had known from yourself; — that you
had been upon ill terms with the artists and virtuosi
in Rome, without much mention of cause or conse-
quence. If you have improved those unfortunate
quarrels to your advancement in your art, you have
turned a very disagreeable circumstance to a very ca-
pital advantage. However you may have succeeded
in this uncommon attempt, permit me to suggest to
you, with that friendly liberty which you have always
had the goodness to bear from me, that you cannot
possibly always have the same success, with regard to
eitiier your fortune or your reputation. Depend upon
it, that you will find the same competitions, the same
LETTERS TO BARRY. 81
jealousies, the same arts and cabals, the same emula-
tions of interest and fame, and the same agitations and
passions here, that you have experienced in Italy.
And if they have the same effect on your temper, they
will just have the same effect on your interest, and,
be your merit what it will, you will never be employ-
ed to paint a picture. It will be the same in London
as in Rome, and the same in Paris as in London, for
the world is pretty nearly alike in all its parts. Nay,
though it would perhaps be a little inconvenience to
me, I had a thousand times rather you should tix your
residence at Rome than here, as I should not then
have the mortification of seeing with my own eyes, a
genius of the first rank lost to the world, himself, and
his friends ; as I certainly must, if you do not assume
a manner of acting and thinking here, totally different
from what your letters from Rome have described to
me.
"That you have had just subjects of indignation al-
ways, and of anger often, I Ao noways doubt ; who
can live in the world without some trial of his pa-
tience .■' Rut believe me, my Arnr Harrv, that the arms
with wliicli the ill disjjositions of the world are to be
combated, and the cpialitics by which it is to be rccon-
cilcd to US, and we reconciled to it, arc moderation,
gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great
deal of distrust of ourselves ; which are not (|ualities of
a mean spirit, as some may possibly think tlicni ; but
virtufs of u tjrcctt and hdIiIi: /I'/z/r/, and sucli .is dignify
our nature as much as they contribute to our repose
8'2 LIFE OF BUKKE.
and fortune. For nothing- can be so unworthy of a
well-composed soul, as to pass away life in bickerings
and litigations, in snarling and scuffling with every one
about us. Again and again, my dear Barry, we must
be at peace with our species ; if not for their sakes,
yet very much for our own. Think what my feelings
must be, from my unfeigned regard, and from my
wishes that your talents might be of use ; when I see
what the inevitable consequences must be, of your per-
severing in what has hitherto been your course, ever
since I knew you ; and which you Avill permit me to
trace out for you beforehand.
" You will come here ; you will observe what the
artists are doing ; and you will sometimes speak dis-
approbation in plain words, and sometimes by a no less
expressive silence. By degrees you will produce some
of your own works. They will be variously critici-
sed ; you will defend them ; you will abuse those who
have attacked you ; expostulations, discussions, letters,
possibly challenges, will go forward. In the mean-
time, gentlemen will avoid your friendship, for fear
of being engaged in your quarrels. You will fall into
distresses which will only aggravate your disposition
for further quarrels. You will be obliged, for main-
tenance, to do any thing for any body — your very ta-
lents will depart, for want of hope and encourage-
mejit ; and you will go out of the world, fretted, dis-
appointed, and ruined !
" Nothing but my real regard for you, could induce
me to set those considerations in this light before you.
LETTERS TO BARRY. 83
Remember, we are born to serve and to adorn our
country, and not to contend with our fellow-citizens ;
and that in particular, your business is to paint, and not
to dispute." The prediction was true to the letter.
Life was still opening upon Burke. Every year now
urged him more into public fame. He spoke on all
great occasions in the House. The richness and
power of his fancy was becoming- constantly more ef-
fective, from his constant acquisition of facts ; a con-
sciousness of the stand which he took in national esti"
mation, stimulated him to indefatigable industry; and,
in the course of a period which g-enerally finds the
young; senator still trembling- on the edge of debate,
Burke had passed by all his contemporaries, shorn the
old leaders of their laurels, and by universal consent,
taken his stand at the head of Opposition.
This maturity of his powers had arrived at a me-
morable time. The condition of the Empire requir-
ed the higliest ability in the Governors of the State,
and gave the larf^cst scope for all the attributes of po-
litical knowledge, wisdom, and patriotism. If the
world shall over become virtuous enough to deserve
a devclopement of the actual course of Providence in
the affairs of natiiuis, a new light may be thrown on
the whole aspect of history. Events renu)te, trivial,
and obscure, may be fouiul to have been tbc origin of
the greatest transactions ; a chain of circumstauceH
may be traceable round tlic ^^lobe : and whib* the
shortsi<i;btc(lness of the worldly politician deems tlie
catastrophe complete and closed, its operation may be
84 LIFE OF BURKE.
but more secretly advancing-, to envelope a still larger
space, and explode with a more tremendous ruin.
The revolt of America hcas been attributed to the
attempt to lay on taxes without representation. But
a more remote, yet substantial, ground for the spirit
of resistance, was to be found in the French war of
twenty years before. At that period the colonists were
first taught their faculties for the field — the advantages
of natives over foreigners, in the forest skirmishes —
the natural strength of the swamp, the river, and the
thicket — the utter helplessness of the most disciplined
army of Europe to resist the famine and inclemency
of the wilderness — and the utter feebleness of the most
dexterous tactics before the simple activity and enter-
prize of the forest hunter on his own ground. Wash-
ington had served in the British campaigns against the
French masters of the chain of fortresses, extending
from Quebec through the forests ; and the lesson was
not forgotten by him or his Virginian countrymen. It
palpably rendered the population less fearful of a shock
with even the mighty power of England ; and the first
impulse which was given to the national spirit, by the
first pressure of the lightest of all national bonds,
found the Americans falling back upon the memories
of their successful skirmishes, and not unwilling to re-
new the stirring times, when the lance and the rifle
were names of terror in the hands of the woodsman.
Burke's rank in the House naturally induced him to
take a prominent part in the debates on America. But he
had an additional source of knowledge and feeling, in
SPEECH ON THE TEA-DUTY. 85
his personal connexion with the State of New York ; for
which he had heen appointed agent in 1771. It is not
improbable, that to this connexion may be ascribed
some share of the extraordinary ardour with which he
adopted the complaints of America. That his nature
disdained corruption, is acknowledged ; yet, that the
advocacy of a side which embarrassed the Minister, was
the established service of Opposition, is a maxim which
will not be disputed by the morals of Parliament; and
thus this eminent person may have been blamelessly
drawn in to give his support to pretensions, which his
calmer reason would have discovered to be utterly un-
tenable.
The tea-duty, of all pretexts the most trivial for a
great insurrectionary movement against a protecting
and parent state, was the constant topic of Opposition.
At length the question was brought to issue, by a pro-
posal, on the 19th of April, 1774, for the final repeal
of th(! obnoxious duty. Burke rose in reply to a ve-
hem(!nt speech on the Ministerial side, by Wolfran
Cornwall, one of the Lords of the Treasury, It
is said, that a consideral)le portion of this rej)ly was
the work of the moment. Of" course, he had too much
deference for the House, and too much regard for Jiis
own rank there, to venture so important an ellort
altogether uj)on the chances of the hour. But its di-
rect alhisious to the arf;umentsof the prcc^'ding speaker,
give unfMjuivocal proof of that ready and rapid seizure
of circumstances, which forms the chief Udent of a
debater. This speech, too, has the distinction of being
86 LIFE OF BURKE.
the first that has been preserved. Its effect on the
House had induced several of the Members to take
notes, and from those it was subsequently given to pub-
lic curiosity. It singularly abounds in strong appeals,
and dexterous pungencies of language. " For nine long
years," it began, " we have been lashed round and
round this circle of occasional arguments, and tempo-
rary expedients. We have had them in every shape
— we have looked at them in every point of view.
Invention is exhausted, — reason is fatigued, — experi-
ence has given judgment, but obstinacy is not yet con-
quered." * * * " It is through your American trade
that your East India conquests are to be prevented
from crushing you with their burden. They are pon-
derous indeed, and they must have that great country
to lean on, or they tumble on your head. The same
folly has lost you the benefit at once of the West and
the East. This folly has thrown open the folding-doors
to contraband. It will be the means of giving the
profits of the trade of your colonies to every nation
but yourselves. Never did a people sufi'er so much
from a preamble. It is a tax of" sophistry — a tax of
pedantry — a tax of disputation — a tax of war and re-
bellion — a tax for any thing but benefit to the im-
posers, or satisfaction to the subject." * * * « I pass
by the use of the King's name in a matter of supply,
that sacred and reserved right of the Commons. I
conceal the ridiculous figure of Parliament, hurling
its thunders at the gigantic rebellion of America, and
then, five days after, prostrate at the feet of those as-
SPEECH ON THE TEA-DUTY. 87
semblies which we affected to despise ; begging' them,
by the interveution of our Ministerial sureties, to re-
ceive our submission."
From those keen and pointed sentences, he some-
times spreads into bokl amplification. " Let us," he
exclaims, " embrace some system or other, before we
put an end to this session. Do you mean to tax Ame-
rica, and to draw a productive revenue from her ? If
you do, speak out, — name, fix this revenue, — settle its
quantity, — define its objects, — provide for its collec-
tion, and then fight, when you have something to fight
for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take possession;
but do not appear in the character of madmen as well
as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody and tyrannical,
and all without an object."
Lord Caermarthen had remarked in the course of
the debate, that " America was at least as much repre-
sented as Manchester, which had made no complaint
of a want so imaginary; and that the Americans ought,
as the children of England, to have exhibited some-
what more of the spirit of filial obedience." Burke's
fine and forcible r<!tort on this charge produced an
extraordinary sensation in tlu; whole House.
" The noble lord," said he, " calls the Americans
our children, and such they arc. JUit when our cliil-
dren ask for bread, shall we give them a stoiu; ? Wlien
they wish to assimilate to their parent, and to refh'Ct
with a true filial resemblance tlic beauteous counte-
nance of British liberty, are we to turn to tbinn only
the deformed part of the British Constitution? Arc
we to give them our weakness for their strength, our
88 LIFE or BUKKE.
opprobrium for their glory, and the slough of slavery,
which we are not able to work off, to serve them for
their freedom ?"
Even in this speech he strikes a blow at the politi-
cal metaphysics, which the later and more glorious
part of his life was so vigorously employed in expos-
ing. " Those are," said he, " the arguments of states
and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools. But
if, inteniperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and
poison the very source of government by urging subtle
deductions, and consequences odious to those you go-
vern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of su-
preme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means
to call that sovereignty in question. If you drive him
hard, the boar will turn upon the hunters."
This speech was one of the most signal triumphs of
the orator. The debate had been long and tedious,
and the members had gradually thinned away to the
coffee-room. When it was told, that Burke was on
his legs, public expectation was excited ; but it was
only when he had thoroughly entered on his subject,
that the reports of his extraordinary brilliancy on that
night suddenly crowded the House. From that mo-
ment, their expressions of delight were incessant. The
hearers in the galleries could be scarcely restrained
from bursting out into applause. At one of these sudden
and powerful turns with which the speech abounded,
Lord John Townshend, who had been familiar with
all the former leaders of debate, exclaimed, " Good
heavens, what a man is this ! Where could he have
found such transcendant powers !"
CHAPTER IV.
Election for Bristol — Speech at the Hustings — Popular Delusions —
Famous Speech on American Affairs — Apostrophe to Lord
Bathurst — Keen Parody by Johnson.
The dissolution of Parliament put an end to Burke's
representation of Wendover. But his rank in Op-
position made his presence necessary to his party
in the House ; and, by the Fitzwilliam interest, he
was returned for Malton. But he was to ascend
a higher step in popular distinctions. While he had
scarcely more than made his acknowledgments to
the northern electors, a deputation from Bristol was
announced. It had been sent by a strong body of the
merchants, to propose his nomination in their city, and
bring him in free of all expense. So striking an evi-
dence of public opinion could not be declined. Ho
immediately took leave of Malton, and started for
Bristol ; where he arrived only on the sixth day of the
election! There was no time to be lost; and, not-
withstanding his weariness, for he had travelled forty
hours without rest, he drove to the hustings. The
candidates had been Lord Clare and Mr Brickdale,
VOL. I. fl
90 LIFE OF BURKE.
the late members; with Mr Cruger, a considerable
merchant. On the second day of the poll, Lord Clare
had given up the contest; but Brickdale had rendered
himself unacceptable to the merchants, and they deter-
mined to find a candidate at once master of the com-
mercial interests of the empire, and possessing weight in
the House. The deputation had immediately set out
for London in search of Burke; from London they
had followed him to Yorkshire, and they soon had the
g'ratification of seeing- him returned for their city.
The speech which he addressed to the electors on
his arrival, a brief, but clear exposition of his political
views, shewed at the instant how highly his friends
were justified in his selection. America was now the
topic upon which all discussion turned, and he, of
course, alluded to it. But it is gratifying to have his
explicit declaration ; that he never contemplated the
rash revolt, and never justified the gross denial of
British right, which formed the head and front of
American offending. " I have held," said he, " and
ever shall maintain, to the best of my power, unim-
paired and undiminished, the just, wise, and necessary
constitutional superiority of Great Britain. This is
necessary for America, as well as for us — I never
mean to depart from it. Whatever may be lost by it,
I avow it. The forfeiture even of your favour, if by
such a declaration I could forfeit it, never will make
me disguise my sentiments on the subject. But I have
ever had a clear opinion, and have ever held a con-
stant, correspondent conduct, that this superiority is
SPEECH AT THE HITSTINGS. 91
consistent with all the liberties which a sober and
spirited American ought to desire. I never mean to
put any colonist, or any human being in a situation not
becoming a freeman.
On the popular claims which, at that time, were
echoed and re-echoed through the kingdom, he is
equally clear. — " The distinguishingpart of our consti-
tution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate,
seems the particular duty and proper trust of a mem-
ber of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the
only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected icitli order,
that not only exists along with order and virtue, but
which cannot exist at all ivitkout them. It inheres in
good and steady Government, as in its vital principle."
At the close of the poll, which was prolonged with
unusual perseverance ; another demand was made on
his political fortitude, by that question of pledges which
has fettered so many of the " independents" of our
own day. Cruger ha<l made some idle admission as
to the power of binding the candidate. " I wish,"
said I^urke in his final address, " that topic had been
pa.sscd by, at a time when I have so little leisure to
dincuss it." lie flien proceeded to state his sentiments,
which have, till our fatal period of" change in every
thing, formed the law on the suliject. " It is the duty
of the representative to sacrifice his repose, his plea-
sures, his satisfactions, to his constituents. liut his
uidiiassed opinion, his mature! judgment, his enlighten-
ed conscience, heo\>{^Mit not to sacrifice to you, to any
jnan, or to any set of men living. They are a trust
92 LIFE OF BURKE.
from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply
answerable. Your representative owes you, not his
industry only, but his judgment ; and he betrays instead
of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. * *
* * * If government were a matter of will, upon any
side ; yours, without question, ought to be superior.
But government and legislation are matters of reason
and judgment, not of inclination. And what sort of
reason is that, in which the determination precedes the
discussion ; in which one set of men deliberate, and
another decide ; and where those who form the con-
clusion are pei'haps three hundred miles distant from
those who hear the arg-uments ? ****** Au-
thoritative instructions, mandates, which the member is
bound blindly and implicitly to obey; these are things
utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which
arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and
tenor of our constitution. Parliament is not a congress
of ambassadors from different states, and with hostile
interests, which interests each must maintain as an agent
against other agents. But Parliament is a deliberative
assembly of one nation with one interest, that of the
u'hole. You choose a member indeed ; but when you
have chosen him, he is not member for Bristol, but he
is a member of Parliament."
And those words were not the bravado of a man se-
cure of his seat. He acted up to their spirit, even
when the loss of his seat was involved in the action.
In 1780, he repeated his declaration — " I did not obey
your instructions. No; I conformed to the instruc-
SPEECH AT THE HUSTINGS. 93
tions of truth and nature, and maintained your interests
against your opinions, with a constancy that became me.
A representative worthy of you ought to be a person
of stability. I am to look indeed to your opinions.
But to such opinions as you and I must look to, five
years hence. I was not to look at the flash of the day.
I knew that you chose me in my place, along with
others, to be a pillar of the State, and not a weather-
cock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity
and versatility ; and of no use but to indicate the shift-
ings of every popular gale."
Election jests are not always long lived. But Cru-
ger's deficiencies, in comparison with Burke's ability
as a speaker, gave rise to a burlesque of the opulent
man of trade, which is still memorable at Bristol. On
the conclusion of Burke's fine address, Cruger stood
up ; but his fount of eloquence would not flow. At
length the genius of the counting-hous^e saved him from
\itter silence. " I say ditto to Mr Burke, I say ditto
to Mr Burke !" he exclaimed ; and rushed from the
liustingH, in a general roar of laughtcu* and applause.
Burke's definition of the duties of a member oi' Par-
liament, with which he closed his speecli, shows bow
little be shared in the extravagances of his time, or our
own. It is as applicable to this hour, as it was to the
moment when it was first hailed by every lover of le-
gitimate freedom. " To Ix; a good member of Par-
liament, is, let me tell you, no easy task ; especially at
this time, when ther«j is so strong a disposition to run
into the ju'rilous extremes of servile compliance or loild
94 LIFE OF BURKE.
popularity. To unite circumspection with vigour is
absolutely necessary, but it is extremely difficult. We
are now members for a rich commercial city, that city
is, however, but a part of a rich commercial nation,
the interests of which are various, multiform, and in-
tricate. We are members for that great nation, which
itself, however, is but a part of a great empire, extend-
ed by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest limits
of the east and the west. All these wide-spread in-
terests must be considered, must be compared, must
be reconciled, if possible. We are members for a free
country, and surely we all know, that the machine of
a free country is no simple thing ; but, as intricate and
as delicate as it is valuable. We are members in a
great and ancient monarchy. And we vayx^t preserve
religiously the true legal rights of the sovereign, which
form the key-stone that binds together the noble and
well-constructed arch of our empire and our Consti-
tution.
A history of public questions might be a work
worthy of some great benefactor of his country. It
would show the perpetual facility with which the
public mind may be fruitlessly disturbed ; the guilty
dexterity with wliich party imposture may inflame
popular passion ; and the utter absurdity with which
nations may be impregnated, at the moment when they
are giving themselves credit for supreme wisdom ; the
whole forming a great legacy of political common
sense — an extract from the follies of the fathers, for
an antidote to the crimes of posterity.
POrULAR DELUSIONS. 95
Within the latter half of the eighteenth century, the
visitations of this periodic frenzy had thickened. Fre-
deric and the Seven Years' War roused every talker in
England into angry elocution, and the man was pro-
nounced an enemy to his country who could douht the
virtues of the Kins" of Prussia ! This absurdity had its
day. The public fevercooledaway, and men were asto-
nished at their own extravagance. The Middlesex elec-
tions next discovered the organ of political frenzyin the
public brain. The nation was instantly in a paroxysm.
Every man was an orator, and every orator exclaim-
ed, that all past hazards were nothing- to the inevitable
ruin of the hour; for what was life without liberty,
and what was liberty without Wilkes to save it ? En-
gland saw this day pass too, and the patriot shelter
himself in an opulent sinecure, and laugh at the dupes
whose clamour had been its purchase. The Ameri-
can question gave the next summons. The whole host
of obscure politicians were instantly awakened in their
retreats, and poured forth, brandishing their blunted
weapons for the colonies. Every factious clamour
from beyond the Atlantic was answered from our
shores with either a shout of applause, or a groan of
sympathy. Thousands and tens of thousands inflamed
themselves into the conception, that the hourly fate oi
England was hung in the balance of America. Thou-
sands :ui(l lens of thovisands imbued themsolves with
American politics, \\\\U\ the E.nglish comidcxioii bad
vanished from tlu-ir features, and they actually saw no-
thing in open revolt but ;i repulsion of lyraimy.
96 LIFE OF BURKE.
We can now see, and we should see it with a natu-
ral alarm at the power of political illusion, the mingled
frenzy and folly of the in6uence which this crisis usurped
even over the higher minds of England. We may well
shrink at the strength of the whirlpool; when we see it
sweeping Burke and Chatham round, through e very-
circle hut the last; and those most muscular minds of the
empire, harely making their escape from being absorbed
and sunk in the common gulf of national perversion.
Roman Catholic Emancipation was the next fit of the
public folly. Its cry rang through the empire, until the
whole tribe of loose politics, lurking discontents, and
incurable bitternesses against all government; the
whole fretful accumulation of imaginary wrongs, ima-
ginary rights, and imaginary panaceas for all the dif-
ficulties of mankind, were marshalled at the sound of
that voice of evil. Other and more disciplined forces
soon joined that levy. The priesthood sounded the
trumpet from their altars. The armed banditti of
Irish faction, long trained by mid-day insults of all au-
thority, and midnight usurpation of all power, moved
at the head of the insurrection, and Parliament was
stormed. The great body of the English nation must
be exonerated, in this instance, from the principle of
the act, if they shall yet be compelled to share deeply in
the misfortune of its consequences. But the battle
was not now fought upon the old ground. The empire
was excluded from the contest, and reserved only to
be delivered over in fetters to the conqueror. The
battle was fought not in Parliament, but in the Cabi-
SPEECH ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 97
net. The only weapons of English allegiance and wis-
dom, must be petition and remonstrance. The wea-
pons of Popish ambition were arrogant appeals to fo-
reign Powers, and sullen menaces of national separa-
tion. The walls of the Cabinet, impreg'nable to Con-
stitutional entreaty, broke down before the assaults of
unconstitutional violence.
Evil days are coming", evil days have come. Who
talks now of the majesty of public deliberation ? Who
tiiinks now of the dignity of halls, which once echoed
the noblest aspirations of human wisdom, philoso-
phy and courage ? Or who thinks of their old sacred-
ness, without thinking of the Capitol taken by assault,
and the Goth and the Gaul, the ferocious sons of the
forest and the swamp, playing" their savage gambols
amid its altars, plucking the Roman Senator from his
curule chair, and rending' the ivory sceptre from his
hand ?
Burke's speech on American affairs, on the 22d of
March 1775, was long recorded as one of his most re-
markable displays of ability. In tlic general inofli-
ciency of Opposition to concoct i-vcii ;iiiy plausible
grievance, the task fell upon Burke, and he cm[)l<)yed
himself in framing^ the memorjiblc " Thirteen Arti-
cles," which were to be the purchase of national tran-
(juillity. The project belonged to party, and it was,
of course, extravag^<int ; it was intended t<» (ail, and, of
course, it fail(;d. But its effect on the war, was mis-
chievous. HaHb conciliation naturally inflames tin; hos-
tility which it proj)08Cs to cure ; America proceeded
vol.. I. I
98 LIFE OF BURKE.
in her rebellion, only the more fortified by the know-
ledge that she had active partisans, and inactive repug-
nants, in the mother country. The speech was the
work of" a man in fetters ; but it retains a value from
its touches of that moral wisdom, which embalms the
most temporary and decaying subjects of the great
orator. ****««! have no very exalted opinion
oi paper government, said Burke, nor of any politics in
which the plan is to be wholly separated from the exe-
cution. * * * * Public calamity is a mighty leveller ;
and there are occasions when any, even the slightest,
chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even by
the most inconsiderable person. » * # * i^'^e pro-
position is peace. Not peace through the medium of
war. Not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth
of intricate and endless negotiations. Not peace to
arise out of universal discord, fomented on principle in
all parts of the Empire. Not peace to depend on the
juridical determination of perplexing questions ; or the
precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex
government. It is simple peace, sought in its na-
tural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace,
sought in the spirit of peace. * * * * Refined policy
ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will
be, so long as the world endures. Plain good inten-
tion, which is as easily discovered at the first view as
fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in
governing mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is a
healing and cementing principle. * * * * Great and
acknowledged force is not impaired in either eflFect or
a
SPEECH ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 99
opinion by an unwillingness to exert itself. The su-
perior power may offer peace with honour and with
safety. Such an oft'er, from such a power, will be at-
tributed to maj^naniuiity. But the concessions of the
weak are the concessions of fear. When such a one
is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior,
and he loses for ever that time and those chances,
which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and
resources of all inferior power. ♦ * * I look on force,
not only as an odious, but a feeble instrument, for pro-
serving a people so numerous, so growing, and so
spirited a.s this, in u prolitable and subordinate con-
nexion. First, the use of force alone is but temporary.
It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove
the necessity of subduing again. A nation is not go-
verned, which is perpetually to be compiored. My
next objection is its uncertainty. 'J'error is not always
the eflect of force, and an armament is not a victory.
If you do not succeed, you are without resource. For,
conciliation failing, force remains ; but force failing,
no furtliLT hope of conciliation is left. Power and au-
thority are Homotiuu'H bou;^bt by kindiu'.ss; but they
can never be begged as alms, by an impoverished and
defeated violence. A further objection to force is,
that you impair the ohjrct by your very endeavours to
preserve it. Tlie thing you fought for is nottlu! thing
whitli you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and
consumed in tin; contest."
His remarks on the coiuiition of soeic't) in ilic Soulli-
ern iVovinccs of the I'nitod States give some intiight
100 LIFE OF BURKE.
into that original difference which must end in national
struggle. " In Virginia and the Carolinas, they have
a vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in
any part of the world, those who are free, are by far
the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Free-
dom to them is not only an enjoyment, but a kind of
rank and privilege. Not seeing there that freedom,
as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as
broad and general as the air, may be united with much
abject toil, Avlth great misery, with all the exterior of
servitude, Liberty looks among them, like something
more noble and liberal. I do not mean to commend
the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at
least as much pride as virtue in it ; but I cannot alter
the nature of man. The fact is so ; and the people of
the Southern Colonies are much more strongly, and
with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to
Liberty, than those to the Northward. Such Avere
all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic
ancestors; such in our days were the Poles; and such
will be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves them-
selves. In such a people, the haughtiness of domina-
tion combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it,
an<l renders it Invincible."
His observation on the general taste for legal studies
which predominated in America is expressive. But
Sectarianism was the superior teacher of Revolution.
" When great honours and great emoluments do not
win over legal knowledge to the service of the state, it
is a formidable adversary to government. Abeunt stu~
SPEECH ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. lUl
dia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisi-
tive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence,
full of resources. In other countries, the people, more
simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill
principle in government only by an actual grievance ;
here Nhey anticipate the evil and judge of the pressure
of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They
augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the ap-
proach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." * * *
*' Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and
the colonies. No contrivance can prevent the eft'ect of
this distance in weakening government. Seas roll and
months pass between the order and the execution.
And the want of a speedy explanation of a single point
is enough to defeat a whole system. You have indeed
winged Ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts
in their pounces to the uttermost verge of the sea.
But there a power steps in, which limits the arrogance
of raging passions and furious elements, and says, ' So
far shalt thou go, and no further !' Who are you, that
Hhould fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature ?"
Mis anticipation of the results that must follow
from the extension of the States through western
America, is probably not far from its fuKilment. " You
cannot station garrisons in every part of those deserts.
If you drive the people from one place, they will carry
on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks
and herds to another. Many of the people in the back
settlements are already little attached to parti(Milar si-
tuations. Already they have topped the Apalachian
102 LIFE OF BURKE.
mountains. Thence they behold before them an im-
mense plain, one vast rich level meadow, a square of
five hundred miles. Over this they would wander
without a possibility of restraint ; they would change
their manners with their habits of life ; would soon
forget a government by which they were disowned ;
would become hordes of English Tartars, and pour-
ing down upon your frontiers a fierce and irresistible
cavalry, become masters of your governors and coun-
sellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the
slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and in no
long time must be, the effect of attempting to foi'bid
as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command
and blessing of Providence, increase and multiply."
Towards the close of this great performance, he lays
down the principle, (so adverse to that of the enthusi-
asts for new constitutions,) that, in all things, even in
freedom, we must consider the price, and settle with
ourselves how far we may be satisfied with what is at-
tainable. " Although there are some among us who
think our constitution wants many improvements to
make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none
who are of that opinion would think it right to aim at
such improvement by disturbing his country, and risk-
ing every thing that is dear to him. In every ardu-
ous enterprise we consider what we are to lose, as
well as what we are to gain ; and the more and better
stake of liberty every people possess, the less they will
hazard in a vain attempt to make it more. These are
the cords of a man. Man acts from adequate motives
APOSTROPHE TO LORD BATHURST. 103
relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical specu-
lations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning,
cautions us, and with great weight and propriety,
against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in
moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all so-
phistry."
In giving these fragments, the object has been to se-
lect the maxims of political truth. The passages of
oratorical beauty have been passed by; yet, it would be
dishonest to all feeling of excellence, to omit, often as
it has been quoted, the unrivalled apostrophe to old
Lord Bathurst, on the progress of the Colonies.
" Mr Speaker, — I cannot prevail on myself to hurry
over this great consideration. It is good for us to be
here. We stand where we have an immense view,
of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and dark-
ness, rest upon the future. Let us, however, before
we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this
growth of our national prosperity has happened within
the short period of the life of man. It has happened
within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose
memory might touch the two extremities. For in-
stance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the
stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at
least to be made to comprehend such things. lie was
then old enough acta parenlumjam ler/ere, ct qua; sit coij-
noscere virtus.
"Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth,
foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of
the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to hiui
104 LIFE OF DLRKE.
in vision, that when in the fourth generation, the third
prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve
years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy
issue of moderate and healing councils) was to be
made Great Britain, he should see his son Lord Chan-
cellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary
dignity to its fountain, and raise him to an higher rank
of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new
one. If amidst these bright and happy scenes of ho-
nour and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up
the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his coun-
try, and whilst he was gazing with admiration on the
then commercial grandeur of England, the Genius
should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in
the mass of the national interest, a small seminal prin-
ciple rather than a formed body, and should tell him,
' Young man, there is America, which at this day
serves for little more than to amuse you with stories
of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before
you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of
that commerce which now attracts the envy of the
world. Whatever England has been growing to by
a progressive increase of improvement brought in by
varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests,
and civilizing settlements, in a series of seventeen hun-
dred years, you shall see as much added to her by
America in the course of a single life !' If the state of
his country had been foretold to him, would it not re-
quire all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the
fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it ?
PARODY BY JOHNSON. 105
Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ! Fortunate in-
deed, if he lives to see nothing- that shall vary the
prospect, and cloud the setting of his day."
In this glowing- anticipation the orator was more
fortunate than the prophet. But Johnson's keen bur-
lesque of the prediction is worth remembering, perhaps
for more than its ridicule.
" Suppose,* !Mr Speaker; that to Wharton, or to Marl-
borough, or any of the eminent Whigs of the last age,
the Devil had, not with any great impropriety, consented
to appear ; he would, perhaps, in somewhat like these
words, have commenced the conversation : —
" You seem, my Lord, to be concerned at the judi-
cious apprehension, that while you are sapping the
foundations of royalty at home, and propagating here
the dangerous doctrine ot resistance ; the distance of
America may secure its inhabitants from your arts,
though active ; but I will unfold to you the gay pros-
pects of futurity. 'Ibis people, now so innocent and
harmless, shall draw the sword against their mother-
country, and bathe its point in the blood of ihelr bene-
factors; this people, now contented with a little, shall
• Mr» I'iozzi tliiiK iiitrodiicis tin- pii.sf.agc . —
" It was ill the year 1775, that Mr Edmuiul Uurkc made the fa-
mous ftpeech ill Puriiuinciit, that strufk even foes with admiration,
and fririids witli diflight. Among the namelcRs thousands wlio arc
rontcnt to echo those prnisrs thry have not skill to invent, 1 ventur-
ed, before Dr Juhimon himself, to iipphitid with rapture the ix'autifitl
passage in it ronceming Lord HathurRt and the Angel ; which, said
our Doctor, had 1 been in the House, I would have answered thus:—
106 LIFE OF BURKE.
then refuse to spare what they themselves confess they
could not miss ; and those men, now so honest and so
grateful, shall in return for its peace and protection, send
their vile agents into the House of Parliament, there
to sow the seeds of sedition, and propagate confusion,
perplexity, and pain. Be not dispirited, then, at the
contemplation of their present happy state ; I promise
you, that anarchy, poverty, and death, shall by my care
be carried even across the spacious Atlantic, and settle
in America itself the sure consequences of our beloved
Whiggism."
But every portion of the speech abounds with noble
illustration. In allusion to the undoubted fact, that the
true way to secure a revenue is to begin, not by fiscal
regulations, but by making the people masters of their
own wealth ; it suddenly starts from the simplest
form of statement, into various and luminous figures.
" What, says the findncier, is peace to us, without
money. Your plan gives us no remedy. Yes, but it
does, for it secures to the subject the power o(refusal,
the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and
fact a liar, if this power in the subject, of proportion-
ing his grant, or of not granting at all, has not been
found the richest mine of revenue ever discovered by
the skill or the fortune of man. It does not indeed
vote you any paltry or limited sum. But it gives the
strong-box itself, the fund, the bank, from which only
revenues can arise among a people sensible of freedom.
Posita luditur area. Most may be taken where most
is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where
PAllODY BY JOHNSON. 107
experience has not uniformly proved, that the volun-
tary flow of heaped up plenty, bursting from the weight
of its own luxuriance, has ever run with a more co-
pious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed from
the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining-
of all the political machinery in the world ?"
CHAPTER V.
Prevents the Rockingbam Secession — Franklin — Absentee Tax —
Alliance of France with America — Burke loses his Seat for Bris-
tol — Speech on the Household — French Finance — Neckar.
During this anxious period ; while all the elements
of public life were darkening, and the tempest which
began in America threatened to make the round of the
whole European horizon, Burke found leisure and
buoyancy of spirit for the full enjoyment of society.
There he was still the universal favourite. Even John-
son, adverse as he was to him in politics, and accustomed
to treat all adversaries with rough contempt or angry
sarcasm, smoothed down his mane, and drew in his
talons in the presence of Burke. On one occasion,
when Goldsmith, in his vague style, talked of the im-
possibility of living in intimacy with a person having a
different opinion on any prominent topic, Johnson re-
buked him, as usual. " Why, no. Sir. You must only
shun the subject on which you disagree. For in-
stance, I can live very well with Burke. I love his
knowledge, his genius, his diffusion and affluence of
conversation. But I would not talk to him of the
Rockingham party."
ROCKINGHAM SECESSION. 109
In his reserve upon this topic, Johnson probably
meant to exhibit more kindness than met the ear, for
the Rockingham party had become the tender point of
Burke's public feelings. That party had been origi-
nally led to take refuge under its nomi-nal leader, by
the mere temptation of high Whig title, hereditary
rank, and large fortune. But the Marquis had been
found inefficient, or unlucky, and his parliamentary
weight diminished day by day. Burke still fought,
kept actual ruin at a distance, and signalized himself
by all the vigour, zeal, and enterprise of an invincible
debater. But nothing could resist the force of circum-
stances ; the party must change its leader, or give up
its arms. In this emergency, the Marquis proposed a
total secession from Parliament. To his proposal
Burke, with due submission, gave way ; but accom-
panied the acfpiiescence with a letter, in which, in stat-
ing his reasons for retreat, he so strikingly stated the
reasons lor the contrary, that the Mar(|uis changed his
opinion at once ; and the held was retained for a new
trial of fortune. Burke's Inipression, doubtless, was,
that nothing can be gained, though every thing may be
lost, by giving up the contest; that nothing is sooner
forgotten than the public man who is no longer before
the public eye ; and that, whatever the nation may dis-
cover in vigorous resistance, it will never discover
courage in flight, or wisdom in despair.
His opinion on this point was touched on, in a sub-
sequent conversation with his frieiul Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds. " Mr Burke, I do not mean to flatter," said
110 LIFE OF BUHKE.
Sir Joshua, " but when posterity reads one of your
speeches in Parliament, it will be difficult to believe
that you took so much pains, knowing- with certainty
that it could produce no effect — that not one vote
would be gained by it."
" Waiving your compliment to me," was the reply,
" I shall say, in general, that it is very well worth
while for a man to take pains to speak well in Parlia-
ment. A man who has vanity speaks to display his ta-
lents. And if a man speaks well, he gradually esta-
blishes a certain reputation and consequence in the ge-
neral opinion, which sooner or later will have its poli-
tical reward. Besides, though not one vote is gained,
a good speech has its effect. Tliough an act which
has been ably opposed passes into a law, yet in its pro-
gress it is modelled, it is softened in such a manner,
that we see plainly the minister has been told, that the
members attached to him are so sensible of its injus-
tice or absurdity from what they have heai'd, that it
must be altered."
He again observed, — " There are many members,
who generally go with the Minister, who will not go
all lengths. There are many honest, well-meaning-
country gentlemen, who are in Parliament only to keep
up the consequence of their families. Upon most of
those a good speech will have influence."
" What next," asked Sir Joshua, " would be the re-
sult; if a jNIinister, secure of a majority, were to resolve
that there should be no speaking- on his side?" Burke
answered; " That he must soon go out. The plan has
been tried already, but it was found it would not do."
FRANKLIN. 1 11
In the midst of the more important matters of de-
bate, his natural good humour often relieved the gra-
vity of the House. His half-vexed, half-sportive re-
mark on the speech of David Hartley, the member for
Hull, an honest man, but a dreary debater, was long
remembered. Burke had come, intending to speak on
a motion on American affairs, to be brought forveard
by the member for Hull. But that gentleman's style
rapidly thinned the benches. At lengtli, when the
House was almost a desert, lie called for the reading
of the Riot Act, to support some of his arguments.
Burke's impatience could be restrained no longer, and
under the double vexation of seeing the motion ruin-
ed, and his own speech likely to be thrown away for
want of an audience, he started up, almost instinctive-
ly, exclaiming, " The Riot Act, the Riot Act ! for
what? does not my honourable friend see that he has
dispersed tlie mob already?"
His exertions on tlie American cjuestion natumlly
brought hini into intercourse with tlie principal persons
connected with tiic Hubject. He; corresponded Avilii
General Lee, a man of some acijuiremenls, but ol ex-
treme eccentricity, if not insane. Lee afterwards took
service in the American army, wIhmx' he soon fjuarrelled
with his sujjeriors as much as at home ; and foinid as
little to reconcile bis giddy understanding and worth-
less Iieart, in republicanism as in monarcliy. Some con-
nexion with Franklin was the natural result of" his
position in the House. But l''ranklin at tliat time was
not the rcvoltcr tliat he afterwards became. He cal-
112 LIFE OF BURKE.
led upon Burke the day before he took his final leave
of London, in 1775, and had a long interview with
him. On this occasion Franklin expressed great re-
gret for the calamities, which he viewed as the conse-
quence of the ministerial determinations ; professing,
that nothing could give him more pain than the separa-
tion of the colonies from the mother-country ; that
America had enjoyed many happy days under her rule,
and that he never expected to see such again ! Yet, it
is evident, that Franklin was irreconcileably hostile ;
this feeling had broken out on the most accidental oc-
casions. One day, visiting the source of the Thames,
he exclaimed, " And is it this narrow stream, that is to
have dominion over a country that contains the Hud-
son and the Ohio ?" On leaving the Privy-Council,
where he had been examined and taken to task by
Wedderburne the Attorney-General, he murmured in
the bitterness of personal revenge, " For this I will
make your King a little king." This was not the lan-
guage of a peace-maker. The Americans still pane-
gyrize this man. His worldly skill makes the stand-
ing figure of the fourth of July speeches, those annual
elaborate effusions of Republican eloquence. But
whatever they may do with his name, they should ab-
jure his spirit. To Franklin and to his doctrine of
selfishness, his substitution of the mere business of
amassing, for the generous and natural uses of wealth,
his turning the American into a mere calculator of
profit and loss, and America into a huge counting-
house ; is due a vast portion of every evil belonging to
ABSENTEE TAX. 113
the character of her people, and of that desperate De-
mocracy which so inevitably threatens her government.
The sooner they lay his maxims and his memory in
the grave together, the better for the national honour.
The spirit of a pedlar ought not to preside over the
councils of a great people. The Americans may erect
his statue in their Temple of Mammon, if they will ;
but they must close the temple, and embrace a loftier
worship, before they can be worthy of the renown of
their ancestors, or be fitting trustees of freedom to their
posterity.
The United JStates have before them the noblest
prospect that can be offered to a people, the power of
spreading law and liberty, the happiness of social life,
and the light of religion, through the future millions of
a boundless land. But, to complete that destiny, they
must adopt principles worthy of its distinction. They
must soar, not creep. It wo\dd be almost profane to
doubt, that there arc minds already in America too
proud and too wise to mistake the crafty politics of
their country for statesmanship, or the usurpation of de-
serts for empire. .Such minds must become the lead-
ers of America ; or even her vigour, opulence, and en-
terpri/.o, will but hurry her into ruin.
At this period, the patriots of the Irish Parliament
were as much at a loss for a grievance, and as glad to
adopt a fictitious one, as their brethren of the Kngllsh.
Au Absentee Tax w.is the resource. Burke's concep-
tions of the utter impolicy of this tax; which had been
proposed by Mr Flood, then at the head of Oj^position
VOL. I. K
114 LIFE OF BURKE.
in Ireland, and been weakly acquiesced in by the Mi-
nistry of 1 773, were thus given in a letter to Sir Charles
Bingham. " I look," said he, " upon this projected
tax in a very evil light. I think it is not advisable ;
— I am sure it is not necessary. And, as it is not a
mere matter of finance, but involves a political ques-
tion of much importance, I consider the principle and
precedent as far worse than the thing itself. * * * *
In the first place, it strikes at the power of this coun-
try ; in the end, at the union of the whole empire. I
do not mean to express any thing invidious concerning
the superintending authority of Great Britain. But, if
it be true, that the several bodies which make up this
complicated mass, are to be preserved as one empire,
an authority sufficient to preserve this unity, and by
its equal weight and pressure to consolidate the va-
rious parts, must reside somewhere, and that some-
Avhere can be only in England. ***** A free
communication by discretionary residence is necessary
to all the other purposes of communication. * * *
If men may be disabled from following their suits here,
they may be thus taxed into a denial of justice. A tax
of two shillings may not do it; but the principle im-
plies it. They who restrain may prohibit. They who
may impose two shillings in the pound, may impose
ten. And those who condition the tax to six months'
annual absence, may carry that condition to six weeks,
or to six days, and thereby totally defeat the means
Avhich have been provided for extensive wnd impartial
justice. ***** What is taxing a resort to, and
ABSENTEE TAX. 115
residence in, any place, but declaring- that your con-
nexion with that place is a grievance ? Is not such an
Irish tax a virtual declaration that England is a fo-
reign country ; and a renunciation of the principle of
common naturalization, which runs through the whole
empire ?*****! can easily conceive, that a citi-
zen of Dublin, who looks no further than his counter,
may think that Ireland will be repaid for such a loss
by any small diminution of taxes, or any increase iu
the circulation of money, that may be laid out in the
purchase of claret or groceries in his corporation. But
I cannot think that any educated man, any man who
looks with an enlightened eye on the interests of Ire-
land, can believe that it is not highly for the advan-
tage of Ireland, that this Parliament, which, wiiether
right or wrong, will make some laws to bind Ireland,
should have some persons in it, who, by connexion,
by property, or by early prepossessions, are attached
to the welfare of the country. * * * * There is an-
other matter in the tax that contradicts a very great
principle necessary for preserving the union of the va-
rious parts of the State; because it does, in otfoct, dis-
countenance intermarriage and mutual injicritance; —
things that bind countries more closely together than
any laws or constitutions whatsoever. Is it right,
that a woman who marries into Ireland, and periiaps
well purchases her jointure or her dower there, should
not, after her husband's death, have it in her ciioice to
return to her country and her friends without being
taxed for it? Or, if an Irish heiress should marry in
1 16 LIFE OF BUUKE.
an English family, and that great property in both
countries should thereby come to be united in the com^
mon issue ; shall the descendant of" that marriage aban-
don his natural connexions, his family interests, his
public and private duties, and be compelled to take up
his residence in Ireland ? Is there any sense or jus-
tice in it, unless you affirm that there should be no
such intermarriage, and no such natural inheritance?
Is there a shadow of reason, that, because a Lord
Buckingham, a Duke of Devonshire, a Sir George Sa-
ville, possesses property in Ireland, which has de-
scended to them without any act of theirs, they should
abandon their duty in Parliament, and spend their
winters in Dublin ? or, having spent the session in
Westminster, must they abandon their seats, and all
their family interest, in Yorkshire and Derbyshire,
and pass the rest of the year in WickloAV, Cork, or
Tyronne ? * * * * gut ^ ^jm may have property in
more parts of the Empire. He may have property in
Jamaica, as well as in England and Ireland. I know
some who have property in all of them. Suppose this
poor distracted citizen of the whole Empire, providing
(if the nature of the laws will admit of it,) a flying
camp, and dividing his year, as well as he can, between
England and Ireland, and at the charge of two town
houses, and two country houses in both kingdoms.
In this situation he receives an account that a law is
transmitted from Jamaica to tax absentees from that
province, which is impoverished by the European re-
sidence of the possessors of their lands. How is he to
ABSENTEE TAX. 1 17
escape this ricochet of cross-firing of so many opposite
batteries of notice and regulation? If he comply, he
is more likely to be a citizen of the Atlantic Ocean
and the Irish Sea, than of either of the countries."
He then closely follows the argument into the case
of minors sent to English schools or colleges ; of law
students sent to the English Inns of Court; of people
forced by infirmity to change their residence ; of per-
sons of embarrassed fortunes, who retire in order to
retrench, and asks, Are such fit objects of a tax ? " You
begin to burthen those people, precisely at the time
when their circumstances of health and fortune render
them objects of relief and commiseration."
To those profound reasons might be added the ob-
vious ones — That an absentee tax would be a virtual
prohibition of all English money in the purchase of
lands in Ireland; for, who would buy, where he was
to pay an additional tax as the purchaser ? Thus the
value of every acre in Ireland would be instantly sunk.
A still more striking reason against an absentee tax
would be, the .ibnost total inipossil/ility of raising it,
in any instance where the landed owner was disinclined
to assist ill the collection. Is the tax to bo contin-
gent on a six months absence from the country ? Or is
there to bo a register of the goings in and out of every
man ? Or is an army of spies to be employed to trace
gentlemen to their dwellings? Or is wcnj owner of pro-
perty (for the law must comprehend every man capable
of absenting himseU", for whatever cause,) tobecompel-
led to make a return of his presence every six months to
118 LIFE OF BURKE.
Government ? Or is residence to imply the abiding or
the whole family in the country, or of a part, or of the
head of the family alone ? In the former instances, who
is to ascertain whether the requisite number of the
family constantly reside ? Or if the residence of the
head of the house be satisfactory, how is the country
to be a g-ainer by the residence of a solitary, and doubt-
less a highly discontented, resident, who sends off his
rental to support the expenditure or amusements of his
family in Bath or London ? Or, does not the whole
conception imply a scandalous, vexatious, and expen-
sive espionage ? Or if, not the landholder but his rents
are to be the object, what is to intercept the trans-
mission of money to any part of the earth ? This part
of the conception would imply an impossibility. A few
men of large fortunes, and constantly residing in Eng-
land, a Marquis of Lansdowne, or a Duke of Devon-
shire, might be mulcted for the crimes of their ancestors
in paying their money for Irish estates, and not being
able to be in Ireland and England at the same time;
but the gi'eat multitude against whom the act was es-
pecially levelled, would especially elude it. The crowd,
whom in bitterness much more than impolicy, the level-
lers would wish to fine for enjoying themselves for a
year or two in any other portion of the earth than Ire-
land, and preferring Brighton and Cheltenham to a
visit from Captain Rock, or an assassination at their
own doors ; would unquestionably evade the statute ;
and leave nothing for its advocates but fruitless decla-
mation and expense thrown away. Already, in 1773,
ALLIANCE OF FRANCE WITH AMERICA. 119
though the measure had received the sanction of
Ministers, the embarrassments of its practical opera-
tion, and the probably interested and factious motives
of its proposers, had been so strongly suggested, that
the project was suppressed.
We now draw to the close of one of the epochs of
this great man's public career. He was still under the
obligations of party. The American question was
fastened on him by the hands of others, and he drag-
ged it along, with a vigour that redeemed his luckless
pledge of fidelity. He persevered to the last moment,
while there was a hope of reconciling the countries ;
and supported his repeated proposals with an enthu-
siasm of eloquence which held the House in perpetual
astonishment. A speech in which he denounced the
employment of the Indian savages, as an aggrava-
tion of the horrors of war, is said to have produced
effects unequalled by any effort of modern times. Of
this speech there is no record, further than its im-
pression on the House. At its close, Colonel IJarre
started up, and declared, that if it were but published,
he would have it nailed up on every church-door in
the kingdom, by the side of the proclamation for the
General Fast. Sir George Saville pronounced in ail
quarters, that " he who had not been present on that
night, had not witnessed the greatest triumph of elo-
quence within memory." Governor Johnstone so-
lemnly averred, that *' it was fortunate for iho Noble
Lords on the Treasury Bench, (North and (Germain,)
that there were no strangers present, (the gallery
1'20 LIFE OF BURKE,
having been cleared,) as mere indignation would have
roused the people in the streets to tear them in pieces
on their way home."
But an event altogether unconnected with the la-
bours of the British Parliament, suddenly brought the
contests of party to an end. America formed an alli-
ance with France. The war suddenly became hazar-
dous on the only side which ever threatens the British
Empire with danger. Opposition was not less startled
by this event than Ministers. If party ever feels, it
felt then, and regretted the work of its own hands.
The declaration of Colonial independence was received
by the antagonists of Administration with unequivocal
surprise, and even with bitter regret. " We must
take it," was their language ; " but it is not as a mat-
ter of choice, but of hard and over-powering necessity."
Burke declared, that " it made him sick at heart, that
it struck him to the soul, that he felt the claim to be es-
sentially injurious to Great Britain, and one of which
she could never get rid. No, never, never, never ! It
was not to be thought that he wished for the indepen-
dence of America. Far from it. He felt it a circum-
stance exceedingly detrimental to the fame, and ex-
ceedingly detrimental to the interests of his country."
Lord Chatham was equally full of eloquent remorse :
He exclaimed, that " he could never bring himself to
admit the independence of the Colonies ; that the hand
which signed the concession might as well rend the
jewels from the British Crown at once ; that the sun
of England would go down, never to rise again." Such
ALLIANCE OF FllANCE WITH AMERICA. 121
is the sincerity of party, and such sometimes its punish-
ment. Those great men had laboured, for years, to pull
down the rightful supremacy which they loved; to
raise up a revolt to the rank of a triumph; and give the
loose and desultory efforts of popular ambition the
form and consistency of Empire. But while they con-
templated nothing beyond the overthrow of the Minis-
ter, they found that their weapons had passed through
his shield, and struck the bosom of their country.
But those were the errors of party, not of Burke ;
of his noviciate, not of his head or heart ; of his alle-
giance to a political superior, not of his true genius, act-
ing on his ripened knowledge of the interests of the
Empire.
It is remarkable, that as he gradually extricated him-
self from the bonds of Whiggism, he became, not merely
a freer, but a more enlightened statesma)i. While he
continued in the ranks of the Rockingham party, no-
thing but the extraordinary merits of his public speaking
could rescue him from the general cloud which gather-
ed on the fame of Opposition. I'^urther on, in the
second stage of his political career, when he steered
side by side with I'ox ; his rank as a patriot was still
partially obscured, and his public services were nar-
rowed, wasted, and huiMiliated, by the conjunction.
But his time was to come. To sincerity there is al-
ways a triiunph at last. It was, when he hoisted his
flag alone, when he steered aloof from party, when,
abandoning the creeks and shallows of i)ersonal policy,
he boldly followed the impulses of his own mighty
VOL. 1. L
122 LIFE OF BUKKE.
mind ; that his true character hccainc visible, and lie
achieved the whole splendour of that fame, which, from
his tomb, still honours his country.
The second period of the life of this memorable man,
commencing with his acceptance of office, and ending
with his abjuration of the Whigs, abounded in the
most striking political change. The British Cabinet
was in a perpetual state of convidsion. Ministers shift-
ed their places, and sometimes their principles, like the
scenes of a pantomime, 'i'he " King's Friends," the
" Landed Interest," and the " Friends of the People,"
Avere alternately uppermost, and plunged into the lowest
depths of political disgrace. The wheel of power was
in perpetual whirl. But the world, too, Avas in a con-
stant state of change. America had hoisted the stand'
ard of civil war, and had seen it, exultingly answered by
a signal from France. England was half-revolutionized,
and might have rivalled France in ruin, but for the
prowess of one man. Unexampled ability, sustained by
integrity beyond all suspicion, and patriotism equal to
all sacrifice, constituted Pitt the national leader ; and
though, he did not live to see the triumph of his efforts,
he proved irresistibly, that if the British empire was to
be preserved, it must be by the virtue of his principles.
We have seen Burke rising by rapid steps to the
summit of jiarlliimentary fame. There he stood fixed.
Nothing could shake the supremacy founded upon his ac-
knowledged powers. He had attained an equal eminence
of popularity. But here he was to suffer the natural
fluctuations of an element, to which the waves and the
LOSES HIS SEAT FOR BRISTOL. 123
•u'inds are constancy. He had been lifted up by popu-
lar passion to tlie height of popular confidence, he
was now to be swept down by the mere reaction of
the surge. The people of Bristol, indignant at Go-
vernment for rejecting the fantastic claims of Ameri-
ca, became suddenly indignant at their representative
for supporting the natural claims of Ireland. The
wrongs of revolters in open arms against England,
awoke all their sympathies; the rights of their follow
subjects on the other side of the Irish Channel sharp-
ened all their resentment. To please both was clear-
ly impossible. Burke would have scorned to play
the sycophant to either. But his choice was made.
Always superior to the meanness which calls itself
prudence, he took the side of justice, and in that hour
cast himself for ever out of the representative glo-
ries of Bristol. He was ecjually unlucky in both in-
stances. Ireland, buoyed up with extravagant hope,
pronounced the mini all but a traitor, who advised
moderation. Bristol, angry at finding that he was
not u 8lav(!, branded bitii as a mu'gade ; and under the
" pitile.'<H, pelting storm" of rabble oblo(piy, this emi-
nent man slowly learned the greatest, if the tardiest,
Uilent of public life; the firmness, that, scorning^ the
volatile and [trofligate breath of party, <lraws its re-
ward, like its reason, from its own bosom.
Once in every half century, the jxipniace of England
discover that they are the most aggrieved body on
the glol)e. All the old institutions of tin,' land arc
found to be utterly worthless; Church and State
124 LIFE OF BUHKE.
equally demand an universal change ; the political but-
tresses which have supported our freedom for centuries,
are seen, by the sudden discernment of the mob, to be
constructed on false foundations; the safeguards, for
which the ablest men of England struggled and died,
are declared by every fabricator of paragraphs in a
journal to be tricks on popular credulity ; allegi-
ance to Kings, reverence to the Church, and honour
to society, are ridiculed as the exploded invention of
times when the human understanding was in its in-
fancy ; and with the populace for the philosophers,
and their haranguers for the legislators, the new course
of illumination begins — and ends.
In the year 1779, the discovery had been peculiarly
pressed on the national mind, that the law of the
multitude was entitled to be the law of the land.
Burke received sufficient intimation, that any doubt
upon this subject must be his overthrow. His party
in the House were probably alarmed at the loss of so
powerful a champion ; and for the evident purpose of
retrieving his position, and retaining his seat, he was
urged to his famous motion on " Economical Reform.""
The name has since become so obnoxious as a cover
for every hazard, to be purchased by every folly ;
that its simple adoption may seem a stain upon the
memory of a great man. But it is to be remembered,
that party has its bondage, not the less severe that its
fetters invisibly crush and corrode the mind. Re-
form was essential as a popular bribe. But the vio-
lence which reforms by tearing down, and the cove-
SPEECH ON THE HOUSEHOLD. 125
tousness which purifies by rapine, were equally alien to
the mind of this great leader. In declaring change
necessary, Burke reverently stopped at the portal of the
Constitution ; he did not venture to lay a finger upon the
shrine, which so many thousands of the school of patriot-
ism would have been rejoiced to rob ; and leaving it to
others to offer " strange fire upon the altar," he pro-
ceeded to purify and brighten its exterior, to remove
impediments to the national investigation, and to make
the chief abuses of time and neglect, too public to ex-
ist, or be suti'ered to exist, any longer. Tlie speech
which he addressed to the House on this topic, is still
quoted as one of the most pregnant and powerful of
his triumphs ; it contains some of the finest exemplifica-
tions of parliamentary eloquence in all its forms; and,
by its brilliant dexterity, no less than its vast accu-
mulation of fact ; and by its rich and poetic fancy, no
less than its vigorous reasoning, might alone place the
speaker at the head of philosophic f-tatesinen.
The commencement ofthis great performance hasbeen
justly criticised, as coining too circuitously to its object.
.Still, we must take into consideration the ditHcultieH in
wiiich tlie advocate for the sinrcnder of salaries and the
extinction of offices must feel himself involved. Jiiuke
was evidently sensible of the necessity of treading his
way cautiouHly upon those " fires hidden under treach-
erous ashes." *' I enter," says he, " perfectly into the
nature and conscf|Ucnccs of my attemj)t. I advance
to it with a tremor that shakes me to the inmost fibre
of my frame. I feel that I engage in a business, in
126 LIFE OF BURKE.
itself most ungracious, totally wide of the course of
prudent conduct, and I really think, the most com-
pletely adverse that can be imagined to the natural
turn and temper of my own mind. I know that all
parsimony is of a quality approaching- to nnkindness,
and that on some person or other every reform must
operate as a sort of punishment. Indeed, the whole
class of the severe and restrictive virtues are at a mar-
ket almost too high for humanity. What is worse,
there are very few of those virtues which are not ca-
pable of being imitated, and even outdone, in many of
their most striking- effects, by the worst of vices. Ma-
lignity and envy will carve much more sharply in the
work of retrenchment, than frugality and providence.'*
But the personal sacrifice, which few men had a right
to regard more; yet which no man more loftily defied,
when the occasion demanded; did not escape theOrator,
who was also a candidate for the distinctions of public
employment. The man who was to triumph in debate
by the keenness of his investlg-ation into the abuses of
office, and to gain the palm of public approbation by
his vigour in pursuing patronage to its strongholds,
must have felt that he was closing the doors of admi-
nistration upon himself. This he expresses with pro-
photic consciousness. " It is much more easy to re-
concile this measure with humanity, than to bring it
to any agreement with prudence. I do not mean that
little, selfish, pitiful, bastard thing, which sometimes
goes by the name of a family in which it is not legiti-
mate! and to which it is a disgrace. I mean even that
SPEECH ON THE HOITSEHOLD. 127
public and enlarged prudence, which, apprehensive of
being- disabled from rendering- acceptable services to
the world, withholds itself from those that are invidi-
ous. Gentlemen who are apt to form their ideas of
King-s from Kings o{ former times, mig-ht dread the
anger of a reigning- Prince ! They who are more pro-
vident of the future, or, by being young, are more in-
terested in it, might tremble at the resentment of the
successor ; they might see a long, dull, dreary, un-
varied vista of despair and exclusion for half a century
before them. This is no pleasant prospect at the
outset of a political journey."
Another siiape of this many-headed hazard next deve-
lopes itself to his eye, and, undoubtedly, to a man who
desired to pass smoothly through life, to glide along the
inclined plane of the world without shocks or jolts to tlie
machine, to Hoat down the stream of society without
being submerged in its eddies, or hurled down its ca-
taracts, nothing could be more startling than the host
of personal iiostililies ivhich this measure was sure to
create. " The private enemies to bo made in all at-
tempts of this kind," said be, " arc iiiiiunu^rable, and
this enmity will be the more bitter, and the more dan-
gerous too, because a sense of dignity will oblige thcni
to conceal the cause of their resentmcnf. \ Cry [\:\v
men of great families, and extensive connexions, but
will feel the smart of a cutting reform in some close
relation, some bosom friend, some pleasant ac<|naintance,
some dear, protected «lependent. I'jnolunient is taken
from some, patronatre from otber'^, objects of pursuit
128 LIFE OF BURKE.
from all. Men forced into an involuntary indepen-
dence, will abhor the authors of a blessing which in
their eyes has so very near a resemblance to a curse.
Services of the present sort create no attachments.
The cold commendation of a public advantage never
was, and never will be, a match for the quick sensibi-
lity of a private loss. When many people have an in-
terest in railing, sooner or later they will bring a con-
siderable degree of unpopularity upon the measure.
The Reformation will act against the reformers, and
revenge will produce all the effects of corruption.""
After having thus gone through his preliminary po-
sitions, he lays down a long series of principles, all
important, and generally curious. We shall wander
through this political sylva^ and throw together a iew
of its more characteristic products.
" If there is any sacrifice to be made of either esti-
mation or fortune, the smallest is the best; Comman-
ders-in-Chief are not to be put upon the forlorn hope.
" If dawnings of success serve to animate our dili-
gence, they are good ; if they tend to increase our pre-
sumption, they are worse than defeats.
" Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can
contrive new impositions ; any bungler can add to the
old. But is it altogether wise to have no other bounds
to your impositions, than the patience of those who are
to bear them ?"
His observations on French finance form a striking
contrast to his ideas in after times. But it is to be ob-
served, that he now spoke only from slight and ge-
FRENCH FINANCE. 129
neral knowledge; that his panegyric was merely episo-
dical ; that Neckar was then exhibiting only the bright
side of his policy ; and that the time was still to come
when that policy changed its phase, and by the course
of nature fell deeper into eclipse hour by hour, until
total darkness overhung the land. " When I look to
the other side of the water," said Burke, in alluding
to the new financial experiments of France, " I can-
not help recollecting what Pyrrhus said, on reconnoit-
ring the Roman camp — ' Those barbarians have no-
thing barbarous in their discipline.' When I look into
the proceedings of the French King, I see nothing of
the character .nnd genius of arbitrary finance, none of
the bold frauds of bankrupt power, none of the wild
struggles and plunges of despotism in distress, no
lopping oft" from the capital of debt, no suspension of
interest, no robbery under the name of loan, no rais-
ing tiie value, no debasing the substance of the coin.
I see neither Louis the Fourteenth nor Louis the Fif-
teenth. On the contrary, 1 behold with astonishment,
rising l)cfore me, by the very hands of arbitrary power,
and in the very midst of war and confusion, a regular
methodical system of public credit ; I behold a fabric
laid on the natural and solid foundation of trust and
confidence among men, ami rising by fair gradations,
order over order, according to thi; just rules of sym-
metry and art. \\ li;if a reverse of ibingH ! I'rinciple,
method, regularity, economy, frti«,'ality, justice to in-
dividuals, and caro «>f tbf |ifoplp, are the resources
with which France makes war upon droat I'ritain."
130 Lll i: OF BURKE.
In this fine declamation there was a display of all
the prominent features of Burke's mind ; his natural
delight in the developement of human resources, even
in an enemy ; his fondness for those lai'ger financial
pursuits, which, leaving the exigencies of the day to
meaner intellects, extend their view over the wants and
energies of posterity ; and his quick and sensitive feel-
ing of all that v/as bold, dazzling, and magnificent in
speculation. Burke could never have been a French-
man. The rash ostentation and the narrow perform-
ance, the dramatic pomp of the project, and the meagre
dexterity of the details, all the characteristics of the
Q^conomical School, must have rapidly disgusted his
pure and poAverful mind. But he was an Irishman,
not more in his birthplace than in his spirit ; captivated
by brilliancy of prospect, until he forgot the roughness
of the ground beneath his feet; giving public men cre-
dit to the full amount of their declarations ; and dream-
ing that the possession of power must naturally impel
the possessor to objects of the noblest ambition. He
was still in the vigour of his early imaginations — a
poet bringing his fervours into politics, a philosopher
inventing Utopias, a man of genius investing the whole
vast and diversified scene of public affairs in the colours
of his own creative mind. But he speedily found
lamentable reason to distrust his hopes of French
finance. There had been large room for deception in
the system of Neckar. It frenzied France. All was
shewy, though all was unnatural. The formation of
public confidence out of universal discredit, the an-
NECKAR. 131
nouncement of solid funds extracted from coffers emp-
tied by the fifty years' profligacy of Louis XV. ; the
laws of political nature reversed at the touch of a Ge-
nevese magician; all threw France into the rapture
which she always feels at the exhibition of charla-
tanry. All was bright, artificial, and gay. The Farce
came before the Tragedy. But the Tragedy came
only the deeper. Half a century of change and an-
guish has passed, and the curtain has not yet fallen.
As a dociunent of a state of things now almost for-
gotten, but worthy of perpetual remembrance, — and
as a warning to all political speculators, if such men
are to be warned, or are worth warning; the fallacies
of Neckar must be quoted, even though they should
involve a compliment to the sagacity of Lord North,
and impeach the foresight of Burke himself.
" The Noble Lord in the blue ribbon," says Burke,
last vear treated all this with contempt. lie never
Cf)uld conceive it possibU; that the French minister ot
finance cotild go through the year with a loan of but
seventeen hundred thuusaiid po\nuls, mni that he shouhl
be able to find thath»an without any tav. The second
year, however, opens the very same scene. A small
loan, a loan of no more than two millions five hundred
thou-^and pounds, is to carry our enemies through the
service of this year also. No tax is raised to fund that
rU'l)t ; ntj tax in raised for the current services. 1 am
credibly informed there is no anticijtation whatever.
Compensations are correctly made, old debts continue
to be sunk, as in the time of profound peace. Even
132 LIFE OF BURKE.
payments which their treasury had been authorized to
suspend during the time of war, have not been sus-
pended."
One of Neckar's contrivances for popularity was an
attack on the expenses of the Crown. Even this attack
shewed his deHciency in the requisites of a statesman.
The Court had been undeniably wasteful, and nothing
could be more deserving of restraint as a matter of
public morals ; but nothing could be less fitted for an
experiment in finance. The little Republican banker
could not discover that the expenditure of the Court
was actually a boast to the nation. It was loudly ex-
claimed against, because this was a time when popular
writers seized on exciting topics, and loved to lavish
their eloquence on the vices of the great ; while those
writers, and every man in France besides, were prac-
tising the same vices to the full extent of their means.
But the nation loved the shew, even at the expense ;
were proud of the superior splendours of their Court,
and felt the pomps of the Tuileries an honour which
raised every Frenchman in the eyes of Europe. A
parsimonious Court in France must always be an inef-
fectual, scorned, and unpopular authority. But, in the
time of Nockar, the personal vice, the grand objection
to the former system, had almost wholly disappeared.
Louis XVI. was as domestic a father of a family as any
in Europe. The lopping and pruning system could
only have impaired his means of individual benevo-
lence, of kingly popularity, and of that strength which
the distribution of wealth, and the attachment of its ex-
NECKAR. 133
pectants gives to the Crown. But Neckar abolished the
offices, and stopped the royal revenue. He thus shewed
that he understood nothing of that popular feeling to
which he bowed down. He went on in his career of
meagre saving, and capacious ruin. The stoppage
of the royal expenditure was instantly felt by thou-
sands and tens of thousands, in their various shapes of
artists, traders, architects, the whole multitude who
wait on taste, fashion, and public ornament, in a land
where display was, and will be for ever, the great
business of existence. Thus discontent was the first
fruits of the philosophic reform which was to make all
men happy.
Then came Parisian bankruptcy. The artistes, sup-
ported no longer by the Court, and calling for their
rlebts in vain to the courtiers who had been so sum-
marily mulcted of their incomes, fell into ruin. Such
was the next result of the measure which was to make
Paris a bed of gold. Still, Neckar was to remain the
presiding genius of French restoration. Yet, here,
too, his hopes were ecjually fugitive. His changes ra-
pidly began to turn the tide of public opinion against
himself. The people grew sick of the perpetual sav-
ing- that stripped thcni of their ft^tes, and gave them
nothing b»it the bankrupt list in their stead ; the
courtiers exclaimed, Iialf in indignation and half in de-
spair, against the charlatanry which bad conjured a.vay
their (Miiohnnents ; tb(; King, weary of perpetual eom-
plaint^, ajiprebensivc of being deprived of all \\\v power
to wbidi be bad been accustomed, and unable to dis-
134 LIFE or BURKE.
cover any more fortunate result of the solitude of his
palace than the clamours of his people, found no con-
solation in the assurances of the S^viss banker, that all
would be well in the course of twenty or thirty years !
Political economy is a prodigious provider for the com-
forts of the future ; it habitually pays the present gene-
ration by a draft on the unborn, and speculates up-
on the grave. The universal outcry at length turn-
ed upon the renovator himself, and Ncckar was sent
back to Geneva in disgrace; a fate wliich he bore, in
the usual style of foreign magnanimity, with the most
pitiful and pusillanimous dejection. He had thus, by
the rashness of his projects, given the deathblow to all
that they possessed of value; if he were a sincere pa-
triot, be must have felt the bitterness of seeing his
good extinguished by his folly; if bis object were am-
bition, he only met the punishment which he merited.
]5ut tiiis was an age of illusion, and the catastrophe was
hidden for the time. Burke talks, with the copious
grandeur of his style, of the regeneration of France.
" A general reform^ executed through every depart-
ment of the revenue, creates an annual income of more
than half a million, while it facilitates and simplifies all
the functions of administration. Tbe Kinr/'s household,
at the remotest avenues to Avhich all reformation has
been hitherto stopped — that household which has been
the strongliold of prodigality, the fortress which was
never before attacked, has been not only not defended,
but it has, even in the forms, been surrendered by the
King to the economy of his Minister. No capitula-
NFCKAR. 135
tion, no reserve. Economy has entered in triumph
into the public splendour of the monarch, into his pri-
vate amusements, into the appointments of his highest
and nearest relations. Economy and public spirit have
made a beneficent and an honest spoil ; they have
plundered from extravagance and luxury, for the use
of substantial service, a revenue of near four hundred
thousand pounds. The reform of the finances, joined
to the reform of the Court, gives to the public nine
hundred thousand pounds a-year. The Minister who
does these tilings is a great man. But the King who
desires that they should be done is a far greater. We
must do justice to our enemies. Those are the acts
of a Patriot King. I am not in dread of the vast
armies of France. I am not in dread of the gallant
spirit of its brave and numerous nobility. I am not
alnrmed eviMi at the great navy which has been so mi-
raculously created. All those things Louis XIV. had
before. With all those things the French monarchy
baH more tlian once iallen prostrate at the feet of the
public fiilh <»f (ireat Britain. It was the want ofpulj-
lic credit which disabled I ranee Inmi reeoverintr after
h( r defeats, or recovering even from her victories. It
was a [irodig.d Court, it was an ill-ordered revenue,
that sapped the foundations oi'jill her greatness. Cre-
dit cannot exist under the arm ol necessity."
But witli tbene opinions, generated in bis eager fancy,
by the gb»w of French reform, bis jn-inrijtlr.t wj-re not
mingled. He felt with tnii- sagacity, tlu; nature of
violent alterations at home. Of France he could know
136 LIFE OF BURKE.
little but from the descriptions of its enthusiasts.
Of England, he knew all that was to be known by di-
ligent enquiry, and concluded by profound intelligence.
He thus gives his protest against legislation by the
crowd, or for the crowd.
" As it is the interest of Government that reforma-
tion should be early, it is the interest of the people that
it should be temperate. It is their interest, because a
temperate reform is permanent, and because it has a
principle of growth. Whenever we improve, it is
right to leave room for a further improvement. It is
right to consider, to look about us, to examine the ef-
fect of what we have done. Then we can proceed
with confidence, because we can proceed with intelli-
gence. Whereas in hot reformations, — in what men
more zealous than considerate, call making clear work,
— the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indi-
gested, mixed with so much imprudence, and so much
injustice, so contrary to the whole course of human
nature and human institutions, that the very people
who are most eager for it, are among the first to grow
disgusted at what they have done. Then some part
of the abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile, in
order to become a corrective of the correction. Then
the abuse assumes all the credit and popularity of a
reform. A great part of my idea of a reform, is meant
to operate gradually. We must no more make haste
to be rich by parsimony, than by intemperate acquisi-
tion."
Several brief sketches of the history and purpose of
SPEECH ON THE HOUSEHOLD. 137
the royal and public establishments are admirably
given : " The Royal Household. It is formed upon
manners and customs that have long since expired.
In the first place, it is formed, in many respects, upon
feudal principles. In the feudal times it was not un-
common, even among subjects, for the lowest offices
to be held by considerable persons, persons as unfit by
their incapacity as improper by their rank, to occupy
such employments. They were held by patent, some-
times for life, and sometimes by inheritance. If my
memory does not deceive me, a person of no slight
consideration held the office of patent hereditary cook
to the Karl of Warwick. The Earl of Warwick's
soups were, I fear, not the better for the dignity of
his kitchen. I think it was an Earl of Gloucester who
officiated as steward of the household to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. There was some reason in an-
cient necessities for those ancient customs. Protec-
tion was wanted, and the domestic tie, though not the
highest, was tlio closest."
Tin: Hoard of Green Cloth still figures as the grand
arbiter in all things relating to the hospitable expendi-
tures of [loyalty. Burke gives us the ratioiudc of this
old establisliiiient. "The King's household has not
only strong traces of feudality, but it is formed on the
principles of a body corporate ; it has its own magis-
trates, courts, and by-laws. This might be necessary
in the ancient times, in order to have a government
within itself capable of regulating the vast, and often
unruly multitude, which coni[)ORcd and attended it.
vol., I. M
138 LIFE OF KUUKE.
Tills was the origin of the ancient court called the
Green Cloth, composed of the Marshal, Treasurer, and
other great officers of the household, with certain
clerks. The rich subjects of the kingdom, who had
formerly the same establishments, (only on a reduced
scale,) have altered their economy. Their influence
is lessened ; but a mode of accommodation, and a style
of splendour suitable to the manners of the times, has
been increased. Royalty itself has insensibly follow-
ed, and the royal household has been carried away by
the resistless tide of manners ; but with this material
difference — private men have got rid of the establish-
ments, together with the reasons of them, whereas the
royal household has lost all that was venerable and
stately in the antique manners, without retrenching
any thing of the cumbi'ous charge of a Gothic establish-
ment. It is shrunk into the polished littleness of mo-
dern elegance and personal accommodation ; it has
evaporated from the gross concrete into an essence and
rectified spirit of expense. You have tuns of ancient
pomp in a vial of modern luxury."
After those general observations, he colours the to-
pic with that pencil which he dipt in every hue of frolic
and fancv. " When the reason of old establishments
is gone, it is absurd to preserve nothing but the bur-
den of them. This is superstitiously to embalm a car-
cass not worth an ounce of the gums that are used to
preserve it. It is to burn precious oils in the tomb ;
it is to offer meat and drink to the dead. Our palaces
are vast inhospitable halls. There the bleak winds —
SI>EECH ON THE HOUSEHOLD, 139
tliere ' Boreas, and Eurus, and Caurus, and Argestes
loud,' howling through the vacant lobbies, and clatter-
ing the doors of deserted guard-rooms, appal the ima-
gination, and conjure up the grim spectres of depart-
ed tyrants ; the Saxon, the Norman, and the Dane —
the stern Edwards and fierce Henrys, Avho stalk from
desolation to desolation thi'ough the dreary vacuity
and melancholy succession of chill and comfortless
chambers. When this tumult subsides, a dead silence
would reign in this desert, if every now and then the
tacking of hammers did not announce, that those con-
stant attendants upon all courts in all ages, jobs, were
still alive, for whose sake alone it is, that any trace of
ancient grandeur is suflercd to remain. Those pala-
ces are a true emblem of some governments; the in-
habitants are decayed, but the governors and magis-
trates still Hourish. They put me in mind of Old Sa-
rum, where the representatives, more in number than
the constituents, only serve to inform us, that this was
once a jilaco of trade, and sounding with the busy hum
of men, thou^^h now wo can trace the streets only by
the colour of the corn, and its sob? ni.inufarture is in
members of Parliament."
The rapidity of movement, whicli is always allect-
ed by candidates for the favour of tin; nndtitmb', never
found an advocate in IJurke's philosophy. In aUuding
even to the obnoxious subjcjct of the sinecures attached
to the ExcluMpicr, and admiting the iitness of curtail-
ing their profits where they had grown too large, he
ahrinks from their too sudden extirpation. " The nu-
140 LIFE OF BURKE.
ture of their profits, which grow out of the public
distress, is, in itself, invidious and grievous. But, 1
fear, that Reform cannot be immediate. Those places
and others of the same kind, which are held for life,
have been considered as property. They have been
given as a provision for children, they have been the
subject of family settlements, they have been the se-
curity of creditors. JVhat the law respects, shall be
sacred to me. If the barriers of law should be broken
down, upon ideas of convenience, even of public con-
venience, we shall no longer have any thing certain
among us. If the discretion of power is once let loose
upon property, we can be at no loss to determine
whose powei', and what discretion, will prevail at last.
***** The mere time of the reform is by no
means worth the sacrifice of a principle of law. Indi-
viduals pass like shadows, but the commonwealth is
fixed and stable. The difference, therefore, of to-day
and to-morrow, which to private people is immense,
to the State ^is nothing. ***** Those things
which are not practicable are not desirable. There is
nothing in the world really beneficial, that does not
lie within the reach of an informed understanding, and
a well-directed pursuit. There is nothing that God
has judged good for us, that he has not given us the
means to accomplish, in both the natural and the mo-
ral world. If we cry, like children, for the moon, like
children we must cry on."
This memorable speech was delivered on the Ilth
of February, 1780. It excited great admiration in the
SPEECH ON THE HOUSEHOLD. 141
House, and universal applause outside the walls. The
bills brought in in consequence, were ai'gued diligently,
clause by clause, during March, April, and May. But
in the end the motion met its natural fate. Opposi-
tion had probably used it, from the beginning, more as a
means of assault than an object of success. Its popula-
rity was of importance to them ; yet its triumph might
have been distasteful. A measure which stripped all
administrations of so large a share of patronage, could
not be ardently supported by men who hourly ex-
pected to seat themselves on the Ministerial throne.
The battle soon began to be fought more languidly.
The clause for abolishing the third Secretaryship of
State was lost by a majority of seven. Within a short
period the leading clauses followed its fate, and the bill
died away.
CHAPTER VI.
Public Opinion of the Sj)ecch — On CEconomical Reform — Eloquence
of Public Men — Burke retires from Bristol — Fine Sketch of
Howard — The Borough System — Crabbe the Poet — Character of
Fox — Modern Whiggism.
The object of Opposition was fully obtained by the
celebrity of the attempt. It had given them a cheap
opportunity of declaring' their patriotism ; it had en-
listed the popular cry on their side; and pledging-
them to nothing but an indefinite zeal, and an impracti-
cable purification, it gave party all the advantage of pro-
mises never to be performed, and virtues which cost
them only words. Burke was probably sincere. He
was an enthusiast. His poetic ardour dazzled himself,
he saw nothing in the universal clearance of corruption,
as it was termed, but the restoration of an age of po-
litical righteousness. His friends, generally profligate
in their private lives, and abandoned in their political
views, — philosophers and patriots when out of place;
rash, tyrannical, and corrupt when in, — were rejoiced
to find so unsuspicious a pleader for their cause. But
the sequel shewed, how little they had in common with
the loftiness and magnanimity of his mind. In the
PUBLIC OPINION OF THE SPEECH. 143
brief success, which at once raised them to power, and
stamped the name of the Coalition with eternal igno-
miny ; their great champion was almost totally neglect-
ed. His virtue was not to be trusted with the subtleties
of the Cabinet; he had exhibited a simplicity of prin-
ciple fit only to be scoffed at by political gamesters;
he was characterised as too wrong-headed to take
persuasion from his palm ; and, accordingly, he was
thrust into a subordinate office, which only reluctance
to seem craving for power prevented him from reject-
ing; — the banner which had waved so richly before
them in the battle, prophetic of victory, was folded up
and flung into a corner, until the time when they
should again be forced to the field. But if the insulted
statesman could be recompensed by national admiration,
his speech brought him an almost endless harvest of
praise. Parliament, the people, all Europe, received it
witli boundless a]»|)laus('. " The speech which has been
delivered this night," exclaimed Dutuiing, of all cri-
tics the most cautious, and of all admirers the most re-
luctant, " must remain as a monument to be handed
down to posterity, of the honourable member's un-
common /oal, unrivalled iudustry, astonishiug abili-
ties, and invincible perseverance. He had undertakeu
a task big with labour and difficulty, a task that em-
braced a variety of the most important, extensive, and
complicated objects. Yet such were the uncMjualled
abilities, so extraordinary the tahnits and ingenuity,
and such the fortunate frame of the honourable gen-
tleman's mind, his vast capacity and lia[>py conception,
144 LIFE OF BURKE.
that, in his liands, what must have proved a vast heap of
ponderous matter, composed of heterogeneous ingre-
dients, discordant in their nature and opposite in prin-
ciple, was so skilfully arranged, as to become quite
simple as to each respective part, and the whole at the
same time so judiciously combined, as to present no-
thing to almost any mind tolerably intelligent, to di-
vide, puzzle, or distract it."
This opinion was echoed and re-echoed through
the country ; all expressed their delight and astonish-
ment at the unexampled combination of eloquence, la-
bour, and perseverance, displayed on the Bill. Even
the slow good-will of those whose emoluments he had
placed in hazard was not refused to this fine perform-
ance ; they acknowledged the glitter of the lance
which pierced them. Like the knights of old, if they
must yield, their defeat was alleviated by the rank and
prowess of the chieftain to whom they surrendered.
Gibbon, then one of the Board of Trade, the only es-
tablishment which the speech succeeded in extinguish-
ing; and succeeded, probably, only through the Mini-
ster's previous determination to get rid of an encum-
brance ; gave his tribute in his own formal yet for-
cible style, " Mr Burke's reform bill was framed with
skill, introduced with eloquence, and supported by
numbers. Never can I forget the delight with which
that diffusive and ingenious orator Avas heard by all
sides of the House, and even by those ivhose existence
he proscribed."
The labour to which he submitted on this occasion
SPEECH ON CECONOMICAL REFORM. 143
can be conceived only by tbose who have known the
difficulties through which public documents at this pe-
riod were attainable ; the infinite confusion of the na-
tional records; the quick jealousies of official persons;
the perplexity of the documents themselves, and the ge-
neral incrustation of time, change, obscurity, and ob-
soleteness, from which they were to be cleared. By
nothing less than indefatigable diligence could even
this have been effected ; but to render the obscure
plain, to give interest to the dull, to concentrate the
whole mass of detail, confusion, and commonplace, into
spirit and splendour, was the work of genius alone.
Still the speech has obvious faults, in a critical point
of view. Gibbon's epithet, of diffusive^ is its true cen-
sure. The exordium is too long. The Orator treads too
tenderly, and too tardily, on his ground. No advan-
tages of caution can compensate for the feeling of dis-
appointment with wliicli hearers, longing for facts, find
themselves compelled to listen to theorems. — The
placeman, anxious for tlie safety of his office, and the
patriot, eager to comntonce tbo work of renovation,
must have equally desired ^^) see tbe Orator enter
upon his detail, and been equally repelled by the long
review of abstract principles, marslialled wltli whatever
skill, and illustrated with wbatever brilliancy.
Kven the powerful knowledge and ricb imagination
of Hurke, embarrassed his efiect in Parliament. He
could not prevail on lilmsclf to discover the injury,
which is done to a cause by giving his hearers credit
for too much taste, feeling, or knowledge. lie over-
VOL. I. N
146 LIFE OF BURKE.
whelmed dull men with imagery which would have
" lapped a poet in Elysium ;" lie flashed wit upon pur-
blind eyes ; he drew up the treasures of philosophy
from their deepest depths, and poured them out be-
fore the men of the counting-house. He called "spirits
from the vasty deep," and displayed all the creations
and lustres of a mind master of all the magic of elo-
quence, before a crowd, who thought only of their
dinners and the division.
Yet in thus speaking of Burke, we would not be
understood to depreciate in the slightest degree one of
the most extraordinary leaders of the British mind.
He wanted nothing for perfection as an orator, but
the habit of public business. No man could devote
himself to labour with a more gigantic perseverance ;
none could study the details, or master the substance,
of public affaix-s with a more nervous and comprehen-
sive sagacity ; but it was the sagacity of the closet.
He there prepared his armour calmly, sedulously, mag-
nificently. He came into the field conspicuous at once
to all eyes, but his lavish grandeur often encumbered
him, in the various and desultory encounters through
which final victory is to be alone purchased in the
British House of Parliament. Yet, those were chiefly
the faults of his position. As an assailant he was al-
Avays allowed to choose his ground. If Burke had
been a Minister, he would have been forced into dis-
cipline, he must have rapidly learned to throw aside
the gold-studded and richly figured weapons which
embarrassed the facility of his movements, — his style
ELOgUENCE OF PUBLIC MEN. 147
might have been wrought into the ready vigour, the
easy activity, and the pungent force which owes all
things to its point and penetration.
The great failure of modern public speaking has
been this want of pungency. The stately expansion
of Pitt's style often wearied his hearers ; the mea-
sureless confusion of Fox's preambles as often tried
the understanding till it shrank from the task. Can-
ning's clearness, lightness, and elegance, at all times
delighted the House ; but he purchased those grace-
ful qualities in debate by a singular want of passion,
a superHciality which was obvious through all his ef-
forts to appear profound, and a perpetual study of
pleasantry, which, often successful as it was, and ad-
mirable as it is, in due subserviency to higher qualities ;
is, of all the attributes of the orator, the most delicate
to manage, and the most difficult to reconcile with depth,
dignity, or impression. Of all the eminent speakers
of the last century, but two seem to have possessed
poignancy, in the effective sense of the word— Chat -
bam in Kiigland, and (irattan in Ireland. It placed
them both at the bea<l of public cbxjiience in their
countries, and placed tboin at such a height of supe-
riority, that no man thought ofrivalliiig, or scarcely
of imitating, either. 'J'heir faults were palpable, but
their excellencies placed a measureless distance be-
tween them and all of their day. Of Chath.un
few relics have been left ; liis monument is in the
boundless admiration of his time. Yet the Torso of
his eloquence still shews the noble proportions of the
original. Grattan has left abundant meinori..l3 of him-
14^ LITE OF IJUHKE.
self; and mingled as tliey are with the unliappy politics
which turn the hlood of Ireland to fever in every age,
and alloyed by the vexed spirit of disappointed parti-
sanship, they yet embody some of the most powerful
conceptions in the most vivid language ever forged in
the fiery mind of impassioned oratory.
The loss of the Bill had been foreseen ; the party
were satisfied with its production, and its author was
consoled by its pi'aise. It passed away to the usual
oblivion of popular projects found to be impracticable.
The riots of 1780 called forth Burke again. The
bitterness of Opposition was not to be restrained by
the imminent danger of the country. Burke, disdain-
ing this criminal selfishness, and seeing nothing in the
riots but the strong probability of their laying Lon-
don in ashes, advised his friends to join with the Go-
vernment in a manly and generous effort to put down
the evil. But this was only an additional evidence to
the declamatory race round him, how little he was fit
for the statesmanship of their school. On this occasion
he displayed alike his personal fearlessness and his hu-
manity ; the former, by venturing into the streets
among the rioters while they were in the act of sur-
rounding the House of Commons; the latter, by writ-
ing a number of letters to the Chancellor and other
leading persons when the riots were suppressed, im-
ploring that mercy might be shewn to the utmost prac-
ticable extent. The recommendation was probably
effective ; for the punishments were few, and those, al-
most solely of the leading rioters.
4
UETIUES FROM BRISTOL. 149
In the midst of this accumulation of public business,
the Slave-trade had become an anxious and ardent ol)-
ject of Burke's humanity. Six years before Mr Wil-
berforce brought forward his first motion, Burke had
formed a plan for the general alleviation of the trade ;
had drawn up a negro code, and formed regulations
for the milder government of the slaves in the Islands.
But he had begun to feel his vocation for higher
things. His constituents at Bi'istol, tired of being re-
presented by the ablest man in Europe, had formed
their determination to get rid of him, and it had been
put in force without ceremony. One of the charges
against a senator, who spent every hour in the House
of Commons, was, " that he had not visited Bristol
frequently." Burke was indignant at this fickleness,
but he disdained to express his feelings by more than
grave remonstrance. " Gentlemen," said he, " I d(j
not stand before you, accused of venality, or of neglect
of duty. It is not said, that in the long period of my
service, I have in a single instance sacrificed the slight-
est of your interests to my ambition or my fortune. It
is not alleged, that to gratify any anger or revenge of
my own, or my party, I have had a share in wronging
or oppressing any description of men, or any man in
any description. No; the charges against me are all
of one kind, that I have pushed the jiriiiciples of gene-
ral justice and benevolence too far, farlhcr tiian a cau-
tious policy would warrant, and fjirtlicr lli;in tlie
opinions of many men would go witli me. In every
accident that may happen through life, in pain, in sor-
, 150 I.TFE OF BUUKE.
row, in depression, in distress, I will call to mind this
accusation and be comforted."
It was in his address to his constituents, who were
to be his constituents no more, that, in alluding to
some efforts of his own for the relief of small debtors,
he drew the famous sketch of Howard. " I cannot
name this gentleman, without remarking, that his la-
bours and writings have done much to open the eyes
and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe ;
not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, nor the
stateliness of temples ; not to make accurate measure-
ments of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form
a scale of the curiosity of modern arts; not to collect
or collate manuscripts ; but to dive into the depths of
dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to
survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the
guage and dimension of misery, depression and con-
tempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the
neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and
collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His
plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is of
humanity. It is a voyage of discovery, a circumna-
vigation of charity. Already the benelit of his labours
is more or less felt in every country. I hope he will
anticipate its final reward by seeing all its effects fully
realized in his own."
A new period now commenced in the life of Burke;
Lord North, broken down by the attacks of Opposi-
tion, resigned, (March 19, 1782.) Fox became vir-
tual Premier, the Marquis of Rockingham nominal
BOROUGH SYSTEM. 151
Premiei*, and in the general distribution of office,
Burke wasappointed Paymaster-General of the Forces,
and made a Privy Counsellor, but icithont a seat in the
Cabinet.
Burke's loss of the representation of Bristol affords
a practical lesson of the utter unfitness of the multitude
to decide on the merits of public men. If it had de-
pended on the principle of that multitudinous voting,
which is the fantasy of our day, Burke would probably
never have found his way into Parliament again ; and
England would have lost the services of one of the
most illustrious individuals that ever adorned her Se-
nate. His narrow fortune would have been inadequate
10 the expenses of a contested election ; his directness
of opinion must have rendered him obnoxious to the
capricious tastes of the crowd ; and his sensibility of
spirit would have disdained to stoop to the humilia-
tions which form the substance of popularity. He
never again attempted a popular election. The Bo-
rough of Malton sent him to Parliament for the re-
mainder of iiis life ; and, much more receiving than
^riving honour by the choice, put to shame the moi)-
ridden city which had so rashly rejected him.
The Borough System is now no more, and in tii-
ture no man whose humility of fortune, or integrity
of heart, shrinks from the expense, and the degradation,
of popular canvass, can hope for a seat in Parliament.
Whether corruption has been extinguished, or has
only changed hands ; whether tiie purchase of a bo-
15*2 LIFK OF DURKE.
rough, or the purchase of a mob be the purer transac-
tion; are topics which may be safely left to common
judgment, and to the Bribery Committees which have
since flourished in such luxuriance. But the change
which Whiggism in power always panegyrized — and
always eluded; was offered to it as the purchase of
office. The offer was irresistible ; and it was embra-
ced, in its fulness of dishonesty and danger. By the
new system the struggle is not between the People
and the Peerage, for what struggle can subsist be-
tween an aristocracy stripped of every vote in the
Commons, and the masters of the Commons ? The
true contest is between the populace and the elected ;
and the only question is, whether we shall have
representatives of the nation, or the delegates of the
mob ? The course of such a contest is easily foreseen.
The mob, at this hour, deny to their representatives
any other character than that of delegates. Pledge or
not pledge, they look upon them as equally bound. In
a few years, custom will take the shape of Law.
Every member of the House will have but one point
of view ; the verdict of the crowd. The question
that faces him at all points of the political horizon must
be — What will the populace think of this ; how shall I
excuse myself to my masters in the streets ; how shall
1 secure my next election in the mouths of the multi-
tude ? Thus the pyramid will be completely inverted.
The course of national council must begin thenceforth
with the club, and end with the Legislature. The
BOROUGH SYSTEM. 153
liabit of submitting to the popular outcry must grow
with the growth of the system, until democracy is the
established principle of legislation, and to deliberate up-
on a proposition of the mob, becomes lese-majeste to the
regenerated constitution. While the Peerage- Members
of the Commons subsisted, they partook in some de-
gree of the stability which makes the chief value of the
Peerage ; nearly independent of popular influence,
they were not constrained to veer about with every
breath of popular caprice ; connected with the pi'o-
perty of the land, they naturally resisted the violences
with which the democratic feeling in all legislatures
threatens property; naturally conversant with the opi-
nions of the higher orders, they brought to the debate
a consideration for authority, a soberness of view, an
educated and established dislike of useless innova-
tion, and a respect for the principles by which Bri-
tish greatness had been erected ; all of the highest
value for the jjurposcs of sound legislation. But this
class has been almost totally extinguished, and the ves-
sel of the State ii;is Iiccn deprived of one of the secu-
rest of her anchors.
And, what is the actual working of the system even
in its first trials? It has paralysed the (lovenunent, it
has made the acceptance of oHice a terror to ev(!ry
honest man ; it has shaken every institution of the coun-
try ; it has raised radicalism to the rank of the supreme
|>rincip1e of representation ; and after having given to
the British nation smli I'arliaments as it never saw
before, sits in judgment even upon the Parliaments of
154 LIFE OF BURKE.
its own favouritism, and in the most daring terms
threatens the land with utter anarchy.*
• The present state of the representation in Great Britain and Ire-
land will be the clearest evidence of the formidable growth of this
new authority.
England — In England, 40 counties return 144 members, the num-
ber of registered voters in 1832 being 344,564. Cities and boroughs,
amounting to 185, return 227 members; the immber of registered
voters in 1832 being 274,049. Total, 471 members, and 619,213
voters.
Wales. — In Wales, 12 counties return 15 members, the number
of registered voters in 1832 being 25,815 ; 14 districts of boroughs
return 14 members, the number of registered voters in 1832 being
1 1,309. Total 29 members, and 37,124 voters.
Scotland In Scotland, 30 counties return 30 members, the num-
ber of registered voters in 1832 being 33,114; 76 cities and bo-
roughs return 23 members, the number of registered voters in 1832
being 31, .332. Total, 53 members and 64,446 voters.
Ireland In Ireland, .'32 counties return 64 members, the number
of registered voters in 1832 being 00,607 ; 34 cities and boroughs re-
turn 41 members, the number of registered voters in 1832 being
31,545. Total, 105 members and 92,152 voters.
Thus in Great Britain, while the members for counties are but
189, the members for cities and boroughs are 364 ! The case is
stronger still with respect to England, the most influential portion of
all ; there the county members being scarcely more than one-half
of the members for the town, or 144 to 227. But even this view
hardly shews the extent of the hazard. The population of the coun-
ties but slowly increases, while that of the towns is accumulating
with hourly rapidity ; the county population is, from its nature, near-
ly stagnant in point of political impulses, while the town population
is perpetually excited to political movements, is constantly employed
in speculations on public affairs, and from its habits of trade and ma-
nufacture, and its closer state of intercourse and communication, pos-
sesses tenfold the applicable power, political excitability, and con-
densed force of the remaining population.
BOROUGH SYSTEM. 155
It is among the remarkable circumstances of this
great man's career, that, though the acknowledged
leader of his party, indispensable to their public exist-
ence, and apparently in the very flood of fortune, no
public personage ever gained less for himself. From
the beginning to the close, he was poor ; and though in-
heriting nearly L. 20,000, was so much assailed by the
distresses of others, and so much pressed by the neces-
sary expenses of that style of living, which, by his po-
litical rank, be was compelled to adopt, that his life
seems to have been the very reverse of affluent.
Yet reluctant as he was to apply for himself, he could
be an active suitor for others, to whom he was attach-
ed merely by a sense of their merits. During his stay
at a friend's house, he had been struck with the intel-
ligence and manners of a neighbouring curate, and ex-
pressed a wish that it might, at some future time, be in
bis power to serve a man of his ability. A few years
after, the rector died, and the curate applied to IJurke
for bis interest with the Prince of Wales, the patron
of tlie living. Burke ininiediately replied, that from
hi.H sligbt personal intercourse wilh the Priiu-e, be
could have but Httle certainty in any application ; but,
that if tbe clergyman would write a letter, he would
present it himself to bis lloyal Highness. The letter
was written, was presented, and the re(piest was in-
stantly granted. Burke, good-nalurcidly pleased with
the success of his mission, expressed himself with his
usual richness of conception, on the j^^ocid which thus
lay in tbe bands of persons of high station, on the
15(J LIFE OF BURKE.
means of royal populai'ity, and the extensive happiness
that might result from royal virtues. At last perceiv-
ing- that he was flowing into dissertation, he checked
himself, and hegged pardon for this intrusion on royal
patience. " No apologies, my dear sir," said the
Prince, familiarly laying his hand upon his shoulder ;
" from your lessons we m\ist all learn wisdom ; it is
only to be regretted that so {e\v imitate your candour."
Another anecdote of his good-natured interference
alludes to Crabbe, the late powerful, though harsh,
describer of common and country life. The poet, who
had early felt in himself the materials of fame, travelled
to London from his curacy with a volume of verse, to
make his fortune at once. But he had unluckily
brought with him but three pounds. In default of a
publisher, he ventured to print the volume at his own
expense, and it may be presumed that the bard's three
pounds did not go far. The press would move no
longer. The next expedient was, to dedicate the poems
to a noble Lord, from whose gratitude for this signal
favour of Parnassus some return in the more vulgar
material of patronage might be expected. But the
noble Lord, who probably had offers of similar honoui's
on his table every day, omitted all notice of the dedi-
cation ; and the poet's hopes sank again. It is pain-
ful to believe, that distress more real than the loss
of fame now began to involve a man of true talent.
He was driven to extremity, and at last, utterly unable
to extricate himself by his own means, the thought oc-
curred of applying to Burke. He had no personal
CK.ABBE THli POET. 157
knowledge of him, no introduction, no intermediate
friend. But he wrote a detail. of his circumstances,
which, coming from the graphic pen of so strange a de-
scriber of the sufferings of others, may be presumed to
liave been forcible, Avhere the sufferings were his own ;
and saying, that he was prompted to this step in the
instance of so eminent a person, by " knowing that he
was a groat man, and believing that he was a good
one," he waited the result, with natural, and extreme
anxiety. Burke, both a great and a good man, did not
fail the poet ; he answered his application immediately,
assisted him in all possible ways, promoted a subscrip-
tion for his work, and introduced him to a circle of
friends, who became the origin of his fortune; his fame
was the work of his own hands.
There is a period in every man's life when his frame
and his principles alike seem to settle ; — the bodily
change, from the exubenint vigour and restlessness of
youth to maturity, yet without the approach of decay ;
— the mental change, from the eager and unsettled ar-
dour of first views, to the deliberate and vigorous Hx-
eflness of ripened opinion. Hurke had entered public
life under the name of W'biggism. Hut the Whig-
gism of the llockinghani party was calmness and dig-
nity itself to the hea<IIong association with tlie popular
sentiment which characterised iIm; sul)sc(|uent h-aders
of tlu; name. Tlie Mar<|uis of Kockingbam was the
endib'ni of his party, an (»ld noble, with the very spirit
of aristocracy, claiming the right to govern by the
right of birth ; adopting office as a natural privilege of
153 LIFE OF BURKE.
rank, and regarding the honours of the State as much
the legitimate possession of the great families, as the
arms on their carriages. There might have been some-
thing too feudal in this assumption ; there might even
be some ground for ridicule in this full-dress and stif-
fened system of conducting the vast and fluctuating
business of a great State ; there might even be some
unsuitable hauteur which repelled men of inferior
birth, or some injurious tardiness in the movements of
those embroidered and formal figures in times of pub-
lic emergency. Yet the good strongly predominated
over the evil. The administration of public affairs
was conducted on a manly, large, and high-born prin-
ciple. The dynasty of Clerks had not yet degraded
the natural dignity of British politics ; the high man-
ners of the individual gave a character to all his pro-
ceedings, influenced the habits of all who looked up to
him for direction, and stamped something of nobility
on the whole form of the public transactions of Eng-
land.
Fox was the leader of the second period. Reckless-
ly ambitious, vehement in the right, and in the wrong ;
notoriously licentious in private life, and, by inevitable
consequence, wholly unprincipled in public ; always
grasping at the success of the moment without the
slightest consideration of the price which was to be
paid for his victory ; he constantly exhibited the most
extraordinary perversion of the most extraordinary
powers. Sophistical, with the appearance of perfect
simplicity ; artificial, with a constant pretension of
CHARACTER OF FOX. 159
openness ; always pronouncing dogmas worthy of an
ancient sage, yet always practising them with the laxity
of a political libertine ; professing in speeches worthy
of immortal remembrance, the most passionate love for
the glory of England, yet always exalting her enemies
at her expense, palliating their injustice, cheering
their aggressions, and panegyrizing their Rebellion ;
Fox was the natural representative, as he had been the
creator, of his faction. History will look to him as the
embodying of that mixture of violence and compromise,
of profligate ambition, and no less proHigate flexibili-
ty, of hereditary contempt for the people, and time-
serving worship of the populace, which forms the cha-
racter of modern W'liiggism.
Yet our day was to see it sink lower still. For even
Fox preserved some impress of his earlier rank. The
task of mingling with riot was still a task to him ; if
he stooped to the populace of Westminster, or ha-
rangued the iullatcd vulgarity of the feasters at the
Crown and Anchor, it was " by compulsion and labo-
rious flight" that he pliniged so low ; his element was
not there, and no man rejoiced more when this unge-
nial toil was done, and he found himself once again in
the arcomf)liHhed and high-mannered circles among
which he was born, C'oriolanus asking for " the most
sweet voices" of the Roman rabble, never felt a keener
pung of his patrician dignity, tiian tin; great leader of
Opposition, divestitig himself of his Court babilimentH,
to meet his sans culottc confederates at the Covent-C>ar-
den hustings.
160 LIFE OF BURKE.
He was now beginning to practise those powerful
but rash conceptions which finally shaped his historical
character — a desperate appeal to the clamours of the
day ; an unmitigable determination to seize the highest
rank, let the means be what they might ; and the ori-
ginal headlong propensity of a singularly vigorous and
vivid, but loose and irregular mind, to measures whose
profligacy was to be forgotten in their success. Burke's
more composed intellect, and sounder principles, start-
ed back from this precipitate career. Fox had been his
pupil, and political favourite ; but the time was come,
when the young Phaeton was to seize the reins alone,
and commit himself to that fiery and erratic course
which nothing but a still more powerful hand could
have restrained from setting the empire in a blaze.
The first intimation of a difference in the views of
those distinguished men had been in a debate on the
Marriage Act, in 1781. Fox had assailed the act in his
usual spirit, — on the particular ground of the aversion
shewn by the Duke of Richmond's family to his
mother's marriage. Burke had defended it also in his
usual spirit, — on the general ground of its value to so-
ciety in England, on its practical uses, and its direct
reference to the facts of the national character. On
this occasion, he proceeded to answer some of the
charges which had been floating through the poli-
tical circles. " I am accused," said he, " I am told,
abroad, of being a man of aristocratic principles. If
by aristocracy they mean the Peers, I have no vulgar
admiration nor vulgar antipathy towards them. I hold
CHARACTER OF FOX. 161
their order in cold and decent respect. I hold them
to be of absolute necessity in the Constitution. But I
think they are good only when kept within proper
bounds. If by the aristocracy, which indeed comes
nearer to the point, they mean an adherence to the rich
and powerful against the poor and weak, this would in-
deed be a very extraordinary part. I have incurred the
odium of gentlemen in this House, for not paying suffi-
cient regard to men of ample property. When indeed
the smallest rights of the poorest people are in ques-
tion, I would set my face against anv act of pride and
power countenanced by the highest that are in it. And
if it should come to the last extremity, and to a con-
test of blood, my part is taken ; I should take mv fate
with the poor and low and feeble.
" But if those people come to tmn llieir liberty in-
to a cloak of maliciousness, and to seek a privilege of
exemption not from power, but from the rules of mo-
rality and virtuous discipline, then I would join my
hand to make them feel the force wliicli ;i ^qw,, united
in a good cause, li;i\e over a multitude of the profli-
gate and ferocious."
Vet the event was still distant which was to separate
the lea<lcrK of Opposition for e\(r. On tiie amend-
ment to the address moved by Fox, touching the right
of taxing America, Xovember, 17H1, Burke support-
ed bin), in a powerful speech on the absurdity of claim-
ing a right, where the right was impraeficable. In
this he introduced the strong apostrophe whieh was so
long recorded, as the sliairiny of tin- icolf.
vox., r. o
162 LIFE OF BURKE.
" But I must say a few words on the subject of
those rights which have cost us so much, and which
were likely to cost us our all. What were those
rights? Can any man give them a body and soul, a
tangible substance ? We did all this because we had
a right to do it ! And all this we dared to do, because
we dared.
" We had a right to tax America, says the Noble
Lord, and as we had a right, we must do it. We
must risk every thing, forfeit every thing, take no con-
sideration into view but our right, nor measure our
right with our power. Infatuated Ministers ! not to
know that right signifies nothing without might, and
that the claim, without the power of enforcing it, is
nugatory and idle in the copyhold of rival States.
But, says a silly man, full of his prerogative of domi-
nion over a few beasts of the tield, there is excellent
wool on the back of the wolf, and therefore he must
be sheared. What, shear a wolf! Yes; but will he
comply ? Have you considered the trouble ? How will
you get this wool ? Oh, I have considered nothing,
and will consider nothing but my right. A wolf is an
animal that has wool ; all animals that have wool are
to be shorn; and therefore, 1 will shear the Avolf.
This was just the reasoning used by the Minister."
The principle for which Burke contended here was
unquestionably true ; for, a right being given for a be-
neficial purpose, the right which confers no such pur-
pose loses its essential property, and ought to be aban-
doned at once. But, it is to be remembered, that the
MODERN WHIGGISM. 16t3
inability to enforce a right, neither extinguishes its
existence, nor exonerates those by whom it is resisted.
But the Ministry were paralysed at home by the per-
petual attacks of their opponents. The general feeble-
ness with which victory abroad was followed up, and
the slackness with which defeat was repaired, made the
war a mere matter of calculation between the budget
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the coffer of
the United States. The capture of Cornwallis, un-
warned by the failure of Burgoync, and without his
palliatives ; at length, turned the whole tide of national
scorn on the Ministry. Every division in the House
was thenceforth a new death-wound. General Con-
way's motion for finishing the war was lost by only
one, (Feb. 22.) A vote of censure by Lord John
Cavendish next threatened their personal safety. Fi-
nally, after a succession of violent attacks. Lord North
came down to the House with an announcement that
he had delivered the seals of office into his Majesty's
hands, (lytli March, 1782.) Opposition was now tri-
umphant ; the party prepared to divide the spoil ; and
the most boastful, most deeply pledged, and most po-
pular Ministry that England had seen for a hundred
years, began their reign ;— to bo extinguished in the
shortest space ever known, to disappoint every expec-
tation, to fall into fragments, and ((» remain in politi-
cal fxiln for a (juarter of a century !
CHAPTER VII.
Fox, the leader of the Ministry — Death of Rockingham — Pitt Mi-
nister — The Coalition — The India Bill — New Era of Europe —
Grattan's opinion of Burke.
The contrast between the Ministerial system of
England and those of foreij^n countries, is one of the
most striking- characteristics of European g-overnment.
France, now nearly republicanised, has lately become
still more fluctuating than England ; but the other lead-
ing Powers of the Continent seldom know a change
of Ministry but by deatli. The Monarch and his Mi-
nister carry on the sluggish machinery of irresponsible
government together, until time puts a stop to both
Monarch and Minister ; and the machine is to be
thenceforth wound up by two other individuals under
the same relation, equally unquestioned by the country;
running their course side by side with the same uni-
formity, and finally giving up their location to two
successors as like themselves as possible. But in
England, political life is a lottery, in which the
Cabinet is the grand prize of the wheel. It is equal-
ly characteristic that the Government becomes more
difficult as the countrv becomes more at its ease.
MINISTERIAL SYSTEM. 165
War may try the Cabinet ; but peace is proverbial
for the fluctuation of authority. The bold hazards
and brilliant achievements of war turn the public
eye exclusively to the field. The Minister is then
simply a recruiting- officer, a commissary, a pay-mas-
ter. His diplomacy is the art of supplying the
Quartermaster-General, and the first-fruits of his Ca-
binet Councils are the concoction and publication of
Ciazcttes. But peace brings back the true time of
trial. The people are urged to pry into Ministerial
conduct. Party watches every step, not to reclaim
the error of Ministerial ways, but to seize on Minis-
terial power. Politicians grow weary of the monotony
of an unchanged Ministry, and the Cabliu't is either
suddenly stricken with decay for the benefit of its anta-
gonists, or g-radually absorbs the more active portion
of the opjiosition principle, until its identity is lost, its
creed is changed, the world grows sick of its negative-
nosH, and the miscellany of " All the Talents" becomes
HH Bud(b'nly abborrt'd as the |i(i|iiil;ir tongue can find
utterance for its zfal against I In' iihomin.ition. It lalls
amid a general oiitcrv, and aiiollicr steps over its body
to \\w throne.
All common sense is in favour of the possession of
power by the opulent, the highly rducatcfd, and tlu-
higblv Itorn. Tlu' l"'.Hfflisli are a people of comiiioii
sense, and the national feellnjr is therefore Toryism.
Men of great ability may spring from the lower ranks
at intervals ; but when ardour Is united with under-
standing, and understanding with honesty, the aspirant
166 LIFE OF BURKE.
becomes a Tory at the first moment he has reached
that position in which it becomes safe for him to ac-
knowledge his sentiments. Let him still bear what
name he will, he is essentially a supporter of the rank
into which he has fought his way ; he feels the value
of hereditary distinctions as keenly as if his coronet
had been Avorn since the Heptarchy ; he is a friend to
the security of property ; he acknowledges the subor-
dination of society ; and, satisfied that our forefathers
had at least as much sense, honour, and national dig-
nity as their sons, desires only to see those ancient and
British principles maintained, by which every man
was suffered to follow his own industry in peace ; the
violence of innovation and the severity of prerogative
were equally restrained ; and England grew to be the
noblest, most powerful, and freest nation of the world.
The Rockingham name once again at the head of
an administration. Fox became a placeman, to his
own infinite gratification. The Whig party, on this
occasion, were instantly transformed into Tories.
The touch of the Treasury bench had wrought the
miracle at once ; and while the Marquis, in right of
name and experience, became the declared head of the
Government, Charles Fox, in right of blood, con-
nexion, and habitual association with the highest rank,
became the leader of the House of Commons. Burke,
for ten years the great champion of the party, gave
way — probably no reluctant way — to the claims of the
eon of Lord Holland, and the relative of some of the
principal families of the Empire. An Irishman, the
FOX, LEADER OF THE MINISTRY. 167
son of a man in obscure life, with but little fortune, with
no English connexion, and sustained above the crowd
by nothing but talents of the most distinguished order,
was no rival, in the eyes of the English aristocracy, to
a young, daring, and accomplished member of their
own order ; full of all the virtues, and even the vices,
which create popularity in a high-wrought state of so-
ciety ; attracting public admiration by the display of
remarkable ability ; delighting private life by equally
remarkable pleasantry and social manners ; familiar
with all the good and evil of mankind ; equally i)ow-
erful in his address to the reason of the House and the
absurdity of the hustings ; alVectiug the stern politics
of an Algernon Sydney or a Cato Major, while he ex-
hibited the loose practice of a Rochester or a Sylla;
breaking down whatever impediment to the hearts of
the populace might have existed in the abstract dignity
of the great politician, by the easy profligacy \\ itii
which he hharcd in the license of all classes alike ; at
once the gamester, the horse-racer, the liljcrtinc, and
the most weightv, jiromitt, and vigorous debater that
the House of Couuuons had ever seen ; all condjining
to render him, in a sense applicable to no other public
individual of his century, at once (be man of power
and the man of the people.
The distribution of olbce on this occason allows of
no panegyric on Whig gratitude. T.ord Sbclburno
was plarcd at the ln'ad of the IIcMnc Department, for
which Burke's local knowledge, indefatigable intelli-
3
168 I-IFE OF BURKE.
gence, and zeal for national improveraont, made him
the fittest man in the empire.
He was evidently circumvented in the new arrange-
ments. A plausible story seems to have been told to
him, of the necessity of making room for some of the
King's friends ; the embarrassments of the Ministry
were pleaded ; and this man, who was entitled to com-
mand all that office could give, was thrown by with
the Paymaster- Generalship. The office was lucrative,
but that its lucre was not the temptation in his instance
is clear, from his efforts to lower the expenditure of
the office, and curtail those emoluments which by cus-
tom had been looked upon as the right of the Pay-
master. The balance in the official hands had seldom
amounted to less than a million, and the power of deal-
ing with it had become the privilege of the chief offi-
cer. The clothing of the Chelsea pensioners alone
had been a profit of L. 700 a-year ; this he equally
gave up to the public, the whole forming a saving of
L. 47,000 a-year, of which L. 25,300 had been the
established profits of the head of the department.
Those profits were doubtless enormous, but they had
been sanctioned by time ; and Burke, a poor man, and
without any hope of a secure income, deserves, for his
surrender of them, all the praise that can be given to
self-denial.
But, the Rockingham Administration was not made
to last. The evident propensity of Fox to suffer no
sharer of the supremacy to which he was rapidly ad-
vancing, must have roused discontent. His eagerness
DEATH OF ROCKINGHAM. 169
to be felt as a bold innovator, and the jealousy with
which his impracticable theories inspired the graver
members of the INIinistry, prohibited all unity in the
Cabinet; and a secret but powerful cause of his fall
existed in the royal aversion. Pitt, then rising into
fame, — Shelburne, crafty, ambitious, and a favourite
at Court, — the King, to whom the hauteur of the
Marquis and bis domineering party was an offence, al-
together formed a mass of repugnancy, which must have
soon broken down the rude, hasty, and ill-cemented
fabric of administration. But a dictator more rapid
than party, and more irresistible than kings, now in-
terposed. The Premier was seized wltli an illness,
(whicli fifty years ago was named the injlucnza,) and
suddenly died, (1782.) While tlie party were in tiie
confusion naturally arising from this unexpected cir-
cumstance, the prize was seized by Lord Shelburne.
The Secretary of tiie Home Department left his friends
to wonder at his audacity, and their own defeat ; flung
Fox, Hurke, Townshend, and all the leaders loose,
and announced himself the master of a new admini-
stration. Time, which dcvclopes the secrets of Cabi-
nets as well as of men, has explained (he chief ground
of this extraordinary overthrow, by tin; King's dis-
pleasure. It has been subsc(juently observed, that art-
less as undoubtedly was the mind of dcorge III., and
iucapivble as bis manly and honest spirit was of thread-
ing the mazes of political intrigue, no Cabinet against
wbirh he j)ronounced his displeasure was ever long-
lived. The King bad submitted to the Rockingham
VOL. I. P
170 LIFE OF BURKE.
Cabinet, as an usurpation ; having previously offered
the treasury to Lord Shelburne, and on his refusal
yielding only to necessity. A second opening was
now made, and he availed himself of it instantly. The
appointment of William Pitt as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, at an age scarcely beyond boyhood, was the
most striking feature of the change ; and proudly and
powerfully did that greatest of English statesmen vin-
dicate the promise of his early years, and tjie predilec-
tion of the Empire for his name. Fox was indignant
at his defeat, and haughtily rejected an offer to receive
him into the new Cabinet. The negotiator was Pitt,
but the condition being that Lord Shelburne should
remain at the head of the Treasury, the interview was
abortive, and the exiled party were driven to one of
those fatal expedients which belong to politicians made
for misfortune. A combination, which the Ministers
called a conspiracy, and Avhich has been stigmatized to
all posterity by the name of the Coalition, was formed
bv Fox with Lord North. The Ministry were thrown
out by a motion condemning the peace, (21st Febru-
ary, 1783,) and Opposition became once more masters
of the Cabinet. But, the public wrath knew no bounds
at this desperate defiance of common honesty. Every
man wlio had borne a share in it, was marked for a
degree of contempt never excited before by public
tergiversation. With whom it originated is still doubt-
ful, unless Mr Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, is to
be considered as its author. But all the leading men of
the party, Lord John Townsheud, Lord Loughborough,
THE INDIA BILL. 171
Sheridan, Colonel Fitzpatrick, Sec. were indignantly
charged with various parts in the transaction. Yet,
the weight of public indignation fell upon Fox, whose
sinking his pledges to " bring the noble Lord in the
blue riband to the block," in the sentimental decla-
ration, that " his enmities Avere monieniaj-y, but his
friendships eternal," was so far from conciliating pub-
lic opinion ; that it was pronounced to be only an
aggravated offence of the intriguer. It had been
at once u strongproof of the heats of the times, and of
the uncontrollable rashness of Fox in debate, to find
him, in his opposition to Lord North, declaring, that
" he would be afraid to trust himself with him alone,
— that he was the most obnoxious and guilty criminal
in the State, — that his blood ought to expiate his mis-
deeds ;" and last, and most unlucky of all, " that if lie
ever acted with him, he would be content to be thought
fur ever infamous.'' But, from those declarations, it
waa utterly impossible that any man could extricate
himself. 'I'lie attj-mpt was madf, l)ut it only plunged
all the parties into deeper scorn.
Stdl, Fox, in the priuie of life and power, was not to
be crushed, without signali/ing bin f;dl. I le now conceiv-
ed his hnfia liill, the most formi lable and daring attempt
at perpetual power ever made by a Minister, throw-
ing the whole patronage of India into the hands of
the Cabinet, and, in its results, making thit Cabinet ir-
resistible by any force within the constitution. TJie
IVdl has been attributed to l>urke, who li;jd once more
taken ofbce as I'aymasler ; but all the features of this
172 LIFE OF BURKE.
usurping measure bear the stamp of the daring and ar-
bitrary mind of his celebrated friend. On the second
reading of the Bill, Burke again made one of his mag-
nificent speeches, (Dec. 1, 1783.) It must be ac-
knowledged, that the failing side of this great man's
politics was India, He had adopted the subject at an
early period, and cherished it as a peculiar possession,
until it assumed a supernatural magnitude in his eyes.
The remoteness of the land, the wild superstitions,
the barbaric grandeur, and tragic catastrophes of its
princes ; the sweeping tides of Mongol invasion ; the
wealth, the sufferings, the vastness, and the helpless-
ness of the population, all acted on the original poetic
poAvers of his mind, until fancy was substituted for
fact, and he felt himself the elected voice to proclaim
the sorrows of India to mankind, the high-priest who
was to stand at the propitiatory altar of British justice,
the great purifier of England from the last reproach of
perfidy and blood.
Whether he saw the deeper purposes of the plan,
or whether, if he had been conversant in the whole
mystery, he would have drawn back ; are questions
which can be answered by none but those who know
the fever and the supremacy with which some great
idea seizes upon the whole frame of the imaginative
mind. The language of the speeches strongly corro-
borates the impression that the chief object before his
eyes was the welfare of a nation, whose injuries he had
enthusiastically made his own. " By some gentle-
men," said he, in the commencement of his speech,
THE INDIA BILL. 173
" the subject is taken up as a point of law, or a ques-
tion of private property ; by others, as the intrigue of
a petty faction at court. All the void has been filled
up with invectives against the coalition, allusions to
the loss of America and the activity and inactivity
of Ministers. The total silence of those gentlemen
concerning the interests and well-being of the people of
India, and the interest which this nation has in the
commerce and revenues of that country, is a strong in-
dication of the value which they set upon those ob-
jects.'"'
The Bill and its supporters have now equally perish-
ed, and the speech remains only as a monument of
superb ability thrown away. But India is now more
than ever an engrossing topic ; e\'ery year compels us
to feel its importance more deeply ; and until the
British banner is torn down by a Cossack invasion ; or
England, by that sacred liberality which is the wisest
of all expenditure, plants her institutions, her language
and above all, her church, in every region of that
mighty land, estabriNJiing Iht iniisterv l>y the no-
blest of :ill titles, the iiiu'estraiued connuiniiou ol
good, India must be a perilous conlcinplaliitii to the
councils of P2ngland. Burke's geographical glance at
the extent of the Kngli^.h dependencies in India lifty
years ago may aid us to feel the (extraordinary extent
of dominion for which we are benceforth to legislate.
" With verv in'w, and those inconsiderable, intervals,
the British dominion, in either the Company's name;,
or in the names of princes absolutely dependent on the
174 LIFE OF JIURKE.
Company, CTctends from the mountains which separate
India from Tartary to Cape Comorin ; that is, onc-
and-twenty degrees of latitude. In the northern parts,
it is a solid mass of land about eight hundred miles in
length, and four or five hundred broad. As you go
southward, it becomes narrower for a space ; it after-
tvards dilates, but narrower or broader, you possess
the whole eastern mid north-eastern coast of that vast
country, quite from the borders of Pegu. Bengal,
Bahar, and Orissa, with Benares, measure 161,978
square English miles, a territory considerably larger
than the whole kingdom of France. Oude, with its
dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles, not a
great deal less than England. The Carnatic, with
Tanjore and the Circars, is 6.5,948 square miles, very
eonsiderably larger than England^ The whole of the
Company's dominions, comprehending Bombay and
K5alsette, amount to 281,4 12 square miles, which forms
a territory larger than any European dominion, Russia
and Turkey excepted. Through all that vast extent
ef country, there is not a man who eats a mjouthful of
rice but by permission of the East India Company."
******
Hie Tartar Invasions. — *' The several irruptions of
Arabs, Tartars, and Persians, into India, were, for the
greater part, ferocious, bloody, and wasteful in the ex-
treme ; and entrance into the dominion of that country
was, as generally, with small comparative eflTusion of
blood. But the ditference in favour of the first con-
querors is this ; the Asiatic conquerors very soon
THE INDIA BILL. 175
abated of their ferocity, because they made the con-
quered country their own. They rose and fell with
the rise and fall of the territory they lived on. Fathers
there deposited the hopes of their posterity, and chil-
dren there beheld the monuments of their fathers.
There their lot was finally cast, and it is the natural
wish of all that their lot should not be cast in a bad
land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation, are not a re-
creatinjT prospect to the eye of man ; and there are
very few who can bear to grow old among the curses
of a whole people. If their passion or their avarice
drove the Tartar lords to acts of rapacity or tyranny,
there was time enoueh even in the short life of man
to bring round the ill effects of an abuse of power upon
the power itself. If hoards were made by violence
and tyraimy, they were still domestic hoards; and do-
mestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful
and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. Even
avarice and usury itself operated for both the preser-
vation and the employment of national wealth. The
huHbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest;
but then they augmented the fund froiri which they
were again to horrtnv. Their resources were dearly
bought, but fjicy were sure, and tlic general stock of
the corumuuity grew by the general elfort."
In contrasting the results of the Company's govern-
ment with this necessary process, by wiiicb tl»e savage
conquerors of India were comjH'lIed to make some re-
turn to the land, Burke *lrew from the state of affairs
at the time ; but a time when the Company waa still
176 LIFE OF BURKE.
struggling with the difficulties of a new dominion, and
forced to employ all its powers in self-preservation !
British India at this day would present a very different
picture from that of 1783. " With us," said Burke, "no
pride erects stately monuments which repair the mis-
chief which pride had produced, and adorn a country out
of its own spoils. England has erected no churches, no
hospitals, no palaces, no schools. England has built no
bridges, made no highroads, cut no navigation, dug
out no reservoirs. Every other conqueror of every
other description has left some monument of either
state or beneficence behind him. Were we to be
driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to
tell that it had been possessed during the inglorious pe-
riod of our dominion, by anything better than the
ourang outang or the tiger."
This philippic is justifiable no longer. The first se-
cure possession of peace enabled the natural activity
and benevolent spirit of the British mind to display
itself in the erection of those churches, palaces, and
schools, whose want the orator so strikingly deplores.
A larger liberality will be wiser still ; the extension
of the Established Church of England must be the
preliminary to all solid British interest in India, and by
spreading the purest form of the purest religion, will
confer a benefit on the whole peninsula, greater than
nation ever before conferred upon nation.
From the close of the American war, a great Euro-
pean era had commenced. The spirit which had gone
forth in that revolution was to take successive forms
NEW ERA OF EUROPE. 177
of popular fascination and royal terror, to dazzle every
nation of Europe, and, after plunging the Continent
into all the miseries of the most ruinous of all wars,
to sink down suddenly into the spot of corruption
from which it rose. The freedom which was given by
revolt in Europe, was to be punished by the tyranny
which in all ages has been its natural offspring; and
the nation which had worshipped it with the most reck-
less idolatry, was to furnish the great compensating
moral, that out of evil only evil can come. But this
moral was not to Hash upon man in the lightnings of
heaven, nor be written before his eyes by a superna-
tural finger on the walls of his bancpiot. It was, like
all high lessons of Providence, (whose chief hu-
man acts are expressly for the teaching of man,) to be
forced upon his comprehension by degrees suited to
its slowness. His fears and hopes were to be made
sensitive by actual suffering, before the discovery that
national virtue was national strength. Great re-
verses of Ibrtime were to tca<'1i him tli.it tluM-c was
something concerned in llic rcgulalidu dl liuinau af-
fairs beyond the foresigiit of politics ; partial successes
were frcjin time to time to revive tin; (h'oopiiig vigour
of Europe. At length the whf)l(' jiowcr of evil, scat-
tered through the revolutionary hoil, was to unite
in one centre ; an individual Wiis to start np, like the
crown of a new volcano, to be the conduit of nil the
scattered streams of eruption, and bewilder all eyes
with the malignant lustre of his blaze. Hut when the
last hour of European hope seemed at hand, it was to
178 LIFE OF BURKE.
l)e shewn tliat the old hiws of Providence were still
in being, that violence was not to be wisdom, nor
tyranny triumph for ever; that a principle of de-
cay was already feeding- on the heart of that armed fi-
gure of defiance to God and man, and that, like the
Herods and persecutoi-s of old, an invisible might was
commissioned to walk upon liis path, and in the very
moment when the " people shouted for him, and cal-
led him a God," to smite him and his empire to the
dust, and vindicate Heaven.
But the lesson went further still. For the general
restoration of Europe, a memorable provision was pal-
pably made in the increased power of England. The
fortress which was at once to receive within its gates
the remaining hopes of the Continent, Hying for shelter
from the furious proscriptions of France ; and finally
to send forth that force by which the madness of revo-
lution was to be coerced with the chains which it bore
for every other people of the earth, was to be prepared
for its purposes. We are not yet sufficiently remote
from the time, to be suffered to see the whole result,
nor even the whole preparative. But there is no in-
stance in history of a nation so suddenly assuming vi-
gour at home, and influence abroad, as England; from
the period of the American war until that of the war
with France ; a vigour and influence singularly uncon-
nected with the usual means of power, — warlike
success, the discovery of new dominion, encroach-
ments on neighbouring States, or new inroads on the
great outlying wealth of the world. Even the loss
XEW ERA OF EUnOPF.. 179
of lier American provinces had, beyond question,
strengthened her home defence; by concentrating her
force within herown borders; relieved her finances from
a perpetually increasing burden for the expenses of a
restless possession; converted a rebellious colony into
a commercial ally ; and, by a still more effectual change,
had healed a source of angry divisions at homo, and
withdrawn the public mind from Transatlantic bicker-
ings, to fix it upon the fearful hazards that were swel-
ling and shaj>ing within twenty miles of her shore,
liut a still more important change was to take place in
the character of her government.
For twenty years before, the English Cabinet was
the very scene of mutation ; a political caravansera, in
which the strangers of to-day were the guests of to-
morrow ; a tide-way, filled and empty every twenty-
four hours, a perpetual Hux and icllux of the political
stream; if its truer ntiil)l('m, in those days ofpublicim-
potouce, was not to bo fotiml iii I lie churchyard, — the
Huccossive remnants ol tlic (l('cav«'<l making luom for
the successive (h'pr)sils of llic dead. I5mI ibis system
was rifiw fu lie at an cud. j'ji^ilaiid was to have a s()-
TkI gijvonuncnt at la-f. Ilic Cabinet was to be no
moreauantcrhambcr : with tluMloorsoftlicKing's closrl
locked, until it jib-ascd tlw crturt to amiouucc that they
were open for a fresh accession of visitors, ecpiallv
temporary. I'ilt was to stand at the head of I'jinlisb
coimcil, and to stand until be bad ini|)ressed bis own
powerful spirit upon I'^nglisb resistance, crushed
disat^Vrtion, given confidence to Europe, asserted tlu>
180 LIFE OF BURKE.
steadiness of British principle, and marshalled the
strength of the empire into that order, which waited
only the word to carry the standards of loyalty and
national safety over the fallen force of military usur-
pation. The share which fell to the lot of Burke in
this most hrilliant era of our history, is to be told in a
more advanced portion of this brief Memoir. But
even here we cannot refuse the expressive panegyric
of Grattan, a kindred genius; like him converted, how-
ever late in life, from partisanship, to the cause of his
country; and fitter than any man then alive to inscribe
an imperishable record on the tomb of departed great-
ness.
" On the French subject," said Grattan, in 1815,
in his speech for the renewal of the war, " speaking of
authority, we cannot forget Mr Burke — Mr Burke,
the prodigy of nature and acquisition. He read every-
thing, he saw everything, he foresaw everything.
His knowledge of history amounted to a power of
foretelling; and when he perceived the wild work that
was doing in France, that great political physician, in-
telligent of symptoms, distinguished between the ac-
cess of fever and the force of health; and what other
men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he
knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her mad-
ness; and then, prophet-like, he pronounced the des-
tinies of France, and in his prophetic fury admonished
nations."
But a long interval was to interpose in the life of
Burke, between his growing reluctance to the heady
grattan's opinion of burke. 181
politics of Fox, and his direct recog'nitlon of the man-
ly, rational, and English-minded system of the Minis-
ter. With no personal habits of prostration to urge
him into a degrading alliance with power ; stimulated
by neither the passion for title, which turns so many
proud men into slaves, nor the craving for wealth,
which presents the covetous man a willing tool for any
public baseness; Burke, reposing on the strength of a
reputation, of which he must have been conscious, and
contented with the rank, nobler than all adventitious
title, which he had secured in the mind of his country,
calmly waited his time.
We have hitherto followed his course through the
obstacles of an obscure birth and a narrow fortune, to
a high influence in the councils of the nation ; his wea-
pons and iiis ambition equally legitimate ; no man less
sacriHcing the sense of right to the sense of expedien-
cy. He had seen the heights of j)()pularity reached
hourly af a spring, wliib' be was diuibing his way,
sometimes dubiously, alwiiys slowly. Wilkes was chi-
caning his aseent to the sumniit, and I'ox was storm-
ing if, uliili- I'urki- was le^iilirnatcly advancing by the
liroad road of great abilities exercised on great sub-
jects, Htisfained by uiie\ani|tled industry, and directed
by native honour. IJut his pcditical life bail commen-
ced uiulcr circujustances which slill tlircw tbcir sha-
dow ovLT bis career; bis e:ir!v cumieMnii willi ibe
Martjuis of Koekiii^^'iiaiu li.id Ixniiid liiiii to tlie u bole
heavy system of that most formal of Ministers. It had
even done worse. Party is not buried in the grave
182 LIFE OF BUKKK.
of a minister. It bound him to the fortunes of his suc-
cessors; for, under ordinary circumstances, no maa
can abjure his party, untouched by the imputation of
having broken his faith. Burke thus found himself
suddenly transferred from the cold and decorous po-
licy of his noble patron, to the passionate and hazard-
ous system of Fox. It was matter of common know-
ledge, that the extravagances of that celebrated leader
were altogether alien to the clear and temperate views
of Burke; as it is now matter of history, that this in-
compatibility at length took the shape of open variance.
When the question was no longer one of abstractions,
but of the actual existence of England, Burke unhesi-
tatingly cast oft" the bond, thenceforth devoting him-
self to a cause always congenial to his feelings, and
alone worthy of his genius. Finally, leaving his assail •
ants to the forlorn task of struggling against truth, un-
der the pretext of principle; and fighting- against the se-
curity of England, under the mask of patriotism — he
retrieved his fame, established himself in the highest
place of national gratitude, and made his comitry the
light and leader of Europe.
CHAPTER Vlir.
Nabob of A not — Burke's Speech on India Affiiiis — Hyder Ali—
Hasting? — Dujjleix.
The transaction which we have now reached in liis
career was anionic the penalties ot" the bond. The me-
morable India Hill had overthrown the Administra-
tion. In all cases of party failnre, the first crtort ot
the friends of the criminid is to transfer the l)lame ;
and while Fox, with the openness which belonged to
his nature, acknowledj^ed the project as his own, his
adherents laboured U) throw its \\ bole weight on the
head of Hurke. The bill was undone; the party who
were to have been borne on it into power, into more
than power, iul(t a coiiij)b'l(' and irreversible tyraimy
over the empire, bad gone down with the wreck.
But it was still to prcjdure public and striking' conse-
(juences. Hiirke, as a h.-ader in all the councils of Op-
position, had been largely consulted in tin; Indian de-
tails; and this kjiowledge, which had a |i(-ciiliar charm
for his vivi«l fancy, naturally led him into entjuiries re-
lative to the conduct «d the <-biel jMiblic servants iu
Iliudosfan. Among those, the highest was hastily
deenjed tin- most guilty; and the result was the lue-
uiorable impeachment of Warren llublings.
184 LIFE OF BURKE.
A prelimiuai')' Avas the scarcely less memorable en-
quiry into the Nabob of Arcot's debts, — a topic which
long engaged the attention of English statesmen, giv-
ing rise to a board of commissioners, whose duties oc-
cupied nearly half a century, and involving immense
sums of money, and the characters of a large number
of important individuals.
The Nabob of Arcot was placed on his throne,
against the claims of an elder brother and other com-
petitors, by the arms of the East India Company, about
the year 1765. It was charged on him, that he sub-
sequently attempted some seizures of neighbouring
territory, and some interior arrangements of his own,
incompatible with right, and his compact with the
Company; that to accomplish those objects, he had
intrigued Avitli the chief servants of the Com-
pany, and that in the course of the traffic he had dis-
bursed vast sums among the delinquent officials. It
was considered as an evidence of some extraordinary
proceedings, that this prince seemed to relinquish all
personal interest in his dominions. He withdrew from
his palaces and provinces, and settled in a compara-
tively obscure abode in the suburbs of Madras. There
he remained for a succession of years, carrying on va-
rious complicated negotiations with the Company,
thwarting the Government by means of its own offi-
cers, and purchasing immunities and territories in de-
fiance of the principles alike of British faith and Indian
tranquillity. It was alleged, that not merely secret
moneys were distributed among the principal indivi-
NABOB OF ARGOT. 185
duals of the Government, but that the debts which the
Nabob stated to be due to a whole host of creditors,
were, in fact, bribes, amounting to some millions, and
Parliament was called on to make enquiry into the
right of the claimants, as British subjects, to require
payment from a territory which was under British pro-
tectiou. Fox, in 1785, brought the topic before the
House, on a motion " for copies and extracts of all
letters and orders of the Court of Directors" on the
subject. It was further alleged, that the Nabob of
Arcot had sent troops into the dominions of the Ra-
jah of Tunjorc, pillaged the country, and imprisoned
the prince, for the seizure of money sufficient to pay
those demajids. An outcry now arose through all
circles connected with Indian aiiairs against the injus-
tice of this course, and the Directors commenced an
encpiiry. The enquiry was again negatived by the
Minister, who had formed other views of Indian go-
vernment. But the debts were acknowledged, and a
fund for their discharge was assigned from the reve-
nues of the Carnatic. This detail is necessary for
understanding Burke's speech. It was the last in the
debate, and was worthy of concluding a competition
between the great masters of parliamentary elocpience.
After some general remarks on the deficiency of en-
larged views in the Ministry, and on the ability still
residing in the House of Commons — " stripped as it
then was of its brightest ornaments, and of its most im-
portant privileges," (so old is the language of political
complaint), Burke proceeded to contrast the narrow-
voL. 1. y
186 LIFE OF BURKE.
Hess of the Mintsters' restoratives with the profusion
of his means of ruin. " Out of some, I know not
what, remains of Irish hereditary revenue, out of the
surplus of deficiency, out of the savings of prodigality,
this Minister of wonder (Pitt) will provide support
for this nation, sinking under the mountainous load of
tu'o hundred and thirty millions of deht ! But while we
look with pain at his desperate and laborious trilling,
while we are apprehensive that he will break his back
in stooping to pick up chaff and straws,he recovers him-
self at an elastic bound, and, with a broad-cast swing of
his arm, he squanders over his Indian field a sum far
greater than the whole hereditary revenue of the king-
dom of Ireland. Strange as this conduct in Ministry is,
it is still true to itself, and faithful to its own perverted
order. Those who are bountiful to crimes, will be rigid
to merit and penurious to service. Their penury is
even held out as a cover to their prodigality. The
economy of injustice is to furnish resonrces for the
fund of corruption. They pay off their protection to
great crimes and great criminals, by being inexorable
to the paltry frailties of little men. Those modern
flagellants are sure, with a rigid fidelity, to whip their
OAvn enormities on the vicarious back of every small
offender."
The NahoVs Debt.—'' From 1760 to 1780, the
extraction of money from the Carnatic probably did
not amount to a great deal less than twenty millions
of money. During the deep silent plan of this steady
stream of wealth, which set from India into Europe,
SPEECH OK INDIA AFFAIRS. 187
it generally passed over with no adequate observation.
But happening at some periods to meet rifts of rocks
that checked its course, it grew more noisy and attract-
ed more notice. The pecuniary discussion caused by
the accumulation of part of the fortunes of their ser-
vants in a debt from the Nabob of Arcot, was the first
thing which very particularly called for, and long en-
gaged, the attention of the Court of Directors, The
debt amounted to L. 880,000 sterling, claimed, for the
most part, by English gentlemen residing at Madras.
This capital, settled at length by order at 10 per cent,
afforded an aruiuity of L.88,000. Finally, the whole
debt, amounting to four millions four hundred and
forty thousand pounds ! produced annuities amount-
ing to L.G2.'3,()00 a-year ; a good deal more than one-
third of the land-tax of England, at 4s. in the pound ;
a good d(!al more than double the whole annual divi-
<lend of the East India Company, the nominal masters
of those proprietors.
" W'lien this gigantic iihantom of debt Hrst appear-
ed before a young Minister, it naturally would have
justified some ap])rolienKion. Such a prodigy would
have filled any man with Huj)orslitio«is fearH. He would
have exorcised that sbapeless, nameless form, and ad-
jured it to tell by wbat means a smiill number of indi-
viduals, of no consetpience, possessed of no lucrative
offices, without the command of armies, or administra-
tion of revenues, witbouf [irofession of aiiv kind, or
any sort of trade sufficient to emplf)y a pedlar, could
have in a few years, some in a W'w niontliKy am;issed-
188 LIFE OF BURKE.
treasures equal to the revenues of a respectable king-
dom." * * * * « That there is an eternal debt ' still
paying, still to owe,' which must be bound on the pre-
sent generation in India, and entailed on their mort-
gaged posterity for ever. A debi of millions in favour
of a set of men, whose names, with few exceptions,
are either buried in the obscinity of their talents, or
dragged into light by the enormity of their crimes." *
* * *
" The Nabob and his creditors are not adversaries,
but collusive parties. The litigation is not between
their rapacity and his riches; but between him and
them confederating on the one side, and the miserable
inhabitants of a ruined country on the other. Refus-
ing a shilling from his hoards, he is always ready, nay,
with eagerness and passion, he contends for deliver-
ing up to those pretending creditors, his territory and
subjects. It is therefore not from treasuries and
mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from
the blood withheld from the veins and whipped out of
the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are
to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, under the
false names of debtors and creditors of state."
He then fiercely turns to the Ministerial share in
sanctioning a portion of those claims. " What cor-
rupt men, in the fond imaginations of a sanguine ava-
rice, had not the confidence to propose, they have
found a Chancellor of the Exchequer hardy enough
to undertake. He has cheered their drooping spirits :
he has thanked the peculators for not despairing of
SPEECH OX INDIA AFFAIRS. 189
their common wealth : he has replaced the twenty-five
per cent due." * * * * « Let no man hereafter talk
of the decaying energies of nature. All the acts and
monuments in the records of peculation, the consoli-
dated corruption of ages, the patterns of exemplary
plunder in the heroic times of Roman iniquity, never
equalled the gigantic corruption of this single act.
Never did Nero, in all the insolent prodigality of des-
potism, deal out to his prietorian guards a donation tit
to he named with the largess showered down by the
bounty of our Chancellor of the Exchequer on the
faithful band of his Indian sepoys."
After this burst, which >nust be looked on as mere-
ly a shewy preamble to awake the ears of the House
to the graver truths, he states with striking effect the
sources of Indian emoluments in his day, and the true
origin of those intricate transactions. " The great
fortunes made in India in the beginning of con<piest,
naturally excited an emulation through the whole suc-
cession of the Cumjiany's service. But, in the Com-
pany, it gave rise to other sentiments. Thoy did not
find the new chamiels of acquisition flow with c(|ual
riches to them. On the contrary, the high Hood-tide
of private emolument was generally in the lowest ebb
of tlieir affairs. Thoy began also to fear that the for-
tune of war might take away what the fortune of war
had given. Wars were acrf)rdingly discouraged by
repeated injunctions; and, (hat their servants miglit
not be bribed into them by the native princes, they
were strictly forbidden to take any money whatsoever
li>0 LIFE OF BURKE.
from their hands. But vehement passion is ingenious
in resources. They soon fell upon a contrivance which
answered their p\irposes far better. They reversed
their proceedings. Instead of receiving presents,
they made loans : instead of carrying on wars in their
own name, they contrived an authority at once irresist-
ible and irresponsible, in whose name they might ra-
vage at pleasure; and, thus freed from all restraint,
they indulged themselves in the most extravagant spe-
culations of plunder. The cabal of creditors inspired
into the mind of the Nabob of Arcot, then a depen-
dent of the humblest order on the Company, a scheme
of the most wild and desperate ambition. First, they
persuaded him to believe himself a principal member
in the political system of Europe. Next, they held
out to him, and he readily imbibed, the idea of the ge-
neral empire of Hindostan. As a preliminary, they
prevailed on him to propose a tripartite division of that
vast country ; one part to the Company, another part
to the Mahrattas, and the third to himself. To him-
self he reserved all the southern part of the great pe-
ninsula, comprehended under the general name of the
Deccan."
He then proceeds to detail the interior arrange-
ments of this extraordinary scheme, which seem almost
incredible, if any thing can exceed the extravagance
of minds stimulated by avarice, and in possession of
power. " The Company was to appear in the Car-
natic in no other light than as a contractor for the pro-
vision of armies, and in the hire of mercenaries. This
SPEECH" ON INDIA AFFAIRS. 191
disposition was to be secured by the Nabob's putting
himself wn^/fT the guarantee of France, and by means of
that rival nation, preventing the English for ever from
assuming an equality, much less a superiority, in the
Carnatic. In pursuance of this treasonable project,
they extinguished the Company as a sovereign power
in that part of India ; they withdrew the Company's
garrisons from all the forts and strongholds of the
Carnatic, they declined to receive the ambassadors
from foreign courts, and remitted them to the Nabob
of Arcot ; they fell upon and totally destroyed the old-
est ally of the Company, the King of Tanjore, and
plundered the coinitry to the amount of near five mil-
lions sterling-." If those statements were faithful, Ku-
ropean treason must hide its diminished head ; the
most capacious contempt of law, allegiance, and na-
tional interests in England, must shrink into trifling
before this gigantic turpitude. Well might his iudig-
nali(Mi riame out against culprits who thus tralHcked in
kingdoms, and swindled away the supremacy of their
country. But a still more striking scene opens, when,
from the details of the crime, he icaches the history
of the j)UuiMhmeut ; and after leading throufi;h the
labyrinth of darkness and iui(pnty, suddenly hrings us
into the hro.id and angry glare of the tempest of retri-
butive justice. The fr;igmcut has long been memo-
rable as one of \\\<- liiM-st evideiiees of the genius of
the great speaker, unef|ualled in its comhiiiation of
the images of ma{j;niHcent horror, the most splendid
picture of desolation in the annals of eloquence.
192 LIFE OF BURKE.
The Invasion of the Carnatic. — "Among the victims
to tins plan of universal plunder, worthy of the heroic
avarice of the projectors, you have all heard, (and he
has made himself to be well remembered,) of an In-
dian chief called Hyder Ali Khan. This man posses-
sed the Western, as the Company, under the name of
the Nabob of Arcot, does the Eastern division of the
Carnatic. It was among- the leading measures of the
Cabal, (according to their own emphatic language,) to
extirpate this Hyder Ali. They declared the Nabob
of Arcot his sovereign, and himself a rebel, and publicly
invested their instrument with the sovereignty of the
kingdom of Mysore. Rut their victim was not of the
passive kind. They were soon obliged to conclude
a treaty of peace with this rebel at the gates of Madras.
But the Cabinet Council of English creditors would
not sufi'er the Nabob to sign the treaty. From that
time forward, a continued plot was carried on within
the Divan, black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot,
for the destruction of Hyder Ali.
" When at length Hyder found that he had to do
with men who either would sign no convention, or
whom no signature could bind, and who Avere the de-
termined enemies of human intercourse itself, he de-
creed to make the country possessed by those incorri-
gible and predestined criminals a memorable example
to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of
a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole
Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and
to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him
SPEECH ON INDIA AFFAIRS. 193
and those, against whom the faith which holds the
moral elements of the world together was no protec-
tion. He became at length so confident of his force,
so collected in his might, that he made no secret what-
ever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his
disputes with every enemy and every rival ; who buried
their mutual animosities in their common detestation
against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot; he drew
from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could
add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction, and
compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and de-
solation, into one black cloud, hung for a while on the
declivities of the mountains. While the authors of all
those evils were stupidly gazing on this menacing me-
teor whicli blackened all their horizon, it suddenly
burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon
the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of
woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart con-
ceived, and which no tongue can ade(|uately tell. All
the horrors of war before known or heard of, Avere
mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire
blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed
every teniph.'. 'J'iie miserable inhabitants Hying from
their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others,
without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank,
or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children,
husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of ca-
valry and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and
the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into cap-
tivity in an unknown and strange land. Those who
VOL. I. R
194 LIFE OF BURKE.
■were able to evade the tempest fled to the walled
cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they
fell into the jaws of famine.
" The alms of the settlement in this dreadful emer-
gency were certainly liberal, and all was done that
private charity could do. But it was a people in beg-
gary, it was a nation which stretched out its hands for
food. For months together, those creatures of suffer-
ance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plen-
teous days had fallen short of the allowance of our aus-
terest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition
or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by
a hundred a-day in the streets of Madras; every day
seventy at least laid their bodies on the streets, or on
the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the
granary of India.
" For eighteen months, without intermission, this
destruction raged, from the gates of Madras to the
gates of Tanjore. And so completely did those mas-
ters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious
son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that
when the British armies traversed, as they did, the
Carnatic, for hundreds of miles in all directions,
through the whole line of their march, they saw not one
man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-foot-
ed beast of any description whatever. One dead uni-
form silence reigned over the whole region. The
hurricane of war passed through every part of the cen-
tral provinces of the Carnatic. The Carnatic is a
country not much inferior in extent to England. Fi-
4
HYDER ALL 195
gure to yourself, Mr Speaker, the land in whose re-
presentative chair you sit ; figure to yourself the form
and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from
Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish
to the German Sea, east and west, emptied and disem-
bowelled (may God avert the omen of our crimes) by
so accomplished a desolation !"
In hovering over the map of India, his eye is caught
by that characteristic of the country, the vast reservoirs
which abound in India, and which are connected with
almost every purpose of Indian life, religion, show,
pleasure, and subsistence; his imagination is excited
again, and he pours out a rich though brief panegyric
on their founders.
" There cannot be in the Carnatic and Tanjore
fewer than ten thousand of those reservoirs of the
larger and middling dimensions, to say nothing of those
for domestic services and the uses of religious purifica-
tion. Those are the monuments of real kings, who
were tbe fathers of their people ; testators to a posteri-
ty which they embraced as their own. Those arc the
grand sepulchres built by ambition, but by tbe ambi-
tion of an insatiable benevolence, whicb, not content-
ed with reigning in tbe dispJMisation of bappiness dur-
ing the contracte*! term of human life, bad strained,
with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious
mind, to extend tbe dominion of their bounty beyond
the limits of nature, and to perpetuate themselves
through generations of generations tbe guardians, the
protectors, the nourisbcrs of mankind,"
196 LIFE OF BURKE.
From details of the productive powers, and of the
ruin of those vast provinces — which held the House
suspended in delight at the picturesque richness of the
description — Burke suddenly started into a keen invec-
tive against the conduct of the Indian Officials, and its
sanction by the British Ministers.
" On the view of such a chasm of desolation as that
which yawned in the midst of those countries, to the
north and south, what would a virtuous and enlighten-
ed Ministry have done ? They would have reduced all
their most necessary establishments, they would have
suspended the justest payments, they would have em-
ployed every shilling derived from the producing, to
reanimate the powers of the unproductive parts.
While they were performing this fundamental duty,
while they were celebrating those mysteries of justice
and humanity, they would have told the corps of ficti-
tious creditors, whose crimes were their claims, that
they must keep an awful distance, that they must si-
lence their inauspicious tongues, that they must hold
off their profane, unhallowed hands from this holy
work ; they would have proclaimed with a voice that
should make itself heard, that in every country the
first creditor is the jjlungh ! that this original. Indefea-
sible claim supersedes every other demand." * * * *
" But, on this grand point of the restoration of the
country, there is not one syllable to be found in the
correspondence of ministers ; they felt nothing for a
land desolated by fire, sword, and famine. Their sym-
pathies took another direction. They were touched
MR BENFIELD. 197
with pity for bribery, so long tormented with a fruit-
less itching of its palms; their bowels yearned for usury?
that had missed the harvest of its returning months;
they felt for peculation, raking in the dust of an empty
treasury ; they were melted into compassion for rapine
and oppression, licking their dry, parched, unbloody
jaws."
His pencil then gave the portraiture of one of those
whom he designated as " gorgeous criminals," the
once well-known Paul Benfield. Benfield was a man
of cleverness and activity, who, having made himself
useful to the governors of the Presidencies in the dif-
ficult times of India, rapidly became wealthy, and of
course influential. The native princes were still power-
ful, and the Britisii supremacy was hourly in danger.
The chief source of our conquests has been the policy
of keeping up a standing army. As the native princes
generally disbanded their troops at the end of the cam-
paign, or the troops disbanded themselves, and thus
tlieir iiiglicHt success could be only temporary ; while
on the otlnir hand, the command of a constant force,
however inferior in numbers, rendered defeat on the
British side almost nugatory, and made success solid.
But the standing army must depend on tiie permanence
of the revenue; and thus the ciiief skill of the govern-
ment was gradually absorbed in expedients of finance.
Benfield, and men of his species, were essential instru-
ments to this st'ibility of British possession; and rapa-
cious as he probably was, the necessity of the case
brought him within tiic protection of the Cabinet.
198 LIFE OF BURKE.
The motion against the creditors of the Nabob of Ar-
cot was thrown out by a great majority. But it is one
of the thousand instances of the precariousness of
Avealth suddenly acquired, that Benfield died a bank-
rupt. The man, of whom it was told, that standing at
the door of his magnificent mansion in England, and
seeing some tardiness in the coming up of his equi-
pages, he cried out, " Why don't you send up so77ie
more coaches and six /" and who was at one time in the
possession of wealth which almost justified the osten-
tatious cry, sank, by some change of Indian affairs, in-
to utter decay. But, at the time of this motion, he
was the great Goliath of the Philistines of finance,
and of course a mark for every shaft of the troops,
light and heavy, of Opposition.
" Our Minister," said Burke, " formed, as you all
know, a new plan for supporting the freedom of our
constitution by court intrigues, and for removing its
corruptions by Indian delinquency. In his anxious re-
searches upon the subject, natural instinct would settle
his choice upon Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the
grand parliamentary reformer, the reformer to whom
the whole chair of reformers bow, and to whom even
the right honourable gentleman himself must yield the
palm ; for what region in the empire, what city, what
borough, what county, what tribunal in this kingdom,
is not full of his labours ? " * * * " Not content
Avith this, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his chari-
table toils for the relief of India, did not forget the
poor constitution of his native country. He did not
MR BENFIELD. 199
disdain to stoop to the trade of" a wholesale upholsterer
for this House, to furnish it, not with the faded tapes-
try-figures of antiquated merit, such as decorate, and
may reproach some other houses, but with real, solid,
living patterns of true modern virtue. Paul Benfield
made, reckoning himself, no fewer than eight members
in the last Parliament. What copious streams of pure
blood must he not have transfused into the veins of
the present !
" But, what is more striking than the real services
of this newly-imported patriot, is his modesty. As
soon as he had conferred this benefit on the constitu-
tion, he withdrew himself from our applause. He was
no sooner elected, than he set oft" for Madras, and de-
frauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We have
never enjoyed in this House the luxury of beholding
that minion of the human race, and contemplating that
visage which has so long rcficctcd the happiness of na-
tions." « * * " Tlie Minister, througli a sagacity
which never failed him in those pursuits, found outiu
Mr Henficld's representative his exact resemblance.
A specific attraction by which he gravitates towards
all such cliaracters, soon brought hiin into close con-
nexion with Mr Benfield's agent here. 'I'liis man was
held up to the world as legislator of Hindostan. To
secure bis zeal against all risk, he was brought in for
a Ministerial b<)r«)u<,rli. Voy your Minister, this worn
out veteran submitted to enter into the (histy field of
a London contest. In the same cause he submitted
to keep a sort of public otlice, or counting-house, wJiere
200 LIFE OF BURKE.
the whole business of the last election was managed.
It was managed upon Indian principles, and for an In-
dian interest. This was the golden cup of abomina-
tions — this the chalice of the fornications of rapine,
usury, and oppression, which was held out by the gor-
geous Eastern harlot ; which so many of the people,
so many of the nobles of this land drained to the very
dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to follow
this debauch — no payment was to be demanded for this
riot of public drunkenness ?"
The Orator asserts, that the agreed payment for
those parliamentary services was the protection of the
Minister for Bentield's Indian plunder. This plunder
he calculates, in the first instance, as amounting to
L. 592,000 at 6 per cent; and, finally, as, by a profit
of 24 per cent on L.480,000 a-year, producing to him
an income of L. 149,000 sterling a-year ! " Here,"
he exclaims, " is a specimen of the new and pure
Aristocracy created by the Flight Honourable Gentle-
man, as the support of the Crown and Constitution,
against the old, corrupt, refractory, natural interests
of the kingdom. This is the grand counterpoise against
all odious coalitions of their interests. A single Ben-
field outweighs them all : a criminal, who long since
ought to have fattened the region kites with his offal,
is, by his Majesty's Ministers, enthroned in the go-
vernment of a great kingdom, and enfeoffed with an
estate, which, in the comparison, effaces the splendour
of all the nobihty of Europe."
In an admirable passage, bearing wisdom for all go-
MR BENFIELD. '201
vernments and all times, he then refutes the argument
of impunity derived from distance. " It is difficult for
the most wise and upright Government to correct the
abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of un-
ineasured wealth, and protected by the boldness and
strength of the same riches. Those abuses, full of
their own wild vigour, will grow and flourish under
mere neglect. But where the supreme authority,
not content with winking at the rapacity of its inferior
instruments, is so shameless as openly to give premiums
for disobedience to its own laws, when it will not trust
to the activity of avarice in the pursuit of its own gains,
when it secures public robbery by all the careful
jealousy with which it ought to protect property, the
commonwealtii is then totally perverted from its pur-
poses. Neither God nor man will long endure it; nor
will it long endure itself. In that case there is an un-
natural infection, a pestilential taint fermenting in the
constitution of society, which fevers and convulsions of
some kind nmst throw off, or in which the vital powers,
worsted in an unccjual struggle, are pushed back upon
themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions,
fester to gangrene, to death; and, instead of what was
just now the delight and boast of the creation, there
will be cast out into tlu* sun a bloated carcass, an ofl'ence
and horror to the world."
Burke's indignation at what he thus |)owerl'ully de-
Kcribes, was not a sudden impulse; it had been grow-
ing upon him for years. In a Select Connnittee of the
House of Commons, in 1780, his attention had been
'■20'2 LIFE OF BURKE.
strongly drawn to the abuses of the Indian Govern-
ment. All that belonged to India found a congenial
interest in the Oriental structure of his mind. A long
succession of Indian calamities, — public feeling I'apidly
Hxed on those remote but most important subjects, —
the magnitude of the asserted crimes, — the insolent
contempt of the Indian officials for a Legislature at the
distance of eight thousand miles, — the almost over-
whelming opulence of Indian fortunes, — all combined
to render the whole enquiry at once worthy of a Bri-
tish statesman, and exciting to a man of equal talent
and sensibility. In examining the affairs of the Com-
pany, Burke had at first no peculiar culprit in his con-
templation. It has been injuriously and untruly said,
that his hostility to Hastings arose from some offence
offered to William Burke, his relative. But we see
that Hastings was not the original object. Paul Ben-
Held, Sir Elijah Impey, Atkinson, the whole line of
Indian agency, were assailed as they rose in succession
before him. It was only when he had followed the
agents to their principals, and found the chain of pre-
sumed enormities finally held in the hand of the Go-
vernor-General, that, leaving all inferior criminals be-
hind, he grasped at the leader of the " usurpation of
the throne of India."
Hastings was a remarkable man, even in a time of
eminence. Born in 1732, the son of a clergyman in
Oxfordshire; after an education at Westminster, he
commenced his Indian career, as a Writer in Bengal,
in 17.50. He there applied himself to the study of
HASTINGS. 203
languages, and became distinguished for his proficiency
in Persian. After a residence of fifteen years, he re-
turned to England, but with a fortune so limited, that
he is said to have found it necessary to give lessons in
the Oriental tongues; he certainly made some applica-
tions for the establishment of a Persian professorship
in Oxford. Yet this humble period was probably not
among the least happy of his glittering and powerful
career ; his literature brought him into society in
London, and he enjoyed for some years the friendship
of Johnson and other accomplished men.
Put his merits, though overlooked, had not been
forgotten. In ]7G8hc was again sent to India, as se-
cond in council at Madras. His ability tbere deserved
a higher rank, and in three years he was President of
the Council in Pengal. In three years more he was
Governor-General of India ! Tliis high rank he held
for the une(juallcd period of fifteen years; frecjuently
clamoured against in England by the successive Op-
positions, Cabinets, and Poards of Directors ; yet re-
solutely retaining his power, and making its retention
popular, in Ijoth India and England, by the vigour,
intelligence, and uniform success of his enterprises.
A cbaracter of this decisive cast must make enemies
among tliosc wbo suffcsred from bis anima«lversions,
envied his success, or misunderstood his policy. A
class different from all tbose, looked wltli a keener
sense to the means than to the results of bis govern-
ment, and forgot tbe necessity for strong measures in
a country of half-barbarian chieftainrics, with whom
204 LIFE OF BURKE.
peace was only a preparative for war, and all negocia-
tion began or ended in treachery. But the Governor-
General had other sins to answer for than his own.
Every peculation, and every ravage, of minor power,
was heaped on the head of the supreme authority ; and
while the Cabinet, conscious of his services, sustained
Hastings against the caprices of the India House, and
the India House, in its turn, sustained him against the
jealousy of the Cabinet; the people, ignorant of the
dilficulties, and unexcited by the successes of a Govern-
ment removed half the world from England, gave
way to a general and angry prejudice against the most
successful public servant of the empire.
At length, in 1785, he voluntarily resigned, and re-
turned to Europe, at the period when Lord Macart-
ney had been appointed to his office, an appointment
which — such was the vigorous grasp with which he
held power, and his habitual contempt for the vacillat-
ing councils of his masters — he had declared that he
would resist by force. But his own act prevented a
collision which would have sent the new official to a
dungeon, and might have ended in the revolt of Hin-
dostan. In England he was instantly met by an im-
peachment. This severe and violent proceeding was
supported by the whole strength of the Opposition,
which had been thrown out by the India Bill, and felt
the double interest of vengeance and popularity. What
with Burke was enthusiasm, with his associates was
faction. Passion blinded them both. The Minister
alone triumphed. The impeachment was equally im-
DUPLEIX. 205
politic and unsuccessful. After a trial which continued
at intervals for the extraordinary period of nine years,
Hastings was fully acquitted ; and, heartily wearied of
public life and public men, he retired, with a fortune
much diminished by the expenses of his prosecution,
but reinforced by an honourable annuity of some thou-
sands a-year from the East India Company, to an es-
tate at Daylesford in Worcestershire, where, in 1818,
he died. He had been made a privy-counsellor, but
taking no interest in public affairs, his later years were
given up to literature and ease.
The rapidity of Hastings's progress from a clerkship
to the highest rank of India, has often excited surprise,
but India liad been always the land of rapid elevation.
Something of that sudden fortune Avhich makes the
Turkish cobl)ler of to-day the Turkish vizier of to-
morrow, belongs to all Asiatic countries. Hastings
was only an instance tliat the spirit of the clime had
penetrated even the solid barriers of English office.
France had furnished a similar example but a few years
before, in tlie instance of the celebrated and unfortunate
founder of her brief Indian empire, Josej)h Duplcix.
The life of Diipleix had begun in obscurity; by
some accifh'iit his attention was turned to the East,
and in 1700 he had been sent out as a principal agent
to Chanfleriiagore. Tlie genius which in France might
have exiiil)if ed itself only in the more expert uso of the
die, or Hourinhed in panegyrics on a King's mistress,
and ejiigrams on a Minister, now found its natural
field. By singular intelligence, animation, and acti-
206 I.IFE OF BURKE.
vity, he became the soul of this decaying settlement,
and in a few years raised it to prosperity. The Asiatic
rivalship had now begun between England and France,
and the value of a vigorous administrator was so fully
felt by the government at home, that Dupleix was
placed in charge of Pondicherry, the principal settle-
ment of the French in India. The English fleets and
armies were soon in motion; and Pondicherry was the
first point of attack. But it was found to be no longer in
the disordered state of former times. Dupleix by new
connexions with the native powers, by the exertion of
the natural resources of his province, and still more by
the gallantry and vividness of a mind made for the con-
duct of great affairs ; had put the fortress and terri-
tory in a condition of defence for which the assailants
were altogether imprepared. The expedition failed,
and the new governor received the honours due to his
success, in a Marquisate from home, and the ribbon
of one of the military orders. With his honours his
political views expanded. He spread his connexions
still more widely through Hlndostan, and by acting at
once upon the corruption, the fears, and the ambition
of the native sovereigns, proceeded with signal skill
and celerity to raise the fabric of French domination
in India. The Nabobship of Arcot, the old prize of
all competitorship, gave him the first opportunity. Two
rivals were in the field. Dupleix instantly entered in-
to a compact with one of them — Chunda Saheb. The
French troops put him in possession of the throne ;
and their services were rewarded by a large territory.
DUPLEIX. 207
A succession of wars and intrigues, conducted with
equal promptitude, at length raised Dupleix to sove-
reign power in his own person ; and all India saw, with
astonishment, the clerk of the factory of Chanderna-
gore proclaimed Nabob of the Carnatic, living in royal
splendour, and assuming all the functions of sove-
reignty !
But he had reached the point from which all
future steps were to be downwards. The English,
who had carried on the war languidly in the begin-
ning, as is their custom, were at length roused by the
evidence of their territorial hazard, their exertions
suddenly shewed the iimate vigour of the national spi-
rit ; and, as is equally their custom, they swept all re-
sistance before them. The military genius of Clive,
a name equivalent to all that the art of war has of de-
cision, intrepidity, and intelligence; first put a sudden
stop to the French progess in the field, and then pro-
ceeded from fortress to fortress, until he shook the
u liohi frame of the enemy's power. Dupleix, unsuc-
cL'ssful abroad, became unpopular at home. The Kng-
lisli redoubled tlioir rfforts. In his perplexity he was
forced to make use of the strong measures of men
tigbting for their last stake. lie thus gave new advan-
tages to his opposors in France. The Minister, to es-
cape being crushed in his fall, abandoned him. Du-
pleix was recalled in 1754, iudignant at the Minister,
whom he accused of trc^acbery ; at tbc French India
C'omjiany, against wbom be commenced a suit for wbat
he pronounced tbeir robbery of him ; at the ingrati-
208 I IFE OF BURKE.
tude of France, and at the caprices of fortune. But
the change was too great to be borne by any of the
resources that are to be found in French philosophy.
His spirit was broken by his fall ; and in a short time
this proud, powerful, and brilliant statesman, general,
and sovereign, died, and with him died the dominion
of his country in the " Golden Peninsula !"
CHAPTER IX.
Character of Burke by the Bisliop of Rochester — Trial of Haftings —
Twelve Maxims of Genghiz Khan.
BunKE had been charged with personal motives in
the impeachment of Hastings. The charge was
shown to be groundless ; his determination to Indian
affairs was the work of" his nature, his circumstances,
and his opportunities. He had been charged with the
personal ambition of figuring as the great assailant of a
criminal supported by great influence ; but this am-
bition found no place in his character. No man was
more clear-sighted in perceiving the obstacles to final
Huccess ; no man more habitually declined rasli resist-
ance to anthority, to harmless prejudice, or to the na-
tural impressions of old attachment, or vigorous ser-
vice. Hurke saw the Crown, the Ministers, and the
whole Indian interest, abroad and at home, forming an
entrenchment round Hastings. No man better knew
the difficulty of forcing that powerful circumvallatioii.
If lif attempted it, he knew that he must be prepared
to encounter long opposition, to hazard the total loss
of popularitv, to commit himself and his friends to ;i
cause which might overwhelm their whole public buoy-
VOL. I. s
210 LIFE OF BURKE.
ancy, and finally, after years oflabour, personal obloquy,
and perhaps individual hazard, find such comfort as was
to be found in the consciousness that he had volun-
teered the ruin of his party. The true cause was, that
he was urged to this anxious undertaking by the mo-
tive which has given birth to the most arduous, and
most illustrious, successes of man, — a sense of duty ex-
tinguishing all sense of danger. And this was the ac-
knowledged opinion of those most conversant with his
mind. " In the mind of Mr Burke," says King, Bi-
shop of Rochester, forcibly and truly, " political prin-
ciples were not objects of barren speculation. Wis-
dom in him was always practical. Whatever his un-
derstanding adopted as truth, made its way to his heart,
and sank deep into it ; and his ardent and generous
feelings seized with promptitude every occasion of ap-
plying it to the use of mankind. Where shall we find
recorded exertions of active benevolence at once so
numerous, so varied, and so important, made by one
man ? Among those, the redress of wrongs, and the
protection of weakness from the oppression of power,
were most conspicuous. And of this the impeachment
of Mr Hastings was considered by Mr Burke as, be-
yond all comparison, the most momentous.
" The assumption of arbitrary power, in whatever
shape it appeared, whether under the veil of legitima-
cy, or skulking in the disguise of state necessity, or
presenting the shameless front of usurpation — whether
the prescriptive claim of ascendency, or the brief ca-
reer of official authority, or the newly acquired domi-
king's character of burke. 21 1
nion of a mob, was the pure object of his detestation
and hostility ; and this is not a fanciful enumeration of
possible cases. In the history of Mr Burke, examples
will be found referable to each case. His endeavours
to stifle it in its birth, or to obstruct its progress, or to
redress its oppressions, will be found to have occupi-
ed no small portion of his life. The scale upon which
oppressions of this kind had been exercised in our
East Indian possessions was of such a magnitude, that
it required a mind like his to grapple with them. His
ardent zeal and unwearied perseverance were not
more than equal to the task. He well knew that the
impunity of Indian delin(juency was demanded by in-
t<'rest too weighty and extensive, and was secured by
influence and protection too powerful, to be resisted.
The event accordingly did not correspond with his
wishes; but the eclat of a triumph was neither neces-
sary to his fame, nor the triumph itself to the satisfiic-
tion of his mind. The real cause which he advocat-
ed did not depend upon the decision of the Covirt of
Judicature, before uhicii the impeachment was tried
From the moment it was voted by tiie House of Com-
mons, the attainment of its main object was placed out
of the power of his o[tponcnts. 'I'hc existence of tlic
enormities with the commission of which the Gover-
iior-Ciencral was charged, rccpiired only fo be known ;
and Mr Burke was firmly persuaded that, by the in-
vestigation of ti»e affairs of thin Government resulting
from the trial, and by the public exposure of the crimes
which had been perpetrated, he had not only discharged
212 LIFE OF BURKE.
a sacred and imperative duty, but had at the same time
interposed a powerful check to \\\e future commission
of such enormities."
The Bishop concludes by stating-, that it was the
intention of his memorable friend himself to write a
" History of the Impeachment," had he not been pre-
vented by illness. A work of this order would have
been among the finest treasures of literature. It is
not difficult to conceive, with what lessons of wisdom
such a performance from such an authority would have
enriched the future generations. The subject might
be local, and the occasion temporary, but eloquence,
polity, and justice would have found in it a great store-
house of their noblest examples. The monument
raised to preserve the memory of the passing transac-
tions of India, would, like the pyramid over the dust
of forgotten monarchs, have been an imperishable tes-
timonial to the power of the hand that raised it, and to
the advance of the country in which it was raised ; —
the casual purpose extinguished in its lasting evidence
of the knowledge, the vigom*, and the grandeur of the
past to posterity.
The trial of Hastings was the most august form in
Avhich English justice had ever appeared. The state
had put on its whole majesty : the King, with the
Prelates and the lay Peers, sat on the tribunal — the
Commons of England stood at the bar. The great
functionaries of State and justice were all present in
their respective departments. The accused was wor-
thy of this solemnity of preparation. The chief sus-
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 213
tainer, for fifteen years, of British supremacy in the most
important dominion of the Crown, the conqueror of a
vast territory, the great administrator, the financier,
the judge, the general, hearing in his own person a
power more extensive, more uncontrolled, and more
irresponsihle, than had ever before been borne by a
British viceroy ; possessing almost the unbounded con-
fidence of his masters at home, and repaying that con-
fidence by almost an empire ; Hastings, the governor
of sixty millions of men, and a territory as large as
Europe, was the most magnificent victim that ever was
swooped on by the beak and talons of public crimi-
nation.
Tlie first days of the trial were given to ceremo-
nial. On the tliird, Burke, as the head of the Com-
mittee of the ConuTions, thus opened the Impeachment
(February 15, 1788) : — " My Lords, — The gentlemen
who have it in command to support the Impeachment
against Mr Hastings, have directed me to open the
cause with a gcncr.nl view of the grounds upon which
the Commons have proceeded iu their charge against
him. ihey have directed me to accompany this with
another general view of the extent, the magnitutlo, the
nature, aud the effect of the criuics which they allege
to have been b) liim rounnittcd. They have also di-
rected me to give an explanation of" such circumstan-
ces preceding the crimes charge<l on Mr Hastings, or
concomitant with them, as may tend to elucidate what-
ever is obscure in the articles. To those they have
wished me to add a {vw illustrative remarks on the
214 LIFE OF BURKE.
laws, customs, opinions, and manners of the people,
who are the objects of the crimes which we charge on
Mr Hastings." On this foundation was raised the
long series of noble efforts which made the whole pro-
gress of this trial one of the most remarkable displays
of legal knowledge and oratorical ability in the annals
of modern nations. But as, with its time, the local in-
terest has naturally found its close, and it lives to us
merely as a fine intellectual effort, a few of those pas-
sages that most strikingly exhibit the general powers
of their distinguished speaker are alone given.
The India Company. — " There is something in the
representation of the East India Company, in their
Oriental territory, different from that perhaps of any
other nation that has ever transported any part of its
power from one country to another. The Company
in India is not properly a branch of the British na-
tion, it is only a deputation of individuals. When the
Tartars entered into China, when the Arabs and Tar-
tars successively entered into Hindostan, when the
Goths and Vandals penetrated into Europe, Avhen the
Normans forced their way into England, — in all con-
quests, migrations, settlements, and colonizations, the
new people came as the offset of a nation. The Com-
pany in India does not exist as a national colony.
The English in India are nothing but a seminary for
the succession of officers ; they are a nation of place-
men; they are a commonwealth without a people;
they are a State wholly made up of magistrates. There
is nothing that can, in propriety, be called a people.
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 215
to watch, to inspect, to balance against the power of
office. The power of office, so far as the English na-
tion is concerned, is the sole power of the country.
To a body so constituted, confederacy is easy, and has
become general. By means of this peculiar circum-
stance, it has not been difficult for Mr Hastings to
embody abuse, and put himself at the head of a regu-
lar system of corruption." * * * * " A circumstance
which distinguishes the Company, is the youth of the
persons who are employed in its service. The ser-
vants have almost universally been sent out to begin
their progress in the exercise of high authority at that
period of life, which, in all other jdaces, has been em-
ployed in the course of a rigid education. They are
transferred from slippery youth to perilous independ-
ence, from perilous independence to inordinate expec-
tations, from inordinate expectations to boundless
power. Schoolboys without tutors, minors without
guardians, the world is let loose on them with all its
temptations, and they are let loose upon the world with
all the powers that despotism involves."
TheGentoos. — " The system and principle of their
government is locality : their laws, their m;iuners, their
religion, are all local : their legislator (he is lost in
the mists of a most obscure anti(juity) had it as the
great leading principle of his |)olicy, to connect the
people with their soil, Accordinglv, by one of" those
anomalies, which a larger accpiaintance with our spe-
cies daily discovers, this aboriginal people of India,
who are the softest in their niannersof any of our race,
2 16 LIFE OF BURKE.
approaching- almost to feminine tenderness, formed
constitutionally benevolent, and, in many particulars,
made to fill a larger circle of benevolence than our
morals take in, who extend their g-ood-will to the
whole animal creation, are of all nations the most un-
alliable to any other part of mankind. That bond,
which is one of the chief instruments of society, can
have no existence with them, the convivial bond. No
Hindoo can mix at meals even with those on whom
he depends for the meal he eats. But there are other
circumstances which render our intercourse full of dif-
ficulty. The Sea is between us. The mass of that
element, which, by appearing- to disconnect, unites
mankind, is to them a forbidden road. It is a great
gulf fixed between you and them ; not so much that
elementary gulf, as that gulf which manners, opinions,
and laws have radicated in the very nature of the
people. None of their high castes, without great dan-
ger to his situation, religion, rank, and estimation, can
ever pass the sea ; and this forbids for ever all direct
communication between that country and this. If we
undertake to'govern the inhabitants of such a country,
we must govern them upon their own principles and
maxims, and not upon ours. All change on their part
is absolutely impracticable. We have more versatility
of character and manners, and it is we who must con-
form : we know what the empire of opinion is in hu-
man nature : — I had almost said that the law of opi-
nion was human nature itself. It is, however, the strong-
est principle in the composition of the frame of the hu-
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 217
man mind, and more of the happiness and unhappiness
of mankind resides in inward principle than in all ex-
ternal circumstances put together. But if such is the
empire of opinion even among us, it has a pure, unre-
strained, and despotic power among them."
From this general view, he goes into the detail of
Indian feelings, peculiarly as connected with Caste; a
topic which, fifty years ago, may have looked like the
unveiling of some great Oriental mystery. His sketch
ia admirably adapted to the mysticism of the subject.
He approaches it with the solemn ceremonial language
of a high priest at the shrine. " Your Lordships are
born to hereditary honours in the chief of your houses,
the rest mix with the people; but with the Gentoos,
they who are born noble can never fall into any se-
cond rank. They are divided into four orders ; an
eternal barrier is placed between them. A man who
is born in the highest caste, which at once unites what
would be tantamount in this country to the dignity of
the Peerage, and the ennobled sanctity of the Episco-
pal character; the Brahmin who sustains those charac-
ters, if lie loses his caste, does not fall into an inferior
order; he is thrown at once out of all ranks of so-
ciety ; he is precipitated from the proudest elevation
of respect and honour to a bottomless abyss of con-
tempt; from purity to pollution, from sanctity to
profanation. No honest occupation is open to him ;
his children arc no longer his children. The parent
loses that name. The conjugal bond is dissolved.
Few survive this most terrible of all calamities. To
VOL. X. T
218 LIFE OF BUHKE.
speak to an Indian of his caste, is to speak to him of
his all. But the rule of caste has given one power
more to fortune ; for it is singular that caste may be
lost not only by voluntary crimes, but by certain in-
voluntary sufferings, disgraces and pollutions, utterly
out of their power to prevent. Those who have pa-
tiently submitted to imprisonment ; those who have not
flinched from the scourge ; those who have been as
unmoved as marble under the torture ; those who have
laughed at the menaces of death itself, have instantly
given way, when it has been attempted to subject them
to any of the pollutions by which they lose caste. Ty-
ranny is armed against them with a greater variety of
weapons than are found in its ordinary stores. In the
course of this trial, your Lordships will see with hor-
ror the use which Mr Hastings has made, through his
wicked instruments, chosen from the natives them-
selves, of those superadded means of oppression."
Then follow brief, but singularly graphic sketches,
of the several tribes which have been paramount in
India. " My Lords, those Gentoo people are the
aboriginal people of Hindostan. They are still, be-
yond comparison, the most numerous. Faults they
may have, but Heaven forbid we should pass judgment
upon people who framed their laws and institutions
prior to our insect orifjin of yesterday." * * * *
" They still exist, in a green old age, with all the re-
verence and passion of antiquity, which other nations
have for novelty and change. They have stood firm
on their ancient base ; they have cast their roots deep
in their native soil ; their blood, their opinions, and
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 219
the soil of their country, make one consistent piece,
admitting' no mixture, no adulteration, no improve-
ment ; their religion has made no converts ; their do-
minion has made no conquests. They have existed in
spite of Mahometan and Portuguese bigotry, in spite
of Tartarian and Arabian tyranny ; in spite of all the
furv of successive foreign conquest."
* * * *
" The second era is the time of the Prophet Maho-
met. The enthusiasm which animated his first fol-
lowers ; the despotic power whicii his religion obtain-
ed through tliat enthusiasm ; and the advantages de-
rived from both over the enervated, great empires, and
broken, disunited, lesser governments of the world,
extended the influence of that proud and domineering
8ect from the banks of the Ganges to the banks of the
Loire. This is the period of the Arabs. Those peo-
ple made a great and lasting impression on India.
They establisliod, very early, Mahometan sovereigns
in all parts of it." ♦ ♦ ♦ * " Those people when they
first settled in India, attempted with the ferocious arm
of their [)r()phetic sword to change! llu; religion and
Miajuiers of tlie country, lint at lengtb, perceiving that
tbeir cruelty wearied out itself, and could never touch
the constancy of the sufferers, they permitted the na-
tive people to remain in quiet, and \v.l\ the Mahome-
tan religion to operate upon them as it could, by ap-
pealing to the ambition or avarice of tlie great ; or by
taking the lower people who had lost their ca'-te into
the new sect, and thusj, from the refuse ol the Gcutoo,
220 LIFE OF BURKE.
increasing the bounds of the Mahometan relig-ion.
The Mahometans, during the period of the Arabs,
never expelled or destroyed the native Gentoo nobili-
ty, Zemindars or landholders of the country.
" The third era was the invasion of the Tartars un-
der Tamerlane. Those Tartars did not establish them-
selves on the ruins of the Hindoos. Their conquests
were over the other Mahometans; for Tamerlane in-
vaded Ilindostan, as he invaded other countries, in the
character of the great reformer of the Mahometan
religion. He came as a sort of successor to the
rights of the Prophet upon a divine title. He struck
at all the Mahometan princes who reigned at that
time. He considered them as degenerate from the
faith, and as tyrants, abusing their power. To facili-
tate his conquests over those, he was often obliged
to come to a composition with the people of the coun-
try. Tamerlane had neither time nor means, nor in-
clination to dispossess the ancient llajahs of the coun-
try." * * * * " He freed the Hindoos for ever from
that tax which the Mahometans laid on every other
country over which the sword of Mahomet prevailed ;
a capitation tax upon all who do not profess the reli-
gion of the Mahometans. The Hindoos, by express
charter, were exempted from that mark of servitude,
and thereby declared not to be a conquered people."
* * * * " These circumstances mark that Tamerlane,
however he may be indicated by the odious names of
Tartar and Concjueror, was no barbarian ; that the
people who submitted to him, did not submit with the
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 221
abject submission of slaves to the sword of a conquer-
or, but admitted a great, supreme Emperor, who was
just, prudent, and politic; instead of the ferocious, op-
pressive, lesser Mahometan sovereigns, who had be-
fore forced their way by the sword into the country.
*' The fourth era was that of the Emperor Akber.
He was the first of the successors of Tamerlane who
obtained possession of Bengal. It is easy to show what
his conquest was. It was over the last Mahometan
dynasty : he too, like his predecessor Tamerlane, con-
quered the prince, not the country. The natives,
great men and landholders, continued in every part in
the possession of their estates, and of the jurisdictions
annexed to them.
" The next, the fifth era, is a tro\djled and vexa-
tious period ; the era of the independent Soubahs of
Bengal. Eive of those Soubahs governed from the
year 1717. They grew into independence partly by
the calamities and concussions of the enq»ire, which
liiijtpeiK'd (luring the disputes fur the succession o(
Tanierlane ; and principally, by the great shock which
the empire received when 'I'hamas Kouli Khan broke
into that country, carried olf its revenues, overturned
(he throne, and massacred not only many of the chief
iiobilitV) but almost all the inhabitants of the capital.
This rude shock, which that cmi)ire was never able to
recover, enabled the viceroys to become independent;
I)ut fbeir independence led to tlieir ruin. Those who
had usurped upon their masters, had servants, who
usurped upon them. All.ioerdy Kh;in murdered Iuk
222 LIFE OF BUIIKE.
mastei*, and opened a way into Bengal for the Mahrat-
tas. Their retreat was at length purchased, and by a
sum which is supposed to amount to five millions ster-
ling. By this purchase he secured the exhausted re-
mains of an exhausted kingdom, and left it to his grand-
son, Surajah Dowlah, in peace and poverty. On the
fall of Surajah Dowlah, in 1 756, commenced the last,
which is the sixth, the era of the British Empire."
In the second day's address, there is a masterly spe-
cimen of his dexterity and grace in relieving the local
details by an appeal to general principles. Political
philosophy never wore a more stately rohe.
" My Lords, to obtain empire is common. To
govern it well has been rare indeed. To chastise the
guilt of those who have been instruments of imperial
sway over other nations, by the high superintending
justice of the sovereign state, has not many striking
examples among any people. Hitherto we have not
furnished our contingent to the records of honour.
We have been confounded with the hardy conquerors;
our dominion has been a vulgar thing ; but we begin
to emerge, and I hope that a severe inspection of our-
selves, a purification of our own offence, a lustration
of the exorbitance of our own power, is a glory re-
served for this time, in this nation, to this august tri-
bunal. The year 1756 is a memorable era in the his-
tory of the world. It introduced a new nation from
the remotest verge of the Western World, with new
manners, new customs, new institutions, new opinions,
new laws, into the heart of Asia.
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 2'2:5
" My Lords, if in that part of Asia, whose native,
regular government was then broken up — if, at the
moment when it had fallen into darkness and confu-
sion, from having become the prey, and almost the
sport of the ambition of its homeborn grandeur — if, in
that gloomy period, a star had risen from the west,
that would prognosticate a better generation, and shed
down the sweet influences of order, peace, science, and
security to the natives of that vexed and harassed coun-
try, we should have been crowned with genuine ho-
nour, it would have been a beautiful and noble spectacle
to mankind/'
In remarking on the reply made by Hastings's friends,
that at the worst his despotism was only the common
habit of power in India, Burke overwhelms them with
a mass of splendid refutation. " Nothing is more false
than that despotism is the constitution of any country
in Asia. Will your Lordships submit to hear the
corrupt practices of mankind made the principles of
government? Was there ever heard, that a gover-
nor would dare to heap all the evil practices, all thn
cruelties, oppressions, extortions, corruptions, bribe-
ries, of all the ferocious usurpers, desperate robbers,
thieves, cheats, and jugglers, that ever had oflice, from
one end of Asia to another, and consolidating all this
heap of the crimes and absurdities of barbarous domi-
nation into one code, establish it as tin; whole duty of
an English governor !
" Ilr have arbitrary power! My Lords, the East
India Company have not arbitrary power (ogive him.
224 LIFE OF BURKE.
the King has not arbitrary power to give him, your
Lordships have not, nor the Commons, nor the whole
Legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give,
because arbitrary power is a thing whidi neither any
man can hold nor any man can give. No man can law-
fully govern himself according to his own loill, much
less can one pei'son be governed by the Avill of another.
We are all born in subjection, all born equally, high
and low, governors and governed, in subjection to one
great, immutable, pre-existent law, prior to all our
devices, pai'amount to all our ideas, antecedent to our
very existence ; by which we are knit and connected
in the eternal frame of the universe. This great law
does not arise from our conventions or compacts ; on
the contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts
all the force and sanction they have. Every good gift
is of God } All power is of God ! And He who has
given the power, and from whom alone it originates,
will never suffer the exercise of it to be practised upon
any less solid foundation than the power itself. If all
dominion of man over man is the effect of the Divine
disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him
who gave it. If men were mad enough to make an
express compact that should release the magistrate
from his duty, and declare their lives, liberties, and
properties dependent, not upon rules or laws, but upon
his mere capricious will, the Covenant would be void.
The acceptor of it has not his authority increased, but
his crime doubled.
" The title of conquest makes no difference. No
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 225
conquest can give such a right; for conquest, that is,
force, cannot convert its own injustice into a just title.
By conquest, Avhich is a more immediate designation
of the hand of God, the conqueror succeeds to all the
duties and subordination to the power of God, which
belonged to the Sovereign whom he displaced, just as
if he had come in by the positive law of descent or
election.
" No, my Lords, this arbitrary power is not to be
had by concjuest. Nor can any Sovereign have it by
succession ; for no man can succeed to fraud, rapine,
and violence, neither by compact, covenant, or sub-
mission, for men cannot covenant themselves out of
their rights and their duties. Those who give and
those who receive arbitrary power, are alike criminal.
There is uo niau but is bound to resist it to the best
of his power, wherever it shall shew its face in the
world. It is a crime to bear it, when it can be ra-
lionallij siiaken od". Nothing but absolute impotence
can justify men in not resisting it to the utmost of their
ability. Law and arbitrary power arc in eternal en-
mity. Name me u magistrate, and I will name pro-
perty. Name me power, and I will iiaiiic i)rotection.
It is blasjihcmy in religion, it is \\ ickcMJness in politics,
to Bay, that any man am have arbitrary power. In
every patent of office tin; duty is included. We may
bite our chains if w(! will ; but we shall be nuule to
know ourselves; and be taught that man is born to be
governed by i^avv, and he \vlir» substitutes Will in
place of it is an enemy to God !"♦*«♦« Xhe mo-
2'26 LIFE OF BURKE.
ment a Sovereigri removes the idea of security from
his subjects, and declares, that he is every thing-, and
they nothing- ; when he declares, that no contract he
makes with them can or ought to bind him, he declares
war upon them. He is no longer Sovereig^n ; they
are no long-er subjects. No man, therefore, has ixrif/ltt
to arbitrary power !"
It is a striking circumstance that the Tartar comjuer-
ors, the scourges of the eastern world, and the most
unequivocal robbers of any race that earth has seen,
should have, not seldom, aspired to the fame of great
moralists. The " Ten Precepts of Genghiz Khan"
are alluded to by Burke as remarkably pure from all
suggestion of Tyranny. Of the " Institutes of Ta-
merlane" he declares, " That there is no book In the
world which contains nobler, more just, more manly,
or more pious principles of government." On the
trial, he produced this book, and read from it the leading
clauses. Ofthose we shall give a few sentences, as curious
remembrances of a mighty man whose wisdom was
learned in the wilderness, whose morality was gained
on horseback, and whose rights Avere the rights of the
sword. Under those circumstances the Institutes of
Tamerlane exhibit an extraordinary power of mind.
The preamble is grand ; it has the Oriental dignity
without the Oriental extravagance.
" Be it known to my fortunate sons, the conquerors
of kingdoms, to my mighty descendants, the lords of
the earth, that since I have hope in Almighty God,
that many of my posterity shall sit upon the throne of
GENGHIZ khan's MAXIMS. 227
power ; having established laws for ray dominions, I
have collected those laws as a model for others, to the
end that every one of my children, descendants and
posterity, acting agreeably thereto, my empire, which
I acquired through hardships, difficulties, perils, and
bloodshed, by the Divine favour, and the inHuence of
the holy religion of Mahomet, (God's peace be upon
him !) and with the assistance of the powerful descen-
dants and Illustrious followers of that prophet, may be
by them preserved." * * * * " Now therefore be it
known to my sons, the fortunate and illustrious, to my
descendants, the mighty subduers of kingdoms, that in
like manner as I, by Ticdve Maxims^ attained to re-
gal dignity, concpiered kingdoms, and decorated the
throne of my empire, let them act according to those
principles, and thus preserve the splendour of their
dominion.
" Among the rules that I established for the support
of my glory and my empire, iXw Jirst was this, — That
I promoted the worship of Almighty (Jod, and propa-
gated the religion of Mahomet throughout the world.
Secondlij, with tlie people of the ' Twelve Classes and
'I'ribcs,' I con(juer(!d kingdoms, and from them I form-
ed my asseml)ly. 'J'kirdhj, by consultation, and deli-
beration, and caution, and vigilance, 1 vanquished ar-
mies, and I reduced kingdoms." * • " lumrllily^ by
order and discipliue, I so Hrmly established my autho-
rity, that the soldiers and the subjects could not aspire
beyond their respective degrees. /(///'/'/) I gave en-
cdui agement to my ameers and to my soldi<'rs, and
228 LIFE OF BURKE.
Avith money and jewels I made tliem glad of heart. 1
permitted them to come in to the banquet ; and in the
iield of blood they hazarded their lives ; and by the
edge of the sword I obtained the thrones of seven-and-
twenty kings." * * " When I clothed myself in the
robe of empire, I shut my eyes to safety, and to the
repose which is in the bed of ease ; and from tlie twdfllt
year of my age I travelled over countries, and combat-
ed dangers, and formed enterprises, and vanquished
armies. Sixtlily, by justice I gained the affections of
the people of God, and I extended my clemency to the
guilty as well as to the innocent, and I passed the sen-
tence which truth required. Seventhly, I selected and
treated with veneration the posterity of the prophet,
and the theologians, and the teachers of the true faith,
and the philosophers and the historians. Eiylitldy, I
acted with determination ; and on whatever undertak-
ing I resolved, I made that the only object of my at-
tention, and I withdrcAv not my hand from that enter-
prise until I had brought it to a conclusion ; and I act-
ed according to that which I said ; and I dealt not with
severity towards any one; and I was not oppressive in
any of my actions, that God Almiyhty miyht not deal se-
verely toicards me, nor render my own actions oppres-
sive unto me." ****<• Ninth/y, the situation of my
people was known unto me ; and those who were great
among them I considered as my brethren, and I re-
garded the poor as my children."" * * * « Terdhly,
whatever horde, whether Turk or Taucheek, Arab or
GENGHIZ khan's MAXIMS. 229
Ajum, came Into me, I received their chiefs with re-
spect, and their followers I honoured according to
their degrees ; and whoever had been my enemy, and
was ashamed thereof, and, tlyingto me for protection,
humbled himself before me, I forgot his enmity, and
I purchased him with kindness." * * * * Eleventhly,
ray associates and my neighbours, and all such as had
been connected with me, I distinguished in the days
of ray prosperity ; and, as to my family, I rent not
asunder the ties of blood and mercy ; I issued not
commands to slay them, or bind them with chains."
• • ♦ " Twelfthli/, soldiers, whether friends or ene-
mies, I held in esteem ; and the man who drew his
sword on the side of my enemy, and preserved his
fidelity to his master, him I greatly honoured ; and
when such a man came unto me, knowing his worth,
I classed him with my faithful associates, and I valued
his fidelity." ♦ « * # « And, behold, it was known
unto me by experience, that every empire, which is
not established in morality and religion, nor strength-
ened by regulations and laws, from that empire all or-
der, grandeur, and |)ower shall pass away, and that em-
pire may be Hkeneii unto a naked man, and to a house
that hath neither roof nor gates, but into which who-
soever willeth may enter uidiiiulered ; therefore I esta-
blishe*! the foundation of my empire on the morality
and the religion of Islam, and by regulations and laws
I gave it stability." ♦ ♦ # ♦ ♦
The purpose ol <|iioting this volume on the trial,
was to strike the ground from under the feet of all who
230 LIFE OF BURKE.
attempted to vindicate the Governor- General's con-
duct, on the assumed maxims of Indian despotism.
The plea had been, that, If tyrannical, he Avas urged
to the tyranny by the rules of native government. The
Institutes of the great founder of the chief throne of
India were adduced to disprove this charge; and, if
the Indian princes had preserved the spirit of the rules
as carefully as the letter, the imputation must fail. But,
with the vigour of Timour his justice, Avild as it was,
had passed away ; and, if Hastings had desired to shel-
ter crimes tenfold deeper than his own were ever sup-
posed to be, under the wing of Indian atrocity; it was
broad enough and black enough to have covered them
from the keenest eye of human retribution.
In treating of the charge of receiving presents, a
form of Oriental bribery, of which Hastings was char-
ged with being a zealous favourer, he suddenly burst
forth : — " He who would set up a system of corrup-
tion, and justify it upon the principle of utility, is
staining not only the nature and character of office,
but that which is the peculiar glory of the official and
judicial character of this country. My Lords, it is
certain that even tyranny itself may find some specious
colour, and appear as a more severe and rigid execu-
tion of justice. Religious persecution may shield it-
self under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous
piety. Conquest may cover its boldness with its own
laurels, and the ambition of the conqueror may be hid
in the secrets of his own heart, under the veil of be-
nevolence, and make him imagine that he is bringing
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. '231
temporary desolation upon a country, only to promote
its ultimate advantage. But, in the principles of that
governor who makes money his object, there can be
nothing- of this. There are here none of those spe-
cious delusions, that look like virtues, to veil either
the governed or the governor. His pretensions to
merit are, that Mr Hastings squeezed more money out
of the people than others could have done." * * *
" Governors, we know, cannot with their own hands
be continually receiving bribes, for they must have as
many hands as one of the idols in an Indian temple.
As he has many offices, so he has many officers for re-
ceiving and distributing his bribes, some white and
some black. The white men are loose and licentious,
apt to have resentments, and to be bold in revenging
them. The black are secret and mysterious; they are
not apt to have very cpiick resentments; they have not
the boldn(!ss and llborly of language which character-
ises Europeans. 'Ihey have fears, too, for themselves,
and thus they will conc(!al any thing connnitted to them
by Europeans; and thus it is almost inipossil)le to make
up a compb.'te bo<ly of iiis bribery ; you n)ay find the
«catt(!red limbs, and while you are picking them up
here and there, he may escape entirely in a prosecu-
tion for the whole."
One of the inridcntal charges against the Governor-
General Ii:i(l been, tiiat he made visits to the native
princes, and tlien, accepting, in place of the customary
hospitality, a sum of money, turned the whoh? process
into a system of violent extortion. *' Two hunthed
232 LIFE OF BURKE.
pounds a-day for a visit !" exclaims the accuser ; " it
is at the rate of L. 73,000 a-year for Ijimself. By his
account, he was giving daily and hourly wounds to his
humanity in depriving of their sustenance hundreds of
the ancient nobility of a great, fallen kingdom. Yet
it was in the midst of this galling duty, it was at the
very moment of his tender sensibility, that from the
collected morsels plucked from the famished mouths of
hundreds of decayed, indigent, starving nobility, he
gorged his ravenous maw with L.200 a-day for his en-
tertainment. In the course of all this proceeding, your
Lordships will not fail to observe, he is never corrupt
but he is cruel ; he never dines with comfort but where
he is sure to create a famine. He never robs from the
loose superfluity of standing greatness, he devours the
fallen and the indigent. His extortion is not like the
generous rapacity of the princely eagle, which snatches
away the living, struggling prey ; he is a vulture, who
feeds upon the prostrate, the dying, and the dead. As
his cruelty is more shocking than his corruption ; so
his hypocrisy has something more frightful than his
cruelty. For whilst his rapacious and bloody hand
now signs proscriptions, and now sweeps away the
food of the widow and the orphan, his eyes overflow
with tears, and he converts the balm that bleeds from
wounded humanity, into a rancorous and deadly poison
to the race of man."
In some of the papers for the defence, Hastings had
expressed his astonishment that he should stand as a
culprit before the country, when, if justice were done,
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 233
he should have been receiving its rewards for sustain-
ing the British Government in the wild, ruthless, and
refractory state of India. This plea was met with in-
dignant sarcasm on the part of his great accuser.
" Here," said he, " Mr Hastings changes his ground.
The first era of his corruption was a bold, plain, fero-
cious, downright use of power. In the second, he is
grown a little more guarded, the effect of subtlety.
He appears no longer as a defendant; he holds him-
self up with a firm, dignified, and erect countenance,
and says, I am not a dcliuquent, I am not here any
longer as a receiver of bribes. No ! I am a great in-
ventive genius, who have gone out of all the ordinary
roads of finance, have made great discoveries in the
unknown regions of the science, and have for the first
time established the corruption of the supreme magis-
trate as a prijiclple of resource for Government."
VOL. r.
CHAPTER X.
Speeches on the Trial — Styles of Sheridan and Burke Contrasted —
Striking Remark of Hastings.
Burke was a moralist and a metaphysician by na-
ture. His oratorical impressiveness was strongly con-
nected with the weight of those maxims which he had
formed from a long and profound study of the heart of
man. And it is the force and abundance of those
fine reflections which give an immortal value to his
works on topics of the most temporary nature. He
had heavily charged Hastings with corruption in pe-
culiar instances. He now extended it toprinciple. "But
once convict a man of bribery in any instance, and you
are furnished with a rule of irresistible presumption
that every other irregular act, by which unlawful gain
may arise, is done upon the same corrupt motive." *
* * * " His conduct upon those occasions may be
thought irrational. But, thank God, guilt was never
a rational thing ; it distorts all the faculties of the
mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in
the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.
He has recourse to such miserable and absurd expe-
dients for covering his guilt, as all those who are used
SPEECHES OX THE TRIAL. 235
to sit in the seat of judgment know have been the
cause of the detection of half the villaniesof the woi'ld.
God forbid, that guilt should ever leave a man the un-
disturbed use of his faculties. For as guilt never rose
from a true use of our rational faculties, so it is very
frequently subversive of them. God forbid, that pru-
dence, the supreme director of all the virtues, should
ever be employed in the service of any of the vices.
No, it is never found where justice does not accompany
it ; and if it is ever attempted to bring it into the ser-
vice of the vices, it immediately subverts their cause.
It tends to their discovery, and, 1 hope and trust, (inal-
]y to their utter destruction."
A large portion of those successive addresses was oc-
cupied with Indian details. The labour of collecting
them must have been immense ; the acuteness by which
their strength and weakness were detected, under all
the dirticulties of foreign habits of concealment, aided
by European dexterity of complication, exhibited in
the most striking degree the logical force of Burkcj's
mind ; and the lustre which his strong passion, and
living language, threw over the length and dryness of
the subject, rendered the whole confessedly the most
striking display of mental power in the annals of the
Legislature. Sheridan's famous speeches on the He-
gum charge had excited a more sudden raptivation.
IJut his task was of another order. Unencumbered by
detiiils, bis imagination was at liberty to lly from one
prominent point to another, choosing the spot on
which, like Milton's Angel, it might scatter fragranro
236 LIFE OF BURKE.
and shoot splendour from its plumes. Burke's was
the sterner labour of forcing his way through the in-
tricate, hewing- down the rugged, and taming the re-
fractory. His path, however varied by height and
depth, was confined by the nature of his duty to the
ground ; perpetually in the act to soar, he was perpe-
tually brought back to the level of the soil, bound
down to the consideration of the common things of
common life, and, for the noblest purposes, those of es-
tablishing the cause of justice and virtue, forced to
cling to the track, and wind his way through the obli-
quities of vulgar chicane and obscure villany. His
emblem might be found less in the enchanter, touch-
ing at will the dark and rude into brightness and
beauty ; than in the ancient Hero, one of the old earth-
tamers, pursuing his career of ridding earth of robbers
and monsters, until the time when his task was accom-
plished, and he was to be called to the banquet of im-
mortality.
The impeachment of Hastings finally failed. The evi-
dence against him was insufficient to justify the punish-
ment of a man of unquestionable fidelity to his employers,
of personal honour, and of official talent. The Peers,
wearied by the length of the procedure, in itself
amounting to a formidable penalty, acquitted Hastings
as impatiently as they had entered into judgment on
him. But his great accuser came forth free, from the
severest investigation of his motives. His indignation
had been roused by a sense of Indian suffering. He
disdained to take into account the difficulties of the
SPEECHES ON THE TllIAL. '237
time, the habits of the Indian government, or the na-
tural growth of arbitrary measures in the hands of even
the purest administrators of authority, eight thousand
miles from home, surrounded by intrigue, threatened
with hourly ruin, and all but forced into violence
through the mere dread of universal extinction. But
those were the reasons of polity. Burke stood upon
rigid principle. The Legislature bowed to the diffi-
culties of circumstances, and acquitted Hastings of acts
in India which might have been incapable of pardon
in England. Burke would not stoop to comprehend
this, as he called it, geographical morality ; he denied
thatjustice could be altered like the human complexion,
and that the same features of eternal law should be
black within the tropics, and white as they advanced
towards the pole. lie could not comprehend that the
moral feeling should change more than the senses, and
demanded why the eye of the mind should not see a^
straif^ht in Bengal as it saw in England, or why it
should discover policy in h.id f.iitli, directness in arti-
fice, honour in circumvention, and <^ood government
in the legislation of the sword ; though the sun burned
in th(! 7,enith, or the laud was swept alternately by the
Tartar and the tornado.
His heart was right, but his philosophy wasAvrong.
For gratuitous tyranny tliere can be no defence, as for
gratuitous artifice there can be no palliation. 1 »iit there
may be times, uhen a stronger necessity than man was
ever commanded to oppose, throws all the old rides of
morals into confusion. The man with a dagger at iiis
238 LIFE OF BUIIKE.
tbi'oat kills his adversary, and none call it murder.
The man perishing of famine, seizes the first food
within his reach, and none call it robbery. No law
of earth has condemnation for either, and law is the
voice of Providence, uttered by the lips of man. The
paroxysm of self-preservation converts injustice into a
right, and violence into a protective principle. Burke
himself, at a maturer period, could acknowledge that
" the statues of mercy and justice might be veiled in
the war of the vices." The only barrier that society
can erect against this general invasion of its peace, is
that the necessity should be fully shewn ; that it should
allow no factitious suffering to be substituted for the
true agony ; that it should not yield to dexterous im-
posture the subnn'ssion due only to the melancholy
rights of madness and misery.
The brief peroration of the speech was majestic.
" In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all
this guilt upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment
of my application to you.
" My Lords, what is it that we want here to a great
act of national justice? Do we want a cause, my
Lords? You have the cause of oppressed princes, of
undone women of the first rank, of desolated provinces,
of wasted kingdoms !
" Do you want a criminal, my Lords ? When was so
much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one? No,
my Lords, you must not look to punish any other such
delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not left
SPEECHES ON THK TRIAL. 239
substance enough in India to nourish such another de-
linquent.
" My Lords, is it a prosecutor that you want? You
have before you the Commons of" Great Britain as pro-
secutors ; and, I beUeve, my Lords, that the sun in his
beneficent progress round the world, does not behold
a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from
a remote people by the material bounds and barriers
of nature, thus united by the bond of a social and mo-
ral community, the Commons of England, resenting-,
as their own, the indignities and cruelties offered to
the people of India."
From thus laying out the branches of his principal
appeal, he took occasion to pay a series of stately com-
pliments to the King, the Iloyal Family, and the Peer-
age. " Do we want a tribunal ? My Lords, no ex-
ample of antifpiity, nothing in the modern world, no-
thing in the range of human imagination, can supply
us with a tribiuial like tliis. Here we see virtually in
the mind's eye that sacred majesty of the crown under
whose authority you sit, and whose power you exer-
cise. We see in this invisible authority, what wc all
feel in reality and life, the beneficent j)owers and pro-
tecting justice of his Majesty. We have here the Heir
Apparent to the Crown, such as the fond wishes of the
people of England wish an Ileir Apparent of" the
Crown to br. Wo have here all the branches of the
Iloyal Family in a situation between majesty and sub-
jection, between the sovereign and the subject, offer-
ing a pledge in that situation for the support of the
9
'240 LIFE OF BURKE.
rights of the Crown, and the liberties of the people,
both whose extremities they touch. My Lords, we
have a great hereditary Peerage here. Those who
have their own honour, the honour of their ancestors,
and of their posterity to guard, and who will justify as
they have always justified, that provision in the consti-
tution by which justice is made a hereditary office.
My Lords, we have here a new Nobility, who have
risen, exalted by various merits, by great military ser-
vices, which have extended the fame of this country
from the rising to the setting sun. We have those,
who, by various civil merits and talents, have been
exalted to a situation which they well deserve, and in
which they will justify the favour of their Sovereign.
" My Lords, you have here also the lights of our
religion, you have the Bishops of England, you have
that true image of the primitive church in its ancient
form, in its ancient ordinances, purified from the super-
stitions and the vices which a long succession of ages
will bring upon the best institutions. You have the
representatives of that religion which says that their
God is Love, that the very vital spirit of their institu-
tion is Charity. * * * Those are the considerations
which animate them, and will animate them against al!
oppression ; knowing that he who is called first among
them, and first among us all, both of the flock that is
fed and of those who feed, made Himself the ' Servant
of all.'
" My Lords, those are the securities which we have
in all the constituent parts of the body of the House.
SPEECHES ON THE TRIAL. 241
We know them we reckon upon, we rest upon them,
and commit safely the interests of India and humanity
into your hands. Therefore, it is with confidence,
that, ordered by the Commons,
" I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high
crimes and misdemeanours.
" I impeach him in the name of the Commons of
Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, whose Parlia-
mentary trust he has betrayed.
" I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of
Great Britain, whose national character he has dis-
honoured.
" I impeach him in the name of the people of India,
whose laws, rights, and liberties, he has subverted,
whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he
has laid waste and desolate.
" I impeach him in the name, and by virtue of those
eternal laws of justice which he has violated. I im-
peach him in the name of human nature itself, which
ho has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both
Hexes, in every age, rank, situation and condition."
Those speeches, which had occupied six days, and
ended on I'ebruary lJ)tli, I 78H, were followed by the
opening of the first article of the Impeacbment by Fox,
on the '2'2d, supported by Mr, subsequently, Earl Grey.
The evidence was then adduced, and the whole was
summed up by Mr Anstrutber on 1 f-tb of April. The
ovidencc on the secoJid charge was next sunnned up by
Sheriilan in his famous Bpeech on the Od of Jiuic.
The King's illness then intervened ; nearly a year
VOL. I. X
•242 LIFE OF BURKE.
elapsed, and It was not till April, 1789, that Burke was
enabled to address the Peers once more. He then
opened the sixth charge, that of bribery and corrup-
tion. The delay of the trial had been used by the
fi'iends of Hastings as a plea against the severity of
having any trial at all. Burke strongly replied to this
plea in the first instance. " We know," said he, " that
by a mysterious dispensation of Providence, injury is
quick and rapid, and justice slow. And we may say,
that those who have not patience and vigour of mind
to attend the tardy pace of justice, counteract the order
of Providence, and are resolved not to be just at all.
We, therefore, instead of bending- the order of nature
to the laxity of our characters and tempers, must ra-
ther conform ourselves, by a manly fortitude and vir-
tuous perseverance, to continue within those forms,
and to wrestle with injustice, until we have shown,
that those virtues which wickedness sometimes de-
bauches into its cause, such as vigour, energy, activi-
ty, fortitude of spirit, are called back and brought to
their true and natural service ; and that in the pursuit
of wickedness, in following it through all the winding
recesses and mazes of its artifices, we shall show as
much vigour, as much constancy, as much diligence,
energy, and perseverance, as others can do in endea-
vouring to elude the laws, and triumph over the jus-
tice of the country.
In examining some details of the cruelty to which
the Indian tax-gatherers urged their office, he thus
gave his philosophy of outrage : — " It is the nature of
SPEECHES ON THE TRIAL. 243
tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from
the ill success of first oppressions. On the contrary, all
oppressors, all men, thinking highly of the methods
dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of
their designs to the want of sufficient rigour. Then
they redouble the eflforts of their impotent cruelty,
which producing, as they must ever produce, new dis-
appointments, they grow irritated against the objects
of their rapacity; and their rage, fury and malice, im-
placable because unprovoked, recruiting and reinforcing
their avarice, their vices are no longer human. From
cruel men they are transformed into savage beasts,
with no other vestige of reason left, but what serves
to furnish the inventions and refinements of ferocious
subtlety for purposes of which beasts are incapable."
In alluding to a large sum of money, of which no
account was given, he burst out into strong reclama-
tion. " Charity is the only virtue that I over heard
of, that derives from its retirement any part of its lus-
tre ; tlie others rccjuire to be spread abroad in the face
of day. Such candles should not bo hid under a
bushel. Like the illiiiiiiuations which men light up
when they mean to express great joy and magnificence
for a great event, their very splpudour is a part of
their excellence. We, upon our feasts, light up our
whole cify. We, in our feasts, invite all tlu; world
to partake them. Mr Hastings feasts in the dark ;
he feasts alone. He feasts like a wild beast. He
growls in his corner over the dying and the dead,
like the tigers of that country, which drag (heir prey
244 LIFE OF BURKE.
into the jungles. Nobody knows of it till he is brought
into judgment for the flesh which he has destroyed.
This is the entertainment of Tantalus ; an entertain-
ment from which the sun hides his light."
The trial lingered through various postponements,
until the world grew weary of charges which seemed
endless, and the accused became an object less of pex'-
sonal vindication than of popular sympathy. Hisfriends
now exerted themselves with growing activity. The
dignity of the great tribunal before which Hastings
was arraigned, had at first appalled them ; but as they
became accustomed to the sight, the terror passed
away, their vigour was renewed, and all the instru-
ments of dexterous intrigue, contemptuous recrimi-
nation, legal subtlety, and, it must not be denied,
solid reasoning, Avere set in motion. Parliamentary
influences, too, had begun to operate. Fox and India
were names of unfortunate connexion. The mind and
the measures of Pitt had cast the politics of Opposition
and its once popular leader into the shade ; and the fall
of the party drew down with it the labours of Burke
in a cause which he had sincerely adopted as the cause
of humanity, and sustained by what he as sincerely
believed to be the spirit of justice. The trial was
now compelled by the force of circumstances to close,
and the Hrst sentence of Burke's first speech in 1794,
was a contemptuous acknowledgement — that the cause
had been dashed to pieces on the rules of the House.
This speech, which abounded in powerful passages;
the only indulgence which we can now derive from
SPEECHES ON THE TRIAL. 245
the whole transaction ; was, in fact, a defence of the
Managers. It treated severally of the chief points of
public blame. They had been charged with using se-
vere language to Hastings. This Burke vindicated,
on the ground of the necessity of speaking the truth.
" When ignorance and corruption," said he, " have
usurped the professor's chair, and placed themselves
in the seats of science and virtue, it is high time for
us to speak out. We know that the doctrines of folly
are of great use to the professors of vice. We know
that it is one of the signs of a corrupt and degenerate
age, and one of the means of ensuring its further cor-
ruption and degeneracv, to give lenient epithets to cor-
ruptions and crimes. The Avorld must think that per-
sons who use such terms palter with their sacred trust,
and are tender to crimes, because they look forward
to the possession of the same power which they now
prosecute, and purpose to abuse it in the manner in
which it has been abused."
The Managers had been charged with a spirit of
vindictivencsH. This is finely retorted. " Lord liacon
has well said, that revenge is a kind of wild justice !
it is so, and without this wild, austere stock, there
would be no justice; in the world. But when, by the
skilful hand of morality and wise jurisprudence, a fo-
reign scion, but of the very same species, is grafted
upon it, its harsh <|uality becomes changed, it submits
to culture, and, laying aside its savage nature, it bears
fruits and flowers, sweet to the worbl, and not un-
grateful oven to that Heaven to whicii it elevates its
246 LIFE OF BURKE.
exalted head. The fruit of this wikl stock is revenge,
regulated, but not extinguished — revenge transferred
from the sufferer to the communion and sympathy of
mankind. This is the revenge by which we are ac-
tuated, and which we should be sorry if the false, idle,
girlish, novel-like morality of the world should extin-
guish in the breast of those who have a great public
duty to perform. This sympathetic revenge, which
is condemned by clamorous imbecility, is so far from
being a vice, that it is among the greatest of all virtues;
a virtue which the uncorrupted judgment of mankind
has in all ages raised to the rank of heroism. To give
up all the repose and pleasures of life, to pass sleep-
less nights and laborious days, and, what is ten times
more irksome to an ingenious mind, to offer oner's self
to calumny, and all its herd of hissing tongues and
poisoned fangs, in order to free the world from
fraudulent prevaricators, from cruel oppressors, from
robbers and tyrants, has, 1 say, the test of heroic vir-
tue, and well deserves the distinction. The Commons,
despairing to attain the heights of this virtue, never
lose sight of it for a moment. For seventeen years
they have, almost without intermission, pursued by
every sort of enquiry, by legislative and by judicial reme-
dy, the cure of this Indian malady, worse ten thousand
times than the leprosy which our forefathers brought
from the East. Could they have done this if they had
not been actuated by strong, vehement, perennial pas-
sion, which burning like the vestal fire, chaste and
eternal, never suffers generous sympathy to grow cold
SPEECHES ON THE TRIAL. 247
in maintaining the rights of the injured, or denoun
cing the crimes of the oppressor ?"
The third, and, practically, the principal imputation,
was the tardiness of the proceedings. To this an
equally brief, but equally sufficient answer is given.
" I now proceed, my Lords, to the next recriminatory
charge, which is Delay. I confess I am not astonished
at the charge. From the first records of human im-
patience down to the present time, it has been com-
plained that the march of violence and oppression is
rapid, but that the progress of remedial and vindictive
justice has almost favoured the appearance of being
languid and sluggish. Something of this is owing to
the very nature and constitution of human affairs.
Because justice is a circumspect, scrutinizing, balan-
cing principle, full of doubt even of itself, and fearful of
doing wrong even to the greatest wrong-doers ; in the
nature of things its movement must be slow, in com-
parison with the headlong rapidity with which avarice,
ambition, and revenge, pounce down upon the devoted
prey of those violent and destructive passions. My
Lords, the disproportion between crime and justice,
when seen in the particular acts of either, would be so
much to the advantage of crimes and criminals, that
we should find it difficult to defend Laws and Tribu-
nals, if we did not look, not to the immediate^ not to
the retrospective^ but to i\\e provident operation of jus-
tice. Its chief operation is in its future example.
And this turns the balance, upon the total effect, iu
favour of avenging justice, and reconciJcs a pious and
248 LIFE OF BURKE.
humble mind to this great mysterious dispensation of
the world."
Burke's remarks on the habits and history of India,
had been angrily discussed by the opposing counsel.
They had charged him with attempting to perplex the
cause by carrying the public mind into the mystic ab-
surdities of Indian ceremonial, by images of Ancient
Mythology, and by romances on the triumphs of Ta-
merlane and Gengis Khan. Those charges peculiarly
roused the indignation of the great accuser, and the
whole of the speeches scarcely contain a finer burst of
oratorical rage than his answer : — " They will shew
you, they say, that Gengis Khan, Khouli Khan, and
Tamerlane, destroyed ten thousand times more people
in battle than this man did. Good Heavens! have they
run mad ? Have they lost their senses in their guilt ?
Did they ever expect that we meant to compare this man
to Gengis Khan, Khouli Khan, or Tamerlane ? To
compare a Clerk in a bureau; to compare a fraudulent
bullock contractor- — for we could shew that his first
elementary malversations were in caiTying on fraudu-
lent bullock contracts, which contracts were taken from
him with shame and disgrace; and restored with greater
shame and disgrace — to compare him with the con-
querors of the world ! We never said he was a tiger
and a lion ; no, we said he was a weasel and a rat.
What we said was, that he has desolated countries
by the same means that plagues of his description have
produced similar desolations. We said, that he, a frau-
dulent bullock contractor, exalted to great and un-
SPEECHES ON THE TllIAL. 249
merited powers, can do more mischief than all the lions
and tigers in the world. We know that a swarm oi
locusts, however individually despicable, can render a
country more desolate than Geng-is Khan or Tamer-
lane. When God Almighty chose to humble the
pride and presumption of Pharaoh, and bring him to
shame, he did not effect his purpose with tigers and
lions. He sent lice, mice, frogs, and every thing loath-
some and contemptible, to pollute and destroy the
country. Think of this, my Lords, and of your listen-
ing here to their long account of Tamerlane's camp of
two hundred thousand people, and of his building a
pyramid at Bagdad with the heads of ninety-thousand
of his prisoners."
The Impeachment was now virtually at an end.
The King's illness in 1789, had first checked the pro-
ceedings. The dissolution of Parliament in 1790
threatened to extinguish them altogether. The Law
authorities declared that the Impeachment had neces-
sarily died with tlu; dead Parliament. Long discus-
sions took place, but at length the (|U(!s(lon was car-
ried for the renewal of the proc<!eding8 : a result which
may, not improbably, be attributed to the Ministerial
discovery, that tbe employment of ()p|)osition in West-
minster Hall, was a safci diversion of ibeir hostility iu
8t Stepben's. It is certain, that tbe trial bad already
exhibited [)ractlcal effects, strongly lnjuri(»us to the
Parliamentary successes of the Whigs. Their hours
were wasted in barangues before the half-empty bench'
es of the Peerage ; their activity was thrown away in
250 LIFE OF BURKE.
ransacking" piles of Indian records, their spirits hourly
flagged under the growing despair of success, and they
felt that their popularity was following the failure of
their spirits. No powers of man could for ever keep
up a public interest in the concerns of a country with
half the world between, and the Orator, who had
poured out his eloquence to a thin and wearied audi-
tory at noon, incurred the formidable risk of speaking
to deserted benches at night. Fox, Sheridan, and the
more worldly and exhaustible portions of the party,
had long since relaxed their attendance, and nothing
but the enthusiastic vigour of Burke, nerved by that
sense of right which made him the foremost champion
of all that was generous, high-minded, and pure, in the
concerns of man, could have persevered. Still he per-
severed, and bore the whole exhaustion of the labour,
the whole weight ofthe responsibility, and the whole
virulence ofthe crowd of angry interests which fought
in the cause of Hastings. In June, 1794, the trial had
been all but formally concluded, by the general sum-
ming up of the charges by the successive Managers,
Burke's reply, of nine days' length, closing the whole.
On the 23d of April, 1 796, Hastings was acquitted^ by
a large majority of the Peers ; the Chancellor, how-
ever, voting against him. To complete this long pro-
ceeding, in general harmony. Ministers paid it a part-
ing compliment. Pitt moved thanks to the Managers ;
the motion was seconded by Dundas, and, of course,
carried.
The chief injury to the eflfectiveness of the trial was
TRIAL OF HASTINGS. 251
the excessive official tai'diness of its steps. Hastings
had, in fact, undergone two trials, one before the
Commons, and another in Westminster Hall. But
no part of the delay was attributable to Burke. Has-
tings had returned to England in 1785, on the 16th
of June. On the 20th of the same month, Burke gave
notice of an enquiry into his conduct ; for the next
Session. In June 1786, he opened the first charge.
In 1787, Sheridan opened, in January, the Begum
charge. The Committee of Impeachment was then
appointed. On the 9th of May the Articles were de-
bated, and Pitt gave his vote, in the most direct man-
ner, ^yr the Impeachment. No time was now lost, for,
on the very next day, Burke accused Hastings at the
bar of the House of Loi'ds, in the name of the Com-
mons of England. The trial commenced in West-
minster Hall, on the 13th of February 1788. The
proceeding had all the dignity that could be given to
it by the forms of state. Burke, at the head of the Ma-
nagers, all in lull Court costume, led the way, follow-
ed by the Members of the House of Commons, a train
of Masters in Chancery and other Ollicials, the Judges,
the Peers, anrl the Royal Family.
The whole process thus occupied ten years, from
1785 to 171)5. Yet so much of it was consumed in
delays, entirely official ; in Parliamentary prorogations,
and legal ceremonial, that if the Court had sat but ten
hours a-day, as is customary in the tribunals of law,
the trial would have been finisiied in two months !
Justice probably triumphed. But Burke bore all his
252 LIFE OF BURKE.
laurels untarnished from the field. The nation was
full of astonishment at the vast and unremitting- power
of his appeals, of which, perhaps, the most striking
instance was given in the languag-e of Hastings him-
self. " For the first half hour," said he, " I looked up
to the Orator in a reverie of wonder, and, during that
time, I felt myself the most cvilpable man on earth.
But, then, I recurred to my own bosom, and there
found a consciousness that consoled me under all I
heard and all I suiFered."
CHAPTER XI.
French Infidelity — Providential Protection of England — Riots of
1 780 — Power of Htt — French Revolution — Burke's Singular Sa-
gacity.
It had been the okl maxim of the CEconomists of the
Continent, that Religion was useless or injurious as
a feature of civil polity; and that establishments for Re-
ligion were among the worn-out expedients of a sys-
tem divided between the priest and the King, the ty-
ranny of superstition and the tyranny of the sword.
Religion was libelled for the work of the passions.
With those declaimers she was the cause of more extra-
vagant ambitions, more profound perfidies, more san-
guinary violences, and more incurable subversions of
empire, than al! other causes combined. The very
Spirit of Peace was the great tragic figure in the drama
of human suflering ; the great mover of those fiercer
convulsions and conflagrations, which, bursting up
from the depths of society, like the lava, or the earth-
«juake, from sources beyond the reach of n)an, as utterly
perplex all human resistance, as they bafHe all human
precaution.
The libel had been a thousand times r(!f'ut<'d ;
but it was too congenial to the profligate liberalism
2')4 LIFE OF BURKE.
of the Continent to be abandoned. At length a proof
was to be given, that Atheism could outstrip at a
single stride all the horrors that had ever been let
loose even by Superstition ; that men who had exiled
the priest, and broken down the altar, might be more
ruthless and sanguinary than even the fiercest persecu-
tor ; and that the wiliest perversion of belief, the most
flagitious dexterity of imposture, under the abused
name of religion, could be thrown into eclipse, by the
remorseless craft and prodigal atrocity of a rebellion,
whose first proclamation sounded in the astonished
ears of Europe, that there was no God !
But a preparatory period was still to be passed. The
life of nations is like the life of man. The true phi-
losopher can scarcely fail to discover when nations be-
gin to assume a shape, when they develope their ma-
turer energies, and when they have reached the point
of decline. The last ten years of the eighteenth cen-
tury were evidently marked for a great European
crisis. The state of manners, knowledge, and feelings
on the Continent, was evidently ripening for some
consummate trial. But it was in England that the
most marked evidence of a great preparatory agency
was given.
The partial failures of Britain in the American war,
so loftily compensated by her havoc of the French and
Spanish navies on the ocean, had first furnished clear
lessons of where the true strength of the country lay.
And the national enthusiasm was vigorously turned to
that arm, on which was so soon to be staked the safe-
PROVIDENTIAL PROTECTION OF ENGLAND. 255
ty of the empire in the greatest of all naval wars. But
the finances of England required reinstatement after
the vast exhaustion of a six years' contest, carried on
at the distance of three thousand miles. An interval,
amply adequate to this purpose, was now given. From
1782 to 1789, was a time of the most serene, joyous,
and productive peace ever known in Europe. All the
active intercourses, the graceful employments, the bril-
liant luxuries, the opulent commerce of nations, were
in unexampled life. The prevalence of perpetual peace;
the unassailable amity of all the thrones of Europe;
the establishment of codes of national law, which
should preclude all jealousies for all time to come,
were among the dreams of the hour ; butevcn they were
the dreams of vigorous health; passing fantasies, but the
native conceptions of minds at ease, and exulting in
the glow of the pi*ospect around them. Yet this ani-
mated day was but a respite. The sentence which had
long gone forth against the guilt of Europe, must be
executed ; and the exultation of those hours of memo-
rable and almost extravagant enjoyment, was to be fol-
lowed by the deepest suffering of nations since the fall
of the lloman ICmpirc.
England was prepared against tlie change, by Iier in-
ternal vigour, the activity of her laws, and the purity
of her religion. But the great instrument by which
the power of the Empire was to bo put in motion,
was the Minister. Pitt was formed to] stand at the
head of a great nation in its most perilous time. Bold,
pure, high-principled, equally disdaining submission to
256 LIFE OF BURKE.
the multitude and subserviency to the throne, he sus-
tained both, and he controlled both ; by the noblest
displays of senatorial ability, he protected the Crown
against the aggressions of party in the legislature ; by
the most vigilant decision, he coerced the violence of
faction in the streets. And, for his reward, he saw
party rapidly sink into a depth of popular scorn, which
extinguished it as an antagonist of Administration; and
the old bitternesses of the popular heart, as rapidly
changing into the generous and honest pride in the
triumphs of their country, which makes the great re-
deeming quality of Englishmen.
Burke too was to bear an illustrious part in the work
of national preservation ; and, like the country, he too
wasto be prepared for his duty. If itseemed extraordin-
ary that a mind so palpably formed for objects above all
local and individual interest; that his sleepless energy,
fiery enthusiasm, and matchless extent of knowledge, his
whole strong sincerity of public virtue, should have
been suffered to cast itself away for ten years upon the
repulsive labour of the unsuccessful impeachment of an
intangible criminal ; may we not be entitled to take
the remote result for the true solution, and account
for this apparent waste of his powers, in its preparative
for the nobler struggle to come — the partial combat
suffered, merely to administer nerve for that noble
measuring of his strength, in which the prize was to
be his country ; — the great orator, like Homer's hero,
sent to invigorate himself in inferior arms and warfare,
before the weight of the conflict was to be laid upon
PROTECTION OF ENGLAND. 257
him ; and clothed in the panoply of more than mortal
workmanship, he was to stand, resplendent in the front
of final battle.
Nothing can be more palpable than, that the men-
tal exertion required by the long- continuance of the
impeachment contributed to the subsequent services
of Burke. We can discover its uses in the increas-
ed vigovir of his judgment, his more mature esti-
mate of party, and the heightened activity, clearness,
and brilliancy of his powers ; all natural results of this
perpetual exercise, and all essential to those crown-
ing efforts, which were so soon to rescue the mind of
the Empire from the fierce absurdities of revolution.
Unquestionably, unless we are to conceive that all
things are under the dominion of chance ; that men are
in no case prepared for the performance of the highest
duties to their fellow-men ; that the providence, which
concerts with such delicate and dexterous arrangement,
the whole process of the natural world, leaves the
moral totallv to itscH'; we must believe that instru-
ments are pr<'j)are(l for the preservation ul kingdoms,
as much as the rain is prepared for the germination of
the seed, or the sunshine for the ripening of the harvest.
The theory, too, may be true in less important
instances tlian in tlie iiistory of JJurke. There arc,
probably, few men of any saliency and strength of in-
tellect, wli(» will not l)(! able to trace a preparative
f»roccss in tlieir minds for the leading events of their
public career. But, with Burke, evcfu the practical results
of the trial were important. They weaned him large-
VOL. I. Y
258 LIFE OF BURKE.
ly from that disastrous connexion in which he had been
politically born. They taught him the utter useless-
ness of depending for help in any cause of disinterested
manliness or public spirit, on men who were to be
moved only by the stimulus of self-interest or popular
breath. From that hour, the abscission of all cordial
feeling between him and party was begun. He still
adhered ; because, in England, party divorce is like ma-
trimonial, prima facie a matter of disrepute. But the
separate mind was already there ; and that high-heart-
ed abjuration by which he finally rejected the revolters
against the cause of England, and threw down the
gauntlet in defence of his country ; was only the more
formal shape of the principle, which, from this moment,
had begun to animate all his feelings.
Still a brief period intervened before the necessity of
the national cause was to call for its predestined cham-
pion. When the history of those proud days comes
to be written, it will probably be found that the safe-
ty of England was as providential, as the fall of France.
The wild havoc of the French Revolution still usurps all
eyes, and the politician and philosopher will, for many
a year, find some of their most exciting studies in the
chain of causes which gradually entangled the stately
monarchy of the Bourbons. But preservation may
be as full of high design as penalty ; and the philoso-
pher who adds to his philosophy the still nobler know-
ledge of the Christian, may be taught to discover in the
training of our country for that great contest, eviden-
ces of the most curious and admirable provision for
a defence, which was to be consummated, in the victo-
PROTECTION OF ENGLAND. 259
ry, not only of England and her rights, but of the mo-
rals and feelings of the civilized world.
To give but the most passing glance at those memor-
able precautions. The primal ruin of the French mo-
narchy lay in its utter ignorance of the force of the
multitude, its foolish reliance on the influence of na-
tional affections, and its fatal and incorrigible propen-
sity to believe, in all instances, that the danger was
over with the day. On those points, England and
France had been in nearly the same state of blindness,
down to a period close upon the Revolution.
Twenty years before the Tuilleries was stormed, and
tlie King sent to the block, the English statesman had
been as incapable as the French monarch, of believing
thatthe element ofpolitical death was in the streets. But,
in 1780, a lesson was given to our country, which
opened all eyes, and winch kept them open. A harmless
petition on a constitutional subject, presented through
the legitimate channels, to the legitimate source of re-
dress ; a Protestant petition against a violation of the
national law, carried to the doors of Parliament by a
body of orderly remonstrants, suddenly gave birth to
the most rapid, furious, and devastating outrage, ever
known in Knglaud. 'J'lic i)rinci[)leH of law and peace,
and even of religion, were instantaneously blackened in-
to public havoc ; the cloud no bigger than a man's hand
grew before the eye into a tornado, that threatened
to hurry before it Church, Monarchy, and Constitu-
tion. Its violence was at last chr-cked ; but not till
the lesson was completely given ; till the national mind
260 LIFE OF BURKE.
was fully awakened to the horrors of rabble fury ; till
the Government was put in possession of the whole
secret of popular violence, on any subject which might
hereafter rouse the populace : and, as if the lesson was
to be pregnant with important uses in every point of
view, the hitherto failing- respect of the empire for the
libelled character of one of the best Kings that ever
sat upon the throne, was, in the course of this hazard-
ous period, cleared from all its clouds, by the evidence
ofpersonalmanliness, sense, and feeling exhibited by his
Majesty George III. Even the character of Royalty
itself was illusti'ated by this public proof of the services
which might be rendered by a Monarch during the ge-
neral perplexity and suspended strength of all inferior
authority. Even the dateof this extraordinary event
seemed to be a part of the same preservative design.
If this whirlwind of popular frenzy had come ten or
twenty years before, its recollection must have partial-
ly faded away ; or at least, it could not have been in
the personal experience of the generation by whom
the furies of Jacobinism were to be controlled. If it
had come ten years later, it would have come in the
very tumult of Jacobinism, and would have made a pa-
rallel revolution in England. But it was placed In
the exact point of usefulness; not too far back for
personal remembrance, nor too far forward for nation-
al preservation.
If this theory be fanciful, nothing could be more un-
equivocal tban the practical results. From that time forth,
the eye of Government was fixed with wise vigilance
POWER OF PITT. 261
upon the first movements of popular disafFection ; the
symptoms of disturbance, which in other times might
have been regarded but as ripples on the surface of the
popular expanse, were now justly watched, as formida-
ble indications of tempests, that might heave it through
all its depths. The universal alarm of England at
thenow well-known hazard of letting loose thepowerof
the multitude, strengthened the hands of Government,
to the fullest extent of providing for the public securi-
ty ; enfeebled the influence of Opposition, until, bring-
ing over the noblest and ablest of its members, it forced
the remainder into avirtual exile from Parliament ; and
placing England in a state of direct hostility with Ja-
cobinism, pointed her out to Europe as the unfailing-
refuge of religion and law. From that hour, she as-
sumed her true character, and stood the natural, and,
thank God, the invincible, defender of the last hopes
of human in<lependence, against the last malice of Athe-
istic and popular passion, emljodicd in the form of the
most grasping and remorseless despotism of the world.
Another of those preparatives was tlie rapid ascend-
ency of I'itt. 'l"be .Son of Chatham must have been
a powerfid authority in any age of the Lcgislatiu'e ; l>ut
no man is efpial to all things, atui even his pre-eminent
ability must have been heavily impeded, if it had been
exposed at once to an Opposition, still retaining pub-
lic favour, anrl tin; embarrassments of a war against
the new and startling strength of I-'rance. With Fox
in possession of the public heart, and French Jacobinism
wielding energies that seemed to invest it with a title
262 LIFE OF BURKE.
to universal conquest, no Ministry could have stood ;
even the genius of Pitt could have done no more than
yield with honour. If he had been summoned to face
a French Republican war, at the earlier period, while
he was struggling- with the India Bill, or the Regen-
cy Question in 1788, no strength of mind could have
sustained him under such a complication of difficulties.
The perpetual assault in Parliament, and the flood of
civil trouble, popular discontent, French circumven-
tion, and European terror, must have broken him
down at the first outpouring of the war. But, for some
years before, every public event had strongly tended
to disembarrass the Minister of the encumbrance of
Opposition. A series of measures, conceived in the
rashness of angry ambition, and urged with the reck-
lessness of political despair, had continued to break
down party; until their conduct on the Regency
Question seemed to render Fox's fidelity to the name
of Whig doubtful, shewed him supporting practices
directly adverse to his creed, and, finally, gave his
great rival all the advantage of the popular side, thus
enabling him to carry his measures through the Le-
gislature with a bold and contemptuous disregard of
Opposition. The Regency Question virtually ex-
tingiiished its whole parliamentary force, and deeply
alienated the hearts of its most principled adherents.
" Perpetual failure," said Burke, with a vexed spirit,
in one of his letters to Lord Charlemont, in 1789,
" even though nothing in that failure can be fixed on
the improper choice of objects, or the injudicious
FRENCH REVOLUTION. 263
choice of means, will detract every day more and more
from a man's credit, until he ends without success, and
without reputation. In fact, a constant pursuit, even
of the best objects, icithout adequate instruments, de-
tracts something from the opinion of a man's judgment.
This, I think, may be, in part, the cause of the inacti-
vity of others of our friends who are in the vigour of
life, and in possession of a great degree of lead and
authority."
A year now elapsed of Parliamentary intermission
and public tranquillity. The struggles of party had
closed; the House went its customary round of local
business ; Europe was stagnant ; and men in every
country began to think that the spirit of public distur-
bance was laid, that war was to be no more, and that
thenceforth the world was to live on its remembrances.
In the midst of this tranquillity a thunderbolt fell in
France, that sent its echoes and its llanie round Eu-
rope; a thunderbolt, like one of the Roman omens, in-
creasing its terrors by falling from a sky without a
cloud. — Iiitomdt acre screno. In July 1789, the Bas-
tile was stormed by the populace of the Parisian sub-
urbs!
A letter written by Purke sliortly after to Lord
Charlemont, gives a brief but natural view of the hrst
impression of an event so important to every interest
of England and JOurope, on the mind of the great phi-
losopher of politics. " As to us here, our thoughts
of every thing .it home are suspended by our astonish-
ment at the wonderful spectacle which is exhibited in
264 LIFE OF BURKE.
a neigliboiu-ing- and rival country. What spectators,
and what actors ! England gazing with astonishment
at a French struggle for liberty, and not knowing whe-
ilicr to blame or applaud. The thing, indeed, though I
thought I saw something like it in progress for several
years, has something in it paradoxical and mysterious.
The spirit it is impossible not to admire, but the old
Parisian ferocity has hrokcn out in a shocking manner.
It is true that this may he no more than a sudden ex-
plosion ; if so, no indication can be taken from it.
But, if it should be character rather than accident, then
that people are not Jit for liberty, and must have a strong
hand, like that of their former masters, to coerce
them. Men must have a certain fund of natural mo-
deration to qualify them for freedom, else it becomes
noxious to themselves, and a perfect nuisance to every
body else. What will be the event, it is hard still to
say. To form a solid constitution requires wisdom as
well as spirit ; and whether the French have wise
heads among them, oi*, if they possess such, whether
they have authority equal to their wisdom, is yet to be
seen. In the meantime, the progress of the whole
affair is one of the most curious that was ever exhi-
bited."
In this simple language the writer expresses the
principle of his conduct during the entire progress of
the Revolution. He gave France credit for whatever
dignity or justice she might display, for the redress of
every real injury, and the establishment of every actual
advance to freedom. But he had an honesty of heart
FRENCH REVOLUTION. 265
unknown to the minor race of politicians. His recti-
tude felt that public virtue can have no root in public
excesses, that the justice which begins in robbery
must be spurious, and the liberty which is dipped in
innocent blood must be but another name for tyranny.
Following- the maxims of the highest wisdom, he judg-
ed of the tree by its fruits ; and when he saw that the
first shaking of the leaves was poison, he looked to its
whole produce with a feeling of dismay. But, to appre-
ciate the vigour of this foresight, we ought to remem-
ber the time. The first intelligence of the French Re-
volution found the world mad, or made it so. It was
hailed by the acclamation of Europe. To the multitude,
its sudden glare was not the first Hash of an explosion
which was yet to shatter the civil frame of nations;
but the existence of a new element of splendour — it
was the political " Let there be light." The violence
of its first shock was regarded not as a threat of the
fall of society, but a gorgeous promise of its restora-
tion. All was gloriously changing and to be changed ;
all abuses were to be swept away, and on the ground
Avhich they had so long encumbered, was to rise the
fairest temple ever erected to human happiness by the.
most fortunate labour ol" man. OI<l institutions, de-
crepit beyond the hope of cure, were, of course, to be
given over to the grave; but where the art of political
counsel bad failed since the begiiming of government,
the power of the pure anrl mighty ai>irit of regenera-
tion was to work the wonder ; the sepulchre was to
give up, and now and brilliant shapes of human happi-
VOL. J. z
'266 LIFE OF BURKE.
ness, new and stainless forms of the social principle,
authority without violence, religion without hypocrisy,
the public good undebased by private interests, a gene-
ral fraternity of all the virtues, were to be thenceforth
the inheritance of the auspicious generation of the
eighteenth century. In this universal tumult of ap-
plause, one man's ears alone could catch the cries of the
rancorous and sanguinary assassins, Avho threw them-
selves forward in the march of popular liberty. But
the warning was sufficient for him, and from that hour
he resolved that none should thereafter charge his ex-
ample with having tempted them to the worship of
spoliation, blasphemy, and massacre, under the insulted
name of constitution.
With his usual fairness, Burke's first effort wasto obtain
all possible information of the actual state of the French
mind. He maintained correspondences with persons
of various grades for this purpose, and, as if he had al-
ready felt that he was to act a great part in the coming
collision of Monarchy and Republicanism, he started
on his route with a vigour proportioned to the magni-
tude of the object. But at every additional step his
views became more decided. In a correspondence wilh
ISI. Menonville, a member of the National Assembly,
who had requested iiis opinion of public affairs, he says,
so early as in October, 1789, " You may easily be-
lieve, that I have had my eyes turned with great cu-
riosity, and no small concernment, to the astonishing
scenes now displayed in France. It has certainly given
rise in my mind to many reflections, and to some erao-
FRENCH REVOLUTION. 267
tions. * * * You hope, sir, that I think the French
deserving of liberty. I certainly do. I certainly think
that all men who desire it, deserve it. It is not the
reward of our merit, or the acquisition of our industry.
It is our inheritance, the birthright of our species.
We cannot forfeit our right to it, but by what forfeits
our right to the privileges of our kind ; I mean the
abuse or oblivion of our rational faculties, and afei'ocioiis
indocilitij^ which makes us prompt to wrong and vio-
lence, destroys our social nature, and transforms us in-
to something little better than wild beasts. To men
so degraded, a state of strong constraint is a sort of
necessary substitute for freedom ; since, bad as it is, it
may deliver them, in some measure, from the worst of
all slavery, the despotism of their own blind and brutal
passions. You have kindly said, that you begin to love
freedom from your intercourse with me. Permit me,
then, to continue our conversation, and to tell you
what is the freedom that I love. It is not solitary, un-
connected, individual, scllish liberty ; it is social free-
dom. It is that state of things in which the liberty of
no man, and no body of uu;n, is in a condition to tres-
pass on the liberty of any person, or any description
of persons in society. This kind of liberty, indeed, is
but another name for justice, ascertained by wise laws,
and secured by well-constructed institutions. * ♦ * *
I have nothing to check my wishes towards the esta-
blislnnniit of a solid and rational scheme of liberty in
IVance. On the subject of the relative power of na-
tions, I may have prejudices ; but I envy internal free-
268 LIFE OF BURKE.
doni, security, and good order to none. When, there-
fore, I shall learn that in France, the citizen, hy what-
ever description he is qualified, is in a perfect state of
legal security, with regard to his life, to his property,
to the uncontrolled disposal of his person, to the free
use of his industry and his faculties; when I hear that
he is protected in the beneficial enjoyment of the estates
to which, by the course of settled law, he was born, or
is provided with a fair compensation for them ; that he
is maintained in the full fruition of the advantages be-
longing to his state and condition of life ; when I am
assured that a simple citizen may decently express his
sentiments on public afiairs, without hazard to his life
or liberty, even though against a predominant and
fashionable opinion ; iclien I know all this of France, I
shall be as well pleased as every one must be, who has
not forgotten the general communion of mankind, nor
lost his natural sympathy in local and accidental con-
nexions."
It is clear, from those striking developements of his
mind, within so unripe a period as two months after
the first blow of the Revolution, that Burke had al-
ready found the key to the whole mystery. While
others saw the Revolutionary shape only assuming the
attributes of pomp and festivity, as if to do additional
honour to the Monarch ; his foresight saw the long
train of conspiracy that lurked under this ostentation of
loyalty. He also saw in the fatal facility with which
the unfortunate Kins' suffered himself to be led into
the very place of ruin, the destiny of the " gracious
burke's sagacity. 269
Duncan" sealed ; the Government, the laws, and the
Crown, on the point of being- thrown at the feet of a
bloody, perfidious, and regicidal usurpation. He saw,
further still, the fate of that usurpation ; and, even at
the time when its designs were still cloaked under the
most specious covering of patriotism, when all was
lofty protestation and extravagant credulity, he could
mark the coming of the retributive hour, when the usur-
pation should feel its treachery recoiling upon itself,
and successive factions do the work of justice upon
each other ; until France, like the she-fiend of Shak-
Kpeare, should groan over the memory of her tempta-
tions and her successes, and find, that to wash out that
one foul spot of royal murder, all remorse was vain.
CHAPTER XII.
Burke's taste for the Arts — Reynolds — Barry — Burke's Criticism
on the Pictures at the Adelphi — True cause of Republicanism.
In tracing this outline of the active and virtuous ca-
reer of Burke, we are not to forget that he had other
qualifications than those of the Senate; and that, large-
ly as politics occupied his life, he had a reserve for the
gentler purposes of society. No man better knew the
value of a general taste for all the acquirements which
embellish life, or their use in private intercourse,
and even in polishing those more refractory and un-
nialleable materials of which public fame is made. An
acknowledged source of the superiority of his elo-
quence was to be found in his extensive knowledge of
tbe graceful arts. Giving him vividness of imagery,
rich allusions, and spirited variety of topic, it threw an
imrivallcd charm over his style. He was peculiarly
attached to painting, and to its most distinguished pro-
fessor, Keynolds.
The first two Georges were nearly strangers to this
country, and their habits, tastes, prejudices, and pa-
tronage, were all foreign. But, George the Third, who
had nobly made it his boast that he was " born a Bri-
REYNOLDS. 271
ton," had the tastes of an English gentleman, and his
fondness for the fine arts raised them into sudden po-
pularity. It is a remarkable circumstance, that, in all
nations, public liberality is followed by the birth of
genius. — Whether the cause may be, that powerful ta-
lents are turned from other pursuits into the popular
direction ; or that Nature, by some ordinance of which
we know nothing but the advantage, actually seconds
public wisdom by a sudden influx of distinguished
powers. At this period a circle of admirable artists
cultivated painting'. Reynolds held the first rank, by
the master qualities of colouring and expression. lie
was, by the whole construction of his mind, a painter;
and, by his peculiar tident, a painter of portraits.
Without the elegance of Lely, or the pathetic dignity
of Vandyke, he excelled every name of Art, since the
days of Charles the First, in depth of feeling, force of
character, and splendour of design. Inferior in His-
tory to the great masters of the Italian schools, con-
fused in his conception of story, and elaborate, with-
out correctness, in his outline, he was yet remarkable
for the li.iblt of making his portraits historic, — a happy
skill, which gave novelty to connnonplace, and dignity
to feebleness. The works of his pencil are still tin;
ornament of the noblest mansions of England, and
the pride of the English school. But lie also aspired
to the praise of the pen ; and a series of Discourses on
the Fine Arts, which he read from the chair of the
Royal Acafleniy, are still among the laws of Taste.
But their eloquence betrayed a higher hand, and Burke
272 LIFE OF BURKE.
has been long- conjectured to be their chief writer.
The idea is strengthened by the discovery, in his cor-
respondence, of a paper bearing- all the features of the
Discourses, their criticism, their peculiarities, and their
eloquence.
Barry had now returned from Italy, a new subject
for the trial of Burke's good nature. But the artist
possessed powers which gave strong hopes of his re-
storation to society. He had undoubted talent, great
diligence, and a stern, almost a savage, determination
to force mankind into the acknowledgement of his
rights to fame. He had just painted the series of pic-
tures for the Adelphi, in desperate defiance of public
neglect, and had flung away time and intense labour
on this daring attempt to extort justice from the nation.
The performance is now beyond criticism. Public opi-
nion has long since pronounced it the imperfect work
of strong ability, feeble in parts, bat poAverful as a
whole ; often offending the eye by the grotesque in
form, and the judgment by the extravagant in concep-
tion, but not seldom redeemed by classic grandeur,
and vigorous nature. That the mind capable of such
a work should have been suffered to fall into obscu-
rity, to feel the bitterness of public neglect, and even
the sufferings of personal privation, is among the stains
of his age. The tenth part of the sura staked nightly
on many a card in St James's, the tenth part of the
cost of some ducal dinner, or idle route at the West
End — the merest superfluity of languid wealth, would
have rescued this able and disastrous man from a pre-
BARRY. 273
mature grave, probably enriched the arts of England
by some pre-eminent memorial, and certainly cleared
a signal disgrace from the name of his country.
Barry had opened his work to public inspection be-
fore it was finished ; in the fantastic idea of deriving
benefit from general criticism, and perhaps, too, in that
eagerness for praise which makes the fever of the Arts.
Burke had, of course, visited this popular exhibition,
and he determined to give the artist the full advantage
of his advice. But probably his knowledge of the ca-
pricious brain with which he had to deal forced cau-
tion on him, and he wrote without a name. Anony-
mous letter-writing, generally an employ of peculiar
baseness, was never so honoured before. This letter,
marked by the eloquence of taste and truth, should be
preserved beside the painting. It forms a new dis-
course worthy of the authorship of Reynold's famous
volumes. It commences by unequivocally pronouncing
that the series " surpasses any work which has been
executed within these two centuries, and, considering
the diflicidties with which the artist has had to struggle,
any that is now extant." He then proceeds to lay
down his principles of the arts of design. His sen-
tences remind us continually of the author of the Sub-
lime and Beautiful. He first strongly insists on the
practical study of form. " Without an accurate know-
ledge of forms and colours, the most ha[)py power of
combining and abstracting will be useless. ♦ * * *
* * The painter who wishes to make his pictures
(what tine pictures must be) nafurc elevated and im-
274 LIFE OF BURKE.
proved, must first gain a perfect knowledge of nature
as it is. Before he endeavours, like Lysippus, to make
men what they ought to be, he must first know how
to render ihem as they are; he must acquire an accu-
rate knowledge of all the parts of the body and coun-
tenance. To know anatomy will be of little use, un-
less physiology and physiognomy are joined with it.
This is a science Avhich all the theories in the world
cannot teach. It is not by copying antique statues, or
by giving a loose to the imagination in what are called
poetical compositions, that artists will be enabled to
produce works of real merit, but by a laborious and
accurate study of nature upon the principles observed
by the Greeks — first, to make themselves thoroughly
acquainted with the common forms of nature; and
then, by selecting and combining, to form composi-
tions according to their own elevated conceptions.
This is the principle of true poetry, as well as of paint-
ing and sculpture. Homer and Shakspeare had pro-
bably never seen characters so strongly marked as
those of Achilles and Lady Macbeth; and yet we all
feel that those characters are drawn from nature. * *
* * * The taste may be the gift of nature, the skill
may be acquired by study, but the groundworks, the
knowledge of limbs and features, must be acquired by
practical attention."
One of the common outcries of the day is against
portrait-painting, as a narrow, feeble, and mechanical
drudgery. Burke was superior to this absurdity, and
his sentiments on the subject amount to more than a
CRITICISM ON PAINTINGS. 275
vindication, almost to a panegyric. That portrait-
painting," says he, " which you affect so much to de-
spise, is the best school that an artist can study, pro-
vided he studies it, as every man of genius will do,
with a philosophic eye. It w^as in this view that the
great painters of the Roman and Bolognese schools
collected such numbers of studies of heads from nature,
which they afterwards embellished and introduced into
their pictures, as occasion required. Hence that bound-
less variety which is observable in their works, the
want of which is the only material fault of your great
and masterly picture of the Olympic victors. * * * *
There is scarcely a countenance so vacant, but that
there are some features which may be of use to a skil-
ful artist. Portrait-painting may be to the painter,
what knowledge of the world is to the poet; provid-
ed he considers it as a school by whicli he is to ac-
f|uire the means of perfection in his art, and not as the
object of that perfection. It was practical knowledge
of th(! world that gave the poetry of Homer and JSiiak-
speare that superiority which still exists over all other
works of the same kind. It was a philoHophic atten-
tion to the imitation of common nature, (which por-
trait-painting ought t(j he,) that, gave the Roman and
Rolognese schools their superiority over the Floren-
tine, which excelled so much in lli(!oretic knowledge.
I entirely agree with you that the rage of (lie iidiabi-
tants of this country for having thiiir faces painted,
whether they are worthy of it or not, is the great ob-
stacle to the advancement of the art, because it makes
276 LIFE OF BURKE.
that branch more profitable than any other, and there-
fore makes many men of great talents consider it as
the ultimate object of their art, instead of the means of
that object. But there is an error on the contrary
side not less fatal, which is the contempt yomig artists
are apt to feel for the lower detail of nature, and the
forward ambition which they all have of undertaking-
great things before they can do little ones ; of making
compositions before they are acquainted sufficiently
with the constituent parts. We are told that many
ancient artists bestowed their whole lives on a single
composition. Such was Apollodorus, who made the
Laocoon ; and Lysimachus, who made the famous
Hercules, destroyed by the Crusaders at Constanti-
nople in the lt3th century. We are not to suppose
that these great artists employed so many years in
chipping one block of marble ; but that the greater part
of the time was employed in studying nature, particu-
larly the vast and intricate branches of physiology and
pathology, in order to execute perfectly the great
works which they had conceived.
" Those sciences are, in a manner, neglected by the
moderns, but the author of the Laocoon was as deep-
ly skilled in them as Haller or Gaubius, and hence he
has been able to give that consistency of expression
which prevails through the whole body, from the face,
through every muscle, to the ends of the toes and fing-
ers. I was once told by a person who had spent many
years in experiments and investigations of this kind,
that every discovery he had made disclosed to him fresh
CRITICISM ON PAINTINGS. 277
beauties in the wonderful group of Laocoon, and that
to understand it thoroughly, would require to know
more of the human body than most anatomists attempt
to know. It not enough to know the forms, positions,
and proportions of the constituent parts of the animal
machine ; but we should know the nice changes that
are produced in them by the various affections of the
mind, grief, agony, rage, &c. Without this we may
produce splendid compositions and graceful figures,
but we shall never approach that perfection to which
the ancients arrived."
lie then pronounces an opinion which will bring
him into disrepute with the ambitious portion of our
pictorial age. Michael Angelo and the Sistine Chapel
are in the lips of all our artists in historical painting,
and to rival the genius of the one, they seem to think
it essential to have the space of the other. Thus bold-
ness of effect is supposed to be synonymous with
breadth of canvass, and a picture is nothing unless it
realizes the fate of the Vicar of Wakefield's family-
piece. Barry was one of the most furious advocates
for the " (Jrand Style," and the lecture given to liim
by the master of taste may be irjiportant to all. " There
is another erroneous principle extremely general in the
present age, and a chief cause of our faulty taste. This
is the confounding greatness of size with greatness of
manner, and imagining that extent of canvass, or weight
of marble, can contribute towards making a picture or
statue sublime. The only kind of sublimity at which
a painter or sculptor should aim, is to express by cer-
278 LIFE OF BURKE.
tain proportions and positions of limbs and features
that strength and dignity of mind, and vigour and ac-
tivity of body, which enable men to conceive and execute
great actions. * * * * A space which extends beyond
the field of vision, only serves to distract the eye, and
divide the attention. The representation of gigantic
and monstrous figures has nothing of sublimity in
cither poetry or painting, which entirely depends upon
expression. When Claudian describes a giant taking
a mountain on his shoulders, with a river running down
his back, there is nothing sublime in it, for there is no
great expression, but merely brute strength. But
when Homer describes Achilles advancing to the walls
of Troy, clad in celestial armour, like the autumnal star
that brings fevers, plagues, and death, we see all the
terrible qualities of the hero, rendered still more ter-
rible by being contrasted with the venerable figure of
Priam, standing upon the walls of Troy, and tearing
his white hair at sight of the approaching danger. This
is the true sublime. '^Fhe other is all trick and quack-
cry. Any madman can describe a giant striding from
London to York, or a ghost stepping from mountain
to mountain. But it requires genius, and genius ex-
perienced in the ways of men, to draw a finished cha-
racter with all the excellences and excesses, the vir-
tues and infirmities of a great and exalted mind, so that
by turns we admire the hero, and sympathize with the
man, exult and triumph in his valour and generosity,
shudder at his rage, and pity his distress. This is the
Achilles of Homer, a character everywhere to be seen
CRITICISM ON PAINTINGS. 279
in miniature ; which the poet drew from nature, and
then touched and embellished according to his own
exalted ideas. Had he drawn him with great virtues
and great abilities, without great passions, tlie charac-
ter would have been unnatui'al, and of course uninte-
resting ; for a vigorous mind is as necessarily connect-
ed with violent passions, as a great fire with great
heat.
" The same principle which guided Homer should
guide the painter in studying after nature. He should
attempt to copy, and not to create. And when his
mind is sufficiently stored with materials, and his hand
sufficiently exercised in art, then let him select and
combine, and try to produce something superior to
common nature, though copied from it. But let him
not imagine tliat when he has covered a great extent
of canvass with bold and hasty sketches, he has pro-
duced a fine picture or sublime composition. Sucli
works, compared with the beautiful and animated
compositions of the Holognese school, i)ut me in mind
of Chuulian's battle of the giants compared with Vir-
gil's battle of the bees. ****** It is with great
concern that I have observed of late years this taste
for the false sublime gaining ground in England, and
particularly among artists. ****** Homer fi)rm-
<(1 the taste of the Greeks. The shielil of Achilles
contains all the beauties of picturesque composition
which have ever been imagined. IMiidias owned that
whatever expression of majesty lie bad been able to
give to his Jupiter, was owing to Homer. * * * *
280 LIFE OF BURKE.
* * I am persuaded that understanding Homer well,
would contribute more towards perfecting taste than
all the metaphysical treatises upon the arts that ever
have or can be written : because such treatises can only
tell what true taste is ; but Homer every where shews
it. He shews that the true sublime is always easy,
and always natural ; that it consists more in the man-
ner than in the subject, and is to be found by a good
poet or good painter, in almost every -part of nature !
****** xhe immoderate size of the pictures of
Polygnotus at Delphi was never looked on as worthy
of imitation in the more polished ages of Greece, but
only to be defended on account of the vast variety of
poetical beauties introduced by the genius of the artist.
The finest works of Apelles and Zeuxis were either
single figures, or compositions which did not exceed
three, or at most, five figures."
All this fine lesson was thrown away. Barry still
plunged from one error into another, railed at the pub-
lic for every suffering occasioned by his own pertina-
city, clamoured for painting by " acres and furlongs,"
was finally deserted by the world, and while he was
revolving the vengeance that he should take on an un-
grateful world in painting St Paul's, or in some equal
extravagance, was seized with sudden disease, exacer-
bated this disease by his vexation of heart, and died.
The French Revolution had now begun its course,
and the eyes of England in astonishment, and of the
Continent in terror, were attracted to its progress. In
CAUSE OF REPUBLICANISM. 281
the commencement all had been professed purity ; the
snow on the summit of the Alps was not whiter in the
estimate of the thousands and tens of thousands who
stood gazing at its first slide. But its primitive posi-
tion was soon left behind. Then came the mass, ga-
thering, rushing, and thundering, till all resistance
gave way, and it rolled down, sweeping strength and
weakness before it, ruining all that it reached, and co-
vering the ruins with a new weight of ruin, which
seemed to defy the labours of man. Burke's convic-
tions of this tremendous evil grew by the hour, and iii
speeches, pamphlets, and letters, he deprecated the in-
sane admiration of Jacobinism. We may well be as-
tonished that such admiration ever existed. Where
could be the wisdom of furious overthrow ? the secu-
rity of extinguishing all the habitual defences of states
against the violence of popular passion? the justice
of exposing the national property to rapine ? What
was to be expected from the future cultivation of the
political soil, when the first act was to break up the
shiices, and let loose the waters of pestilence and ste-
rility over it for years ? What was to be the answer
of Heaven to the olTerings of France, from altars where
the voice of liberty was mingled with dying agonies,
and where parricides and Atheists were the ministers
of the worship? But this was atime for the stripping of all
political professions. Tlic boasted friends of universal
freedom in England took upon themselves the client-
ship of the bloodiest tyranny ever known. The rage
of the Parisian mob found eager advocates among men
VOL. I. A a
282 LIFE OF BURKE.
proverbial for tlie hauglitiness of their aristocracy ; and
even the horrid defiances and blasphemous cries of ex-
asperation against England, and all that belonged to
the virtues of England, found defenders among men
whose watchword was patriotism, whose whole vigi-
lance was ostentatiously employed in exploring every
vestige of public vice in their own country, and whose
perpetual eloquence was lavished in praise of the imma-
culate values of the British Constitution.
The true spirit of the French Revolution has never
yet been fully developed. The French iiarrators of
its sullen and desperate career (for it has never found
a historian in France — the genius of the nation is un-
historic,) have assigned to it motives tinged by their
personal prejudices. The British writers* have been
essayists and pamphleteers, taking the cursory view
fitted to objects of the time. But, divesting that Re-
volution of its disguises, and viewing it with its whole
wild and frightful anatomy bare, its characteristics
have been neither love of freedom, nor revenge for
wrong. The spirit of French Jacobinism, and of all Jaco-
binism, is combined envy and rapine. The French popu-
lace and their leaders cared nothing for the insulted dig-
nity of religion, for the corruption of the law, for the
abstraction of the public revenues, or for the levities of
kings and courtiers. But they hated the rank which they
saw above them, whether virtuous or vicious; and
longed to grasp at the property of their superiors,
• Mr Alison's volumes must be excepted ; a work of knowledge,
manliness, and principle.
CAUSE OF REPUBLICANISM. 283
wl)ether earned by honour or dishonour. Not one in
a million of those who tore down the banners and es-
cutcheons of the French noblesse, who burned their
mansions and drank their blood, knew or cared whe-
ther they were more or less profligate than their mur-
derers. But they were their superiors ; they inherit-
ed a place in society which set them over the heads of
the clovrns, and the clowns were determined to have
the grinning triumph of tearing them down.
The cry against the French Clergy was not their
impurity or impiety, for individually they were popu-
lar ; and whether popular or not, the hadauds of Paris
and Versailles cared nothing for their virtues or vices.
The church income was the grand count in the in-
dictment, and on the strength of that they massacred
as many of them as they could seize, and banished the
remainder. In the war of the peasants against the no-
bility, it was not the gay man of fashion, or the se-
vere feudalist, whom they lield as the enemy; their
enemy was the possessor of the neighbouring' chateau,
the master of so many chariots and horses, the posses-
sor of so many services of plate. The rental was the
treason, and the plunder of all lliat he was worth, tin;
formal execution of national justice. No man in France,
thought that he would be the wiser, purer, or freer for
the murder of his King, but thousands and millions rv-
joiccdintbatmostremor.selessactofi)lood,asthetriiunpb
of their vanity : it made every beggar and bandit in
France as great as his King, for the time; and the sti-
mulant was enough with the legislators of the streets,
to urge them to the murder of every branch of the
284 LIFE OF BURKE.
Royal Family in their grasp. Such was the lesson of
rabble supremacy in France, and such would be the
example in England, if, in the vengeance of Heaven,
we should ever suffer its leaders to dictate to our Par-
liament, or domineer over the educated classes of the
Empire. With those teachers all change is rapine in
prospect ; and all patriotism consists in the art of pul-
ling down. Let England beware, for she will have
her trial yet ; the ground is shaking under her feet,
and nothing but the vigilance and vigour which saved
her before, under God, can save her again.
In all the great stages of public affairs, there is a
time when profession has done its work, and can do
no more. In the fable, the storm either blows away
the cloak, or fastens it closer ; in the first instance, it
was the encumbrance or the disguise, worn for either
vanity or deceit. Whiggism was now forced to exhi-
bit something of its actual form. Specious speeches
on general topics were no longer to be borne, at a
time when questions of national life and death were
busy. Voluble hypocrisy was to be suffered no
longer to flourish; facts of the deepest terror had come
to supersede the vague and shewy harangues through
whose medium all public principles were presented,
equally softened and divergent. The breaking out of
the French Rebellion was the dissolving of the spell
which had disguised the minds of men in and out of
Parliament. Every man's character was forced into
full and naked display, by the necessities of the struggle.
The two leading parties of the State now started asunder
by a more complete division than public exigency had
CAUSE OF REPUBLICANISM, 285
ever witnessed before ; the Revolution was the great
gulf between, denying access from either side, and
while it lay shooting up horrid flame, and startling the
eye and ear with the shapes and cries of torment, it
gave to both the image of that fate which awaited
weakness, perfidy, and perversion of the laws by which
nations are secure.
In this crisis Burke chose his way at once, and had
the high distinction of being the first to choose his way,
and to be the great guide of all that was sound and
pure in the nation, up the steep and difficult road of
public safety. He had his sacrifices, and his suscep-
tible and ardent nature was formed to feel the keen-
ness of those sacrifices ; loving public applause, strong-
ly affected by private friendship, sensitively alive to
the slightest imputation of dishonour, and by long ha-
bit attached to the party which he had sustained, guid-
ed, and adorned for twenty years, he had before him
only the altoniatlve of abandoning all, or adopting the
Revolution. His choice was soon made. He gave
up his feelingH, to retain his principles ; threw the
cause of party overboard, to welcome the cause of iiu-
mankind ; and in both acheived the highest honour
that it is in the competence of a statesman or a com-
monwealth to obtain or to confer.
The process of separation was rapid. Ho had al-
ready fixed the brand on flu; abettors of France, by
pronouncing their plaudits " a tolerance of crime, an
absurd partiality to abstract follies and practical wicked-
ness." In those expressions, he chiefly adverted to
286 LIFE or BURKE.
the herd of obscure writers, who, from the first out-
break of French violence, had virulently aspersed the
Church and King- of England. It was among the igno-
rant, jealous, and envenomed brood, lingering on the
confines of Christianity and infidelity, that the atroci-
ties of the French Revolution found their most perti-
nacious defenders. The great body of the British
people had rejected and loathed it, from the moment
when it began to be stained with blood. But the new
illuminate only loved it the more; identified themselves
with its progress at every fresh iniquity ; clung to
every sanguinary rag that fluttered round its frame ;
and boasting themselves the elect of religion and free-
dom, proclaimed day and night the praises of a tyranny
that denounced the immortality of the soul, that wor-
shipped a drunken profligate from the streets, and that
realized its doctrines of equality, by plundering all
alike, and sending the plundered to the promiscuous
scatf"old.
CHAPTER XIII.
Debate on the Army Estimates — Burke's Schism with Fox — and
with Sheridan — Publication of the celebrated " Reflections"
Public honours to its Writer — Visit of Paine to England — Pitt's
Views of the Revolution.
The debate on the Army Estimates, (5th and 9th
February, 1790,) gave the first decided evidence of
the faUcn spirit which liad entered into the councils of
Opposition. In the debate of the 5th, Fox, after a
lonf>- panegyric on the glories of subversion, had the
hardihood to pronounce a direct eulogium on the re-
volt of the French Guards. He was met by the na-
tural result — a storm of r('prol)ation from the insulted
feelings of the House. lu the debate of the 9th,
IJurkc spoke, first adverting to the danger of such
opinions coining from the authority of such a name.
Then entering at large into the <juestion of Di^nid-
cracy, he delivered those innnortal sentiments which
were to be the sounding of a trumpet to all the gencf-
rous sympathies of England. While the House was
suspended ill admiration of the magnilicent enthusiasm
with which be imagined the grandeur and security of
a Revolution founded, like that of 1G88, on the true
rights of human nature; he suddenly turned toitsvio-
288 LIFE OF BURKE.
lent contrast in the tumults and crimes of French li-
berty. He declared that he had never loved despotism
in any land ; he had not loved it the more for its be-
ing in France. But there was a despotism more dread-
ful than ever was wielded by the monarch of any ci-
vilized people ; and " that was the despotism of a plun-
dering, ferocious, bloody, tyrannical democracy, de-
mocracy without a single virtue of republicanism to
redeem its crimes. This was so far from being worthy
of imitation, as had been said by his honourable friend,
that it was worthy of all abhorrence ; that he would
spend his last breath, the last drop of his blood, he
would quit his best friends^ and join his most avowed
enemies, to oppose the least influence of such a spirit
in England." This declaration was received with loud
applause by the great majority of the House. Pitt
himself was among the loudest in its praise. He said,
that " former differences could not preclude him from
giving his highest admiration, and expressing his
strongest feelings of gratitude and reverence for the
speaker of those sentiments ; sentiments which would
be received with the greatest esteem by his country,
and which would give down his name to posterity with
the most distinguished respect and honour."
In this memorable debate, from which is to be dated
the final schism of the Whigs, Fox half redeemed his
original error by the temperance with which he bore
his rebuke. The question had evidently come to the
point of individual feelings, and his reply chiefly ad-
verted to the position which Burke had individually
SCHISM WITH FOX. 289
taken. His speech was almost a panegyric. He de-
clared, " that he had ever entertained the highest ve-
neration for the judgment of his honourable friend;
by whom he had been instructed more than by all other
men and books together; by whom he had been taught
to love our Constitution ; from whom he had acquired
nearly all his political knowledge, all, certainly, which
was most essential, and which he most valued. His
speech on that day, some arguments and observations
excepted, was one of the wisest and most brilliant
Mights of oratory ever delivered in that House ; still,
with all those admissions, his opinions on the general
subject continued the same." Burke accepted of those
civilities in a few polite expressions ; and it has been
the opinion of writers on this period, that all might
have been reconciled once more, but for the petulance
of Sheridan. But tliis opinion seems to be grounded
rather on the habits of private life than of party. The
open quarrels of j)ublic men are indications less of per-
sonal resentment tban of divided views. It was im-
possible that Burke and Fox, after this full announce-
ment of tlieir opinions, could ever cordially agree in
their parliamentary course. 'I'lie separation was al-
ready complete. Slieridan's baste and heat only hur-
ried the overt act. He had fancied, or real, motives
for hostility. His ambition was thwarted by tlie high
respect paid to Burke by all the graver and more in-
fluential heads of the party. The habits, too, of a man
like Burke, virtuous and dignllicMl, were silent re-
proaches to the loose morals, notorious profusion, and
VOL. I. J5 b
290 IJFE OF BURKE.
negligent principles of Sheridan. On this occasion
he used his strongest epithets to fan the sunken fires
of debate, charged Burke with " deserting from the
camp, with assaulting the principles of freedom itself;
with defending despotism ; and with loving to obtrude
liiniselfas the libeller of liberty abroad." Burke rose,
less irritated than indignant, and loftily expressed his
distaste for "language which ought to have been spared,
were it only as a sacrifice to the ghost of departed
friendsliip ; though the language itself was not new to
him, it was but a repetition of what was to be perpe-
tually heard at the reforming clubs and societies with
which the honourable gentleman had lately become
entangled, and for whose plaudits he had chosen to
sacrifice his friends, though he might in time find that
the value of such praise was not worth the price at
which it was purchased. Henceforward, they were
separated in politics fur ever."
The schism with Sheridan was, of course, beyond
all cure. But the obvious consequences of public dis-
sension to the interests of the party so forcibly struck
the minds of its principal members, that active means
were tried to reconcile two individuals of such impor-
tance ; and among those was a meeting at Burlington
House, at which the Duke of Portland, Fox, Burke,
and others of consideration, were present. The discus-
sion continued from ten at night until three in the
morning, with a remarkable display of ability on both
sides, and closed, as might have been predicted, with-
out satisfying either. The verdict, however, was so.
BUUKE's " REFLECTIONS." '291
amply given in favour of Burke, that Sheridan took
offence with his party, and for nearly a year drew
back from Parliamentary business, in vexation or dis-
dain.
Burke had now taken his side. He had come foi-
ward as the restorer of Whigg-ism to the principles of
its ancient and better days ; the championship of the
Constitution. And he was now to shew the powers
by which he was qualified to unfurl the banner of pa-
triotic virtue.
He soon gave proof of himself in a work which in-
stantly threw all rivalry into the shade, the memorable
" Reflections on the Revolution of France," a work
which has seen no equal since its day in knowledge,
eloquence, or insight into the tortuous spirit of party
abroad and at home ; yet still more distinguished by
that foreseeing and vigorous conception of the revolu-
tionary career, which makes the whole amount to the
most magniHceut political prophecy ever given to the
world. This groat performance had been constructed
on a largo series of papers and memoranda made by its
author from the commencement of the Revolution.
But that period itself had been brief; and to have ma-
tured those views, from July, 178J), to February, 17!)(>,
when liis volume was probably begun, implied the
gigantic diligence; ol Burke. The announcement that
it was in progress, excited the strongest literary and
public curiosity; and he himself alluded to it in his
correspondence as " deeply occupying and agitating
him." It was laboured with even more than his ha-
292 LIFE OF BURKE.
bitual care of composition ; and large portions of it
wererecomposed, or revised, until his printer, Dodsley,
remonstrated. But this frequency of correction in
Burke was the result, not of its usual cause, feeble
fastidiousness, or rhetorical effeminacy ; it flowed from
the richness of his resources. The fragments of his
manuscripts which remain, shew that not words but
things were the objects of his revision. At every
fresh return some fine idea found enlargement ; some
strong feeling was invigorated ; some masculine moral
was aggrandized into universal application, and colour-
ed into poetic beauty. To speak of the literary
triumphs of such a work would be a humiliation. Its
objects were of a higher rank than any within the little
ambition of such fame as is to be awarded by criticism.
It was a great republication of the orginal feelings of
a country manly and virtuous enough to have establish-
ed for itself a British Constitution. It was a manifesto
of law, truth, and religious obligation, against bound-
less license, ferocious perfidy, and the most desperate
avowal of national blasphemy that had ever shocked
the ears of mankind. It was a great appeal from the
virtues of nature and nations against the subversion of
every right, happiness, and principle of society.
The mere circulation of this work was unexampled.
Within the first year, 19,000 copies were sold in Eng-
land, and 13,000 in France. The writer received
testimonies of public feeling from every quarter of
Europe ; many of those testimonies from the highest
authority. The Sovereigns, assembled soon after at
PUBLIC HONOURS TO BURKF. '293
Pilnitz, transmitted to hira an expression of their
thanks and admiration. The French Princes at Cob-
lentz complimented him through M. Cazales. The
Empress Catherine transmitted her thanks by the
Russian Ambassador, Count Woronzow. George the
Third, ordered a number of copies to be richly bound,
which he gave to those individuals to whom he desired
to pay peculiar honour, saying, in his plain but expres-
sive way, " that it was a book which every gentleman
ought to read." Stanislaus, the King of Poland, sent
him a gold medal with his effigy, and a letter written
in English, which, he gracefully said, was the only
language fit to convey his opinion of a work of so much
talent and virtue.
Burke had boon educated at the University of Dub-
lin. That learned body, justly proud of having produced
such a pupil, now came forward, and conferred the
degree of l^L.D. upon him, a proceeding which dirl
equal honour to the University and to Burke ; fol-
lowing up the degree by an address, presented in a
gold box, " in gratitude for his services as the power-
ful advocate of the Constitution, the friend of jtublic
order, virtue, and the happiness of mankind ; and in
testimony of the high respect entertained by the Uni-
versity for the various endowments of his capacious
mind, ami for bis superior abilities." A full-length
portrait of him was aftoruards placed in tlic 'Hioatre
of the College among the most eminent sons of his
Alma Mater. The resident graduates of Oxford were
the next to offer their fiibuto, in a long and eloquent
294 LIFE OF BURKE.
address, transmitted through Mr Windham. The
conclusion of this paper was equally panegyrical and
true. " As memhers of an University, whose Institu-
tions embrace every useful and ornamental part of learn-
ing, we should esteem ourselves justified in making-
this address, if we had only to offer you our thanks for
the valuable accession which the stock of our litera-
ture has received by the publication of your important
* Reflections.' But we have higher objects of consi-
deration, and nobler motives to gratitude. We are
persuaded that we consult the real and permanent in-
terests of this place, when we acknowledge the emi-
nent service rendered to both our civil and religious
Constitution, by your able and disinterested vindica-
tion of their true principles. And we obey the yet
more sacred obligation to promote the cause of reli-
gion and morality, Avhen we give this proof, that we
honour the advocate by whom they are so eloquently
and effectually defended."
From the Continent praise continued to pour in upon
him. The Archbishop of Aix, and the expatriated
French clergy, acknowledged their obligations in the
most ardent language, and " rejoiced, that, in the first
orator of England, they had found their defender."
His name became synonymous on the Continent with
the preservation of civil polity. But perhaps the high-
est, though the most melancholy of all those tributes,
the tribute which he would have at once most honour-
ed, and most lamented, was given by the feelings of the
illustrious and unhappy Marie Antoinette. In the midst
HONOURS TO BURKE. 295
of those horrid scenes which darkened the final hours
of royalty in France, the Queen read the " Reflec-
tions," with an interest such as we may well conceive
could have been experienced by herself alone. The
eloquent compliments to her grace and beauty might
have pleased the consciousness of a woman eminent
for both ; but the fearful power of its pictures of re-
bellion, of the impending ruin of royalty, and the wild
influx of evil that was yet to execute vengeance on the
Revolution, created impressions which the Royal Mar-
tyr could acknowledge only by frequent tears, if not
by the still higher acknowledgment of that confirmed
dignity and Christian courage, which sustained her pri-
son hours, and made her, even on the scattbld, supe-
rior to the malice of her enemies.
In England the voice of the whole body of csta-
l)lished literature was loud in praise of the " Re-
rioctions.'' Burke had sent his \olume, before it was
printed, to Sir Joshua Ueynohls ; from whose genius
he covdd borrow nothing, but of whose taste, sober-
ness of mind, and knowledge of human nature, he had
deservedly a high opinion. Reynolds, in rctin-ning it,
expressed the strongest sense of its value. But a less
suspected testimony tbau thatol'lriendsliip was given by
Ciibbon, keen and sarcastic as he was, smarting under a
sense of otficial loss, adverse in politics, and fatally blind-
ed in bis conceptions of Christianity. After having ac-
knowledged thathelooked for tbeappcaranceof the work
with avidity, and read it with eager delight, *' Burke's
hook," said he, '* is a most admirable medicine against
296 LIFE OF BURKE.
the disease of French principles. I admire his elo-
quence. I approve his politics. I adore his chivalry.
And I can almost forgive his reverenceyor Church Es-
tablishments"
Erskine, overcome by truth and kindred genius, at
once threw aside his Whig garb, and shewed himself
the Tory, that every man of honour and ability is by
nature. " I shall take care," said he, " to put Burke's
work on the French Revolution into the hands of those
whose principles are left to my formation. I shall
take care that they have the advantage of doing, in the
regular progression of youthful studies, what I have
done even in the short intervals of laborious life ; that
they shall transcribe with their own hands, from all
the works of this most extraordinary person, and from
this last, among the rest, the soundest truths of reli-
gion, the justest principles of morals, inculcated and
rendered delightful by the most sublime eloquence;
the highest reach of philosophy brought down to the
level of common minds by the most captivating taste ;
the most enlightened observations on history, and the
most copious collection of useful maxims for the expe-
rience of common life; and separate for themselves the
good from the bad."
But the complete tribute is not given to wisdom or
virtue, \mtil they are assailed by folly and vice. The
" Reflections" roused the whole host of treason ;
as the daylight, suddenly let into the haunt of a gang
of profligates and plunderers, instantly startles them
all. The whole generation of disloyalty, the whole
TAINE's visit to ENGLAND. 297
bitter and obscure tribe, which, too mean for public
station, had gratified their malignity by a succession ot"
reptile attacks on the principles of the Constitution
which they professed to venerate ; the whole festering
and corrupted pamphleteering of England, was enve-
nomed into new attempts to infect and debase the pub-
lic mind, by the consciousness that their extinction was
at hand. Tlieir Dagon had been crushed on the
groundsil edge, and the whole impure and infamous
priesthood of imposture clamoured against the over-
throw. The names of those pamphleteers, totally un-
worthy of remembrance for their literature, and doubly
degraded by its use, have perished too long and too
completely to be now revived. Paine alone is remem-
bered, and he alone, for his conspicuous iniquity. The
remnants of the master-atheist, libertine, and rebel,
still protrude themselves from the ignominious grave.
Burke had been drawn into some previous inter-
course with Paine. As one of the penalties of party ;
American principles, reform, and the loose contempt
ol all forms of worshij), which is pronounced Univer-
sal Toleration, were among the stigmas, which tlie
fair fame of this eminent person was presumed by
strangers to inherit. Thomas Paine, in 1787, liad
brought with him a letter from Laurens, who had been
indebted to Hurke for services in his liberation frotii
the Tower in 1781. Tlio Ex-Prchident's letter intro-
duced him as an ingenious person, wishing to make
some of his mechanical contrivances known in Eng-
land. Painc's pam])hlet, " Common Sense," had given
VOL. I. CO
298 LIFE OF BURKE.
liim some literary distinction at home, and he was re-
ceived with Burke's usual kindness, at his house,
carried by him during a summer excursion through the
iron founderies of the north, and introduced to seve-
ral men of rank in London. Politics had been pro-
fessedly abjured by Paine, his whole attention was
given to the construction of iron bridges, and for the
purpose of gaining some additional information in the
office of the ^^ ponts et chausseesy' he subsequently went
to Paris. But there he found again the element of dis-
order in which he was formed to live. He had quitted
America from the subsidence of the storm. In France
he found the tossing and the thunders, the fury of a
revolutionary tempest, to which the wildest convul-
sions of his Transatlantic Commonwealth were calm.
To the angry and envenomed heart of Paine the pro-
spect of civil rage was irresistible. At once vain, pro-
fligate, and malignant, he saw the full indulgence of
his nature in a country where the infatuated violence
of the mob had broken down all the barriers to obscure
ambition, impure pleasure, and personal vindictiveness.
Europe could not have offered a more various banquet
to an epicure in evil, and he sat down to it, resolved
to feed to the full. One of his first acts was to invite
his English friends to share the feast. With a zeal which
must have singularly blindedhimto character, among his
earliest missives was a letter to Burke, whom he eager-
ly urged to introduce Revolution into England, by its
established name of " Reform." Burke threw back
the temptation, or the insult, at once. " Do you real^
PAINE's visit to ENGLAND. 299
ly imagine, Mr Paine," was his reply, " that the con-
stitution of this kingdom requires such innovations, or
could exist with them, or that any rejlecting man ivould
seriously engage in them ? You are aware that I have,
all my life, opposed such schemes of reform, hecause
Iknexo them not to he Reform f" Paine, however, con-
tinued his ill-received correspondence ; and whether
from the delight of molesting Burke, or the expecta-
tion of making him a convert to a side which had the
grand charm for the conviction of his own profli-
gate heart, plunder ; he sent him narratives of the
rapidly recurring triumphs of democracy. In one
of those he stated, that the Reformers had already
determined on the total overthrow of the monar-
chy ; that to carry their principles of subversion into
complete agency, they were prepared to involve all
France in civil war, " to set fire to the four cor-
ners of France," that the army was thorougidy cor-
rupted, and at the disposal of the revolutionary leaders ;
and tiiat no resistance would be made by it to the ut-
termost designs of the new regenerators of their coun-
try. It is to be rL'mend>ered that, this letter was
written while the whole body of professional patriotism
in England was applauding the purity and moderation
of France ; while the voice of Fox was loud in West-
minster pledging himsidf by every bond of bbxtd miuI
honourto the constitutional int(!grity of Frenchpolitics;
and while the whole body ofWhiggism in i'arliament,
followed by every club, tavern, and corresponding so-
ciety, was echoing the sound. Sucli is the foresight.
300 LIFE OF BURKE.
or the sincerity of party. The letter was written ex-
actly three clays before the storming of the B a stile !
There is no principle more capable of proof, thaia
that great public changes must have great causes. In
private life the most signal act of guilt may be the
work of the briefest time and the lowest instrument.
But the revolution which overthrows the ancient power
of a kingdom, which reverses the whole venerable in-
stitute of a civilized community, and casts up a new
shape of society in the spot where the old sank down,
must be the work of long years and large instrumen-
tality. It must not be forgotten, as a lesson to the
morality of nations, that the Revolution of France
was no more the original labour of the furious mobs
and frantic leaders of Paris, than the axe which fell
upon the neck of the unfortunate King, was then first
dug from the mine. It had been maturing for a hun-
dred years. Louis XIV., by the perfidious revocation
of the edict of Nantes, had commenced that long course
of public crime which was to continue until the land
loathed itself, and the penalty of universal corruption
was to be paid in universal ruin. The exile of Protest-
antism from France in 1685 extinguished at once the
security of the French throne, and the morality of the
French people. The King having thus degraded his
rank by an act of intolerable treachery, and offended all
the true interests of his kingdom by the exile of its
most active, intelligent, and virtuous race, proceeded to
i-ouse the alarm of all the European Sovereigns, by the
declared projectsof aggrandisement to which this violent
4
FRENCH REVOLUTION. 301
measui-e was the preliminary ; thus at once embittering
the feelings of mankind against himself as the most cruel
of persecutors, and the most treacherous of princes.
The atrocity of this breach of faith was instantly
avenged on the chief criminal. The most furious war
that Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman Em-
pire, was let loose upon France. It devastated the
kingdom for nearly a quarter of a century ; beginning
within four years from the revocation, and continuing
until tiie close of the War of the Succession in 1713.
The peace of Ryswic in 1607, was scarcely an inter-
val of this deadly struggle ; at best but a hollow truce,
with all the rankling spirit and costly preparation of
war.
The first blow of vengeance had now been given.
But a deeper judgment was to follow. The extinction
of the Scriptures in France had been a direct conse-
quence of the exile of Protestantism. The total cor-
ruption of morals was an ocjually direct conseijuence of
the loss of the great guide of morality. The whole frame
of society rajjidly became a mass of disease. The Court
of Louis and his successor was the leader in all profli-
gacy, the nobility followed its example. The citizens,
though excluded from the ofbcrs an<I honours of the
nobility, exhibited a full emulation of their vices. The
peasantry were divided between licentiousness and su-
perstition. Sensuality was the national system.
Burke had long looked with strong anxiety to the
cause of France. His love for the splmdid aspect of
things had naturally fixed his eyes on a nation eminent
VOL. I. J) d
302 LIFE OF BUUKE.
in all that constitutes the decoration of life. He there
found the most showy exterior that society ever dis-
played in Europe;' a brilliant court, an army that
ranked among- the fii'st in romantic courage, great li-
terary institutions, which upheld the dignity of know-
ledge on a more extended scale than had ever yet been
sustained by the wise libei'ality of monarchs, or the
generous devotement of their people ; a church esta-
blishment of great power, opulence, and patronage,
exhibiting the only remnant of freedom in the Romish
world, and legislating often in disregai'd, sometimes in
defiance, of Rome ; the finest drama, itself the finest
portion of popular literature, forming the peculiar de-
light of France, and modelling the national manners
into that mixture of courtesy, sentiment, and elegance,
which required only a firmer groundwork in the public
morals, to have fixed the highest order of civilisation
in the land. There too he saw that great and indispen-
sable element of national strength, the largest and most
concentrated population of European kingdoms, twenty-
six millions of the most active and ardent, the most
elastic and electric of mankind, the most jealous of
their fame, the proudest of their country, the most
devoted to their King ; enthusiasts in all things, in
loyalty, in literature, in glory. But there was a side
of fearful darkness to the orb which thus threw splen-
dour over Europe, a phase which was already turning,
and which, soon sullen and blood-dyed, shewed France
and her fortunes only as a phenomenon of terror and
ruin iu the horizon. A desperate corruption of prin-
3
Pitt's views of the revolution. 303
ciple, suddenly divided the whole nation between
atheistic politicians and infuriate soldiers ; all alike
susceptible of every reckless impulse ; burning for
possession, and careless of the price ; furious with in-
fidelity, and frenzied with the hope of unlimited do-
minion.
The sagacity even of the great British minister was
not yet awakened to the consequences of intercourse
with a people in this state of political ignition. He felt
a natural reluctance to rouse the flame by any attempt
to extinguish it, while it restricted its ravages to the
feeble or decayed parts of the French Constitution ;
and it would be the highest injustice, not merely to the
moral dignity of such men as Pitt and Burke, but to
that understanding which no man ever denied to
either, to believe that they would not have rejoiced in
the clearance of the French monarchy from all that im-
peded tiie general health of the national mind ; in the
sweeping away of every weed and bramble which had
grown round the great trunks of the constitution, and
letting light and air into every dark and contagious
corner of the State. But the difference of their views
arose wlien the practical hazard of the neighbouring
nations came to be tlie (juestion. I^tt was un(loubte<lly
opposed to war. His project was to extinguish the
conflagration by leaving it to prey ujion itself, and pe-
rish for want of materials. Burke's more vivid ajipre-
henslon of danger, and more prophetic anticipation of
the event, saw that its nature was, to spread; that no
dexterity of restraint could keep the fire from bursting
304 LIFE OF BURKE.
over the broadest boundaries which human policy could
raise, and that nothing but trampling out the sources
of the evil could limit its devastation. But Burke
owed this wisdom to a more direct teacher than his
political experience. His profound knowledge of hu-
man nature, taught by a long struggle through the
chances and varieties of middle life, and acquainting
him with feelings and tendencies to which the reserved
and lofty career of Pitt gave no access, rendered him
singularly susceptible on all subjects connected with
the temptations of the popular mind. Pitt, educated
in the privacy of his noble father's study, had scarcely
looked upon general life, when he was summoned to
what might almost be called, the seclusion of the Ca-
binet. His business thenceforward lay among those
high concerns in which the mind and habits of men all
present themselves under their highest, yet their most
unnatural, aspect. His associates and agents were am-
bassadors, generals, the great officers of Government,
and the leaders of party. Life passed before him in a
perpetual full-dress. All was grave, premeditated, and
formal — a grand pageant of Court uniforms, in which
the shape of every man's mind was in some degree dis-
guised by the etiquette of his station. With him too,
all that was not the Cabinet, was the Legislature. It
would, of course, be absurd to doubt that, to the pier-
cing intellect of the greatest minister that England ever
saw, human nature could be altogether hidden. But
it is beyond all question, that the difficulties of humbler
life are essential to the full knowledge of human cha-
4
Pitt's views of the revolution. 305
racter ; and that the free exposure of human motives
is to be found only where men have neither hope
nor fear to urge them to disguise. No original pene-
tration can discover the countenance of society in the
great masquerade of public life ; with the certainty and
ease of him who meets it when the mask is thrown
aside. Thus, while Pitt was solicitous only for the
results of the French Revolution among the sove-
reigns, Burke fixed his intense vision on its progress
among the people. While the Minister looked to the
undiminished security of thrones, and argued from their
strength, that the day of general danger was distant;
Burke pointed nervously to the movement ampng the
multitude. To hira the pamphlets, the ballads, the
rambling oratory of the taverns, the weakest whispers
of treason, were the materials of conclusions freighted
with the fates of empire. He took his auguries from
every wing that Hitted across the Heaven.
END OF VOLUME FIRST.
riiiNU(tK(;ii :
nilNTED BV JOHN STARK, OLD ASSEMUI.Y CLUSC.
SoQ
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