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 ^- ^uu
 
 A LECTURE^ 
 
 ON THE 
 
 
 WRITINGS, 
 
 AND 
 
 LITERARY AND PERSONAL CHARACTER 
 
 OP THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE, 
 
 DELIVERED AT SEVERAL 
 
 METROPOLITAN LITERARY INSTITUTIONS, 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED A. FRY, ESQ. 
 
 OF LINCOLN S INN. 
 
 " The writings of Burke remain on record as an inheritance to the most 
 distant posterity." — I^rskine. 
 
 " A philosophical review of Burke's speeches and writings, keeping his 
 politico as his inferior gift in the background, would serve for the subject of 
 an useful and interesting discussion." — Butler's Reminiscences. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HENRY HOOPER, PALL MALL, EAST. 
 
 1838
 
 1 JM^AO • VV-'- « 
 
 t. .     ' -■ 
 
 London; paiNTED by a. hancock, 
 
 MIDDLE ROW PLACE, HOLBORN.
 
 J-IBRAKY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BABBAEA 
 
 TO 
 
 ARTHUR HILL, ESQ. 
 
 MY INSTRUCTOR AND MY FRIEND, 
 1 DEDICATE 
 
 THIS LECTURE; 
 
 AS A SINCERE, THOUGH HUMBLE, 
 
 MEMORIAL, 
 
 OF MY 
 
 GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM. 
 
 ALFRED A. FRY.
 
 The Lecture which is now respectfully submitted to the 
 Public, through the medium of the Press, was delivered 
 by the Author, during the last few months, at eight of the 
 Metropolitan Literary Institutions. The flattering recep- 
 tion which it met on those occasions the Author is fully 
 conscious was due, rather to the interesting nature of the 
 subject, and the kind indulgence of the respectable and in- 
 telligent assemblies which he had the honour to address, 
 than to any intrinsic merit in the Lecture. He ventures, 
 however, to hope, that the work now printed may be found 
 useful to the young student in his meritorious labours, and 
 may tend in some degree to familiarize some portion of 
 his countrymen with the literary merits and intellectual 
 powers of Edmund Burke. 
 
 Chancery Lane^ May, 1838.
 
 LECTURE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 WHITINGS OF EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 1 HE Institution whose members I have now the honour 
 of addressing, is entitled " Literary and Scientific." The 
 pledge conveyed to its subscribers and the public by that 
 title, is amply redeemed by the mode in which its pro- 
 ceedings are conducted. Moral Philosophy and General 
 Literature alternate with the Physical Sciences, in afford- 
 ing subjects for public lectures ; and those inquiries which 
 necessarily demand the aid of philosophical apparatus 
 for their due comprehension and explanation, have no 
 unfair preference awarded them by the Directors of this 
 Institution. Deeply indebted, indeed, as every such society 
 must be, to the highly intelligent men by whom such in- 
 quiries are so conducted, this Chair, however, I confess I 
 see with pleasure, is not all their own. I have ever thought 
 that " Letters" and " Morals" contain as appropriate sub- 
 jects for public lectures as the Physical Sciences; subjects 
 which are not only of great importance, but deeply inter- 
 esting to every human being of sound mind and feeling ; 
 some of them almost as remote from ordinary specu- 
 lation, as the recondite theories on the tides or the abstruse 
 calculations of La Place. And not only may they be out of 
 the usual track of the mind's course, but even if they have 
 been speculated upon, the difficulty of learning the proper 
 mode of pursuing the inquiry, or of ascertaining the proper 
 books for that purj)ose, may be as great as that of following 
 the discoveries of Davy, Dalton, or Faraday, from the want 
 of chemical or electrical apparatus. If it be objected, as I 
 believe it often has been, that the student may acquire a 
 thorough knowledge of such subjects by reading, and that 
 the retirement of the closet is indeed better adapted to 
 their investigation ; I reply in the language of Gibbon, \_3Te- 
 
 B
 
 6 
 
 moirs,] that " there is a material difference between s 
 " book and a professor ; the hour of the Lecturer enforces 
 " attendance, attention is fixed by his voice, presence and 
 " delivery ; the most idle will carry something away, and 
 " the more diligent will compare the instructions which 
 '' they have received with the volumes which they peruse 
 ** in their chamber/' It must be admitted, however, that 
 the Lecturer on such subjects labours under comparative 
 disadvantage arising from the nature of his appeal, 
 which, unassisted by practical experimen ts and dia- 
 grams, is addressed to the reason and imagination, rather 
 than the senses, of his audience. He, therefore, necessarily 
 trusts to the interest which must be felt by every intelligent 
 mind in those subjects, and confidently does so while deeply 
 impressed with the important truths admirably announced 
 by Leo X. in the Patent [See Roscoe's Leo x. vol, ii. c. 
 xi.] conferring the exclusive privilege of printing the first 
 complete edition of Tacitus, the MSS. of which, were first 
 collected and ushered into the world at his own great expense, 
 by that munificent and classic Pontiff. He there justifies 
 his noble devotion of the revenues of the Roman See to the 
 advancement of Literature, in language truly worthy of So- 
 vereigns, but which has unfortunately not often proceeded, 
 at least sincerely, from their lips. He says, " Amongst the 
 " other objects of our attention since we have been raised 
 " by Divine goodness to the Pontifical dignity, and devoted 
 " to the government and extension of the Christian Church, 
 " we have considered those pursuits as not the least im- 
 " portant which lead to the promotion of literature and 
 " useful arts ; for we have been accustomed even from our 
 " early years to think that nothing more excellent or more 
 " useful has been given by the Creator to mankind, if we ex- 
 " cept only the knowledge and true worship of Himself, than 
 " these studies, which not only lead to the ornament and 
 guidance of human life, but are applicable and useful to 
 every particular situation; in adversity consolatory, in 
 prosperity pleasing and honourable, insomuch, that with- 
 out them we should be deprived of all the grace of life 
 and all the polish of society." 

 
 One subject connected with these interesting inquiries, 
 and peculiarly deserving the attention of such an Institution 
 as the present, appears to me to be an examination of the 
 literary character and writings of Edmund Burke ; one of 
 that brilliant constellation of luminaries who have shed 
 such a lustre over their native isle, by not only contributing 
 to her literary glories, but by taking a distinguished part in 
 her public councils and administration. Few exercises, 
 indeed, can be more improving, as few can be more interest- 
 ing, than that gf following great men of this description 
 through their elevated existence ; regarding them from afar 
 in reverence, but still with the sympathy which makes us 
 feel that each of us may gather from some portion of their 
 lives and works some useful lesson for his conduct — some 
 instruction for his understanding, and some improvement 
 of his feelings. The study of the material wonders of crea- 
 tion, of animal and vegetable life, is replete with in- 
 terest and instruction ; but I cannot be prevailed upon 
 to think that mechanical, chemical, anatomical, or physio- 
 logical qualities deserve our attention, or should excite our 
 curiosity, like the contemplation of the mental and moral 
 characteristics of our species. Well, in my opinion, did 
 Aurungzebe reprove his master in after life for not having 
 taught him the true philosophy, " the knowledge," as he 
 expresses it, " o(w/iat tve are." [St. Joluis edit, of Locke's 
 Education, 132, note.l If, then, " the proper study 
 of mankind be man," the noblest portion of that study must 
 surely be the characteristics of illustrious men; nor, in a 
 literary institution can any department of knowledge, more 
 useful, entertaining, or elevating, engage the attention of its 
 members than the biographies of men whose immortal 
 pages have instructed and delighted their race. Such in- 
 stitutions as this are, indeed, the appropriate temples where 
 perpetual homage should be rendered to the memory of 
 such men. Here should the incense ascend, and here their 
 lo Paeans should be sung ! You should imitate the great re- 
 publics of antiquity who appointed rhapsodists to recite at 
 stated periods the poems of Homer,— you should imitate the 
 noble example of the merchant princes of the family of the
 
 8 
 
 Medici, who supported, at their own private charge, puWic 
 lecturers on Plato, We must not, however, bow with the 
 blind and headlong zeal of devotees ; but before we award 
 such honours, should decide with the dignified impartiality 
 of judges. And, indeed, in one respect I cannot help feeling 
 strongly reminded by such an assembly as the present, of 
 the Egyptian custom which forbad to the kings the rites 
 of sepulture until solemnly decreed after a posthumous trial 
 by appointed judges of the State. TFe are now pursuing a 
 similar inquipy, and are considering how far Edmund Burke 
 is justly deserving of a title to immortal fame, brighter and 
 more enduring far than any which can be conferred by 
 pyramidal monuments on departed monarchs ! 
 
 This celebrated man, the son of an Irish Solicitor, 
 was born at Dublin, in the year 1730, and died in 1796. 
 He lived in a most eventful period of the world's history, 
 and was a conspicuous actor in its most conspicuous scenes. 
 A new Augustan era was created in literature ; the par- 
 liament was engaged in most important discussions on its 
 privileges ; the country was agitated to its centre by a 
 public impeachment of six years duration, and of sur- 
 passing interest, to which it is in vain to seek a perfect 
 parallel in the whole records of history; and the civilized 
 world was astounded by two successive and stupendous re- 
 volutions in America and France, of which the first has pro- 
 duced more enduring political effects than any other single 
 event in man's annals ; and the second was the alter- 
 nate object of the hopes and fears of Europe, and even yet 
 continues to divide men's minds on the preponderance of 
 its curses or its blessings. It would be difficult to find an 
 era more marked by great events. Some of them are un- 
 exampled; and in all Edmund Burke bore, at least, a pro- 
 minent part Whatever may be thought of his motives or 
 objects, or whatever judgment may be ultimately formed 
 on the wisdom of his public course, there can be no question 
 as to the distinguished character which he filled in the world's 
 drama at that era. His career has been charged by some 
 with caprice and waywardness, and by others with apostacy 
 and corruption. With 07ie considerable party in the State,
 
 9 
 
 he v\'as, and is, an idol ; and by another, his name is never 
 mentioned without execration or abuse. It would be no 
 less contrary to my duty than inconsistent with my feelings 
 on this occasion, to infringe the wise regulation 
 which excludes political comment, by entering into 
 any particular consideration of the public character and 
 conduct of Edmund Burke. If the subject of this Lecture 
 were one totally unconnected with your feelings and inter- 
 ests, let me say, for instance, ancient coi?is and medals^ 
 you would probably receive my statements with attention 
 and credence, unless I thought tit to exercise the privilege 
 of an antiquarian, and try your credulity a little too much ; 
 but on the character of a man whose influence was exerted 
 so recently and powerfully in our own public affairs, many 
 of you have, probably, formed strong and decided opinions, 
 which I should employ this chair most improperly, if I were 
 to use it, to controvert. It is not theobject of our assembly — 
 it is not the task entrusted to me. Whatever may be my views 
 on that subject (and they are strong and decided), in this 
 Literary Hall, this Temple of the Muses, I shall altogether 
 abstain from any inquiry into Edmund Burke's 7>?^Z»/?c cha- 
 racter and conduct, except as it may be necessary to illus- 
 trate his literary productions. I wish to be imdersfood as 
 bestowing my warm panegyrics onlt/ on his literary and 
 personal character. 
 
 The exquisite style which throws such an irresistible 
 charm over all his compositions, bewitching the reader 
 and taking him completely captive ; the matchless beauty 
 of language and felicity of illustration which pervade all 
 the disquisitions of this prince of orators, even on the 
 most intricate and technical subjects, and which compel 
 political economy and legal points to furnish materials 
 for the exercise of the powers of a fancy, under whose 
 magic wand the most barren topics become fruitful and tlie 
 most dull instinct with grace, are familiar to every reader, 
 and are the admiration of every reader of taste. But this 
 style, it is said, is too figurative, and, indeed, exaggerated ; 
 the reader is stifled with roses, and the student corrui)ted 
 with excess of ornament. Burke's imagination often runs
 
 10 
 
 riot, and some of his noblest passages are in danger of de- 
 generating into bombast. This is the objection and com- 
 plaint ; and I do not deny that he is sometimes open to it, 
 for it is the very nature atjd tendency of such a mental con- 
 stitution as his to run into the faults ascribed to him. But 
 it is useless to complain of an attribute and essential part 
 of the nature of the faculty. No great writer, conspicuous 
 for the gift of imagination, and whose golden pages are the 
 delight and admiration of mankind, is free from it. The 
 great Father of Poetry has conferred on horses the gift, not 
 only of speech, but of prophesy ; the daring of iEschylus has 
 often carried him the step over from the sublime to the 
 bombastic ; our own Shakespeare has perpetually allowed 
 his fancy to run wild ; and even Milton, with every advan- 
 tage which the constant study and familiar knowledge of 
 the authors of every age and nation could give him, has too 
 frequently suspended the interest of his awful poem and 
 forgotten the proper limits of the human powers, by making, 
 as Pope says, " God the Father turn a school divine." We 
 must not quarrel with the exuberance which is the certain 
 indication and never- failing companion of the richness of 
 the plant ; although I admit it to aflford a legitimate subject 
 for observation, if pointed out, not in the spirit of captious 
 and envious depreciation, as it has too often been, but of 
 genuine criticism, for the purpose of instruction and caution 
 to those who may be misled by false lights and deluded by 
 meretricious beauties. The style of Burke is like the spear 
 of Achilles, fit for the hero's hands alone. I admit, too 
 that an ornate style has its disadvantages. It is apt to mis- 
 lead the generality of readers from the matter to the man- 
 ner — from the sense to the sound — from the subject to the 
 music, of the sentences; nor is it without ground, that meh 
 who feci deeply for the interests of their race, have so 
 strongly protested against the adoption of a style which has 
 been too often successfully employed to mask or gild cor- 
 ruption, and to ridicule or depreciate Truth. The greatest 
 master of eloquence is, by universal consent, the first of 
 Athenian orators, Demosthenes. His sentences are severe, 
 simple, and mostly free from any adn)ixturc of figure or orna-
 
 11 
 
 ment; but we must not, therefore, presume them composed 
 without art. On the contrary, it is matter of historic know- 
 ledge and intrinsic evidence, that they were elaborated with 
 the greatest care, and were the subject of continuous atten- 
 tion ; so that every word, and we may say syllabic, of the 
 immortal Phillippics, has its place allotted, by the express 
 design of the author. In the later ages of Greece, in the de- 
 cline of the republics, a false taste prevailed. The Rhetori- 
 cians of that epoch corrupted eloquence, by deserting 
 the lessons and example of their illustrious master. A si- 
 milar vice infected the compositions of Roman literature 
 at a similar era in Roman history. But the graces and 
 sweetness of Plato and ('icero are still regarded as models, 
 and Burke may, therefore, plead high authority in his de- 
 fence. Indeed, I must declare, that I consider Edmund 
 Burke one of the very greatest masters of language and 
 style whom the world has ever known, — one of the won- 
 drous three, to whom we may apply the description of the 
 epic poets, and say that — 
 
 " Three speakers in three distant ages born, 
 " Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn ;" 
 
 distinguished completely from the Grecian Demosthenes, 
 but very much akin to the Roman Cicero — and proudly as- 
 serting for barbaric Britain, as his rivals would have deemed 
 it, kindred and co-equal honours with Greek and Roman 
 fame ! The apostrophe of Mr. Canning \^New Morality] is 
 no less just than noble — 
 
 " Oh ! large of soul — of genius unconfin'd ! 
 
 " Born to instruct, delight, and mend mankind — 
 
 " Burke ! in whose breast a Roman ardour glovv'd, 
 
 " Whose copious tone with Grecian sweetness flow'd— 
 
 " What, tho' thy venturous spirit loved to urge 
 
 "• The labouring theme to reason's utmost verge, 
 
 " Kindling and mounting from th' enraptured sight, 
 
 " Still anxious wonder watch'd thy daring flight ! 
 
 " While vulgar minds with mean malignant stare, 
 
 " Gazed up, the triumph of thy fall to share ! — 
 
 " Poor triumph ! price of that extorted praise, 
 
 " Which still to daring genius envy pays."
 
 12 
 
 Burke ushered his first acknowledged work into the world 
 in 1756, in the 26th year of his age. It is entitled " A Vin- 
 dieation of Natural Society," and is a professed imitation 
 of the style, and a sarcastic refutation of the mode of argu- 
 ment used by Lord Bolingbroke. The imitation of manner is 
 eminently successful ; and the sentences in their rythm dis- 
 play that natural sensibility to the beauty of language which 
 gave early promise of the future excellence of their author ; 
 but it may be doubted whether they rivalled what Lord 
 Brougham, in his Address to the Glasgoiv Students, de- 
 scribed as " the lovely and inimitable measures of Boling- 
 broke." The argument is an ingenious string of paradoxes, 
 and was only an ironical one in support of the view which 
 the eloquence of Rousseau has rendered so delusively be- 
 witching ; viz., the superiority of savage over civilized life. 
 This position has found in later times no less a man than 
 the American President, Jefferson, to support it, with appa- 
 rent sincerity and calmness ; but Burke never for a moment 
 seriously entertained the belief which he so rhetorically ex- 
 pounds. His intention was to expose what he conceived to 
 be the prevailing and dangerous fallacy of Lord Bolingbroke, 
 of arguing entirely on one side, and pointing out evils, from 
 which no Institution is, or can be, exempt. 
 
 This effort of his youthful genius was almost immediately 
 followed by his well-known " Treatise on the Sublime and 
 Beautiful," which, notwithstanding the youth of the author, 
 and the severe criticisms that have been justly made upon 
 the unphilosophical character of many of its positions, still 
 maintains a place among the popular works of our literature. 
 I think this inay be easily accounted for. The work is cha- 
 racterized, though in a minor degree to his later produc- 
 tions, by the peculiar genius of its author ; and is, there- 
 fore, full of interesting observations, eloquently and elegantly 
 expressed, and of illustrations felicitously introduced. 
 Merits like these will always reap their reward ; and the 
 pages of a rhetorical painter will be perused with interest, 
 when the reasonings of the philosopher are neglected. The 
 absurdities and difficulties into which Burke is sometimes 
 driven by his theory of resolving the emotion oi sublimity to
 
 13 
 
 the feeling of terror, and that again to pain, which last is, 
 therefore, according to him, the ultimate cause of the sub- 
 lime : have been often and justly exposed. Such a theory, 
 it is obvious, cannot satisfactorily account for many objects 
 M'hich excite the emotion of sublimity without terror, as 
 the distant Alps and the interior of St. Peter's. And Burke 
 is compelled to support the strange paradox (to which he 
 devotes a section,) that pain is the cause of delight. This 
 position might have recommended him to the Stoic school 
 of philosophers, but will hardly pass current with us at]the 
 present day. 
 
 Let us proceed to consider his first important publica- 
 tions relating to public affairs. I shall not stay to discuss 
 the merits of his earliest works ; " A Short Account of a 
 Short Administration," (which is merely a summary of 
 the conduct of the Marquis of Rockingham's ministry, of 
 which Burke was a member) ; his " Observations on the 
 State of the Nation;" or even his powerful "Thoughts 
 on the Discontents." Although these works, like all his 
 compositions, discuss temporary affairs and transient 
 topics on general principles which must render them ever 
 interesting, and contain precepts of moral and political 
 philosophy conveyed in language of equal elegance and 
 force ; yet, they refer to the passing panorama of the hour — 
 the party interests of the day — the prospects, hopes, and 
 fears of the then opposition and ministry. The contests for 
 power of that era have ceased to possess interest, and most 
 of us are indifferent as to the grounds of personal complaint 
 which the Marquis of Rockingham could justly prefer. A 
 short period only intervened before one of the grandest op- 
 portunities which could fall to the lot of any man for sena- 
 torial or literary display was presented by the conduct of 
 the American colonies, — and nobly indeed was that oppor- 
 tunity used. Side by side with the great Earl of Chatham, 
 did Edmund Burke maintain the noble contest for the rights 
 and liberties of their fellow-countrymen and brethren across 
 the ocean, — and hand in hand will those illustrious cham- 
 pions float down the stream of time to the latest posterity, — 
 since the conse(iucnces of the struggle which ensued from
 
 14 
 
 the neglect of their energetic but rational appeals must be 
 too important to the world ever to permit its chief charac- 
 teristics to pass from the memory of men. The petitions of 
 our American colonists were first preferred in the tones of 
 humble complaint ; but the contempt with which that com- 
 plaint was received, produced its natural, nay, necessary 
 effect, in the irritation of the people, and their voice was no 
 longer heard in querulous whispers, but in the thunders of 
 indignant remonstrance and determined defiance. The en- 
 lightened statesman and accomplished orator, whose cha- 
 racter I am now considering, in his celebrated speech in the 
 House of Commons, on moving his " Resolutions for con- 
 ciliation with America," made use of all the resources of 
 his genius and learning to persuade the government and le- 
 gislature to accede to the demands of the colonies. In vain 1 
 The treasures of a learning as various as profound, collected 
 from all quarters of the globe, and from every epoch of 
 history — the splendours of an eloquence as dignified as it 
 was animated, were most fortunately, as it has happened, 
 for the interests of both countries, thrown away, at least as 
 regarded the immediate object of their exertion. They 
 could not, indeed, be lost — but must ever remain : the model 
 of senatorial oratory, the study of politicians, and the admi- 
 ration of rhetoricians ! 
 
 I shall here pause to examine this noble speech, as it is 
 an exemplar, and will shew you how a subject may and 
 should be treated in the legislature. He thus opens his 
 
 plan : 
 
 "The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of 
 war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and 
 endless negociations ; not peace to arise out of universal discord, 
 fomented from 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 govern- 
 ment. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course, and in its 
 ordinary haunts — it is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid 
 in principles ])urely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground 
 of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting cons- 
 cience of the colonies in the mother country, to give permanent satis- 
 faction to your people ; and (far from a scheme of ruling by dis- 
 cord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act, and by the 
 bond of the very same interest, which reconciles them to British 
 government."
 
 15 
 
 He then refers to the elements of the inquiry, beginning 
 with the population of America, which he thus felicitously 
 describes: 
 
 " Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part 
 of the world, that state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the 
 dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing 
 anj given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our 
 time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we 
 shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not 
 grow faster from infancy to manhood, than they spread from families 
 to communities, and from villages to nations." 
 
 He passes on to the commerce between this country and 
 
 America, and, after detailing its wonderful increase and 
 
 extent in a short period, he thus addresses the House on 
 
 the reflections naturally suggested by it: 
 
 " 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 
 G8 years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the 
 two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember 
 all tlie stages of the progress. He was in I 704 of an age at least 
 to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough 
 acta parcntum jam legere, et quce sit poterit cognoscere virtus. Sup- 
 pose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the 
 many virtues, which have made him one of the most amiable, as he 
 is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to him 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 coun- 
 cils) 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 
 liappy scenes of domestic honour and i)rosperity, that angel should 
 have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded tiie rising glories of his 
 country, 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 in- 
 terest, a small .seminal principle, 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, 
 shew itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts 
 the envy of the world. ^VIlatcver England has been growing toby 
 a progressive increase of improvement, brouglit in by varieties of 
 ])cople, by succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settle- 
 ments in a series of 1,700 years, you shall see as much added to her
 
 16 
 
 by America in the course of a single life !" If this state of his 
 country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the san- 
 guine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to 
 make him believe it ! Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! 
 Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the pro- 
 spect, and cloud the setting of his day !" 
 
 He proceeds to examine particularly the sources of the 
 wealth of America, and I cannot refrain from reading you 
 his exquisite description of the fisheries. It is so truly 
 like Edmund Burke, and like no one else. 
 
 " As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea 
 by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. 
 You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed 
 even to excite your envy ; and yet the spirit, by which that enter- 
 prising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opi- 
 nion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, 
 what in the world is equal to it ? Pass by the other parts, and look 
 at the manner in which the people of New England have of late 
 carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the 
 tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the 
 deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay, and Davis's Streights, 
 whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear 
 that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that 
 tliey are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of 
 the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an 
 object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting- 
 place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoc- 
 tial heat more discouraging to them than the accumluated winter of 
 both the poles, \Ve know that whilst some of them draw the line, and 
 strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and 
 pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what 
 is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. 
 Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, 
 nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever 
 carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to 
 which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are 
 still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the 
 bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things ; when I know 
 that the colonies iu general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, 
 and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the con- 
 straints of watchful and suspicious government, but that through 
 a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered 
 to take her own way to perfection ; when I reflect upon these 
 effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all 
 the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of 
 human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigour re- 
 lents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty." 
 
 This is the opening of his propositions. He has now
 
 17 
 
 placed before the House the state of America. He then 
 proceeds to grapple with the question, how she should be 
 treated for our advantage, as well as her own. And he dis- 
 poses, in a most masterly manner, of the argument for re- 
 sorting io force. After stating many cogent reasons against 
 such a policy, he mainly relies on the inoral causes of the 
 disobedience of the Colonists, viz. their temper and cha- 
 racter derived from their English ancestors — their love of 
 liberty— their impatience of oppression in any form, and 
 especially of taxation— the nature and strength of their re- 
 ligious feelings — and, lastly, the existence o( slavery in the 
 Southern States; tiie effect of which he justly states to be 
 " to make those who are free most proud and jealous of 
 " their freedom." He then assigns o. physical cause for the 
 disobedience of the colonies, which he says is " hardly less 
 powerful than the rest." 
 
 *' The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is 
 hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but 
 laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand 
 miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can pre- 
 vent the effect 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, vi'ho carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest 
 verge of the sea. But there a power steps in, that limits the arro- 
 gance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, " So far 
 shalt thou go, and no farther." Who are you, that should fret and 
 rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to 
 you, than does to all nations who have extensive empire ; and it 
 happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In 
 large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the 
 extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt, 
 and Arabia, and Curdistan, as he governs Thrace ; nor has he the 
 same dominion in Crimea and Algiers, which he has at Brusa and 
 Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The 
 sultan gets such obedience ;as he can. He governs with a loose 
 rein, that he may govern at all ; and the whole of the force and 
 vigour of his authority in his centre, is derived from a prudent re- 
 laxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, 
 not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies too 5 she 
 submits ; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, the 
 eternal law, of extensive and detached empire." 
 
 He now points out what he conceives to be the true 
 policy — conciliation. After showing the impossibility of
 
 18 
 
 altering the causes, moral and physical, which he has 
 
 before so luminously pointed out, of the disobedient spirit 
 
 of the colonies, and demonstrating that nothing has been 
 
 before gained by menaces, he declines arguing, as beside the 
 
 real question, whether the right of self- taxation were one 
 
 for which the colonies properly contended, but confines 
 
 himself to what he calls much narrower ground. 
 
 " It is uot, what a lawyer tells me, I may do; but what 
 humanity, reason, and justice tell me, I ought to do. Is a politic 
 act the worse for being a generous one ? Is no concession proper, 
 but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you 
 grant ? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the 
 exercise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room 
 full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arras to enforce 
 them? What signify all those titles, and all those arms? Of 
 what avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me, that 
 the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit ; aiid that I could 
 do nothing but wound myself by the use of ray own weapons ?" 
 
 He then proceeds to consult, as he expresses it, the 
 " genius of the oracle of the British Constitution," for ex- 
 amples, and refers to the conduct of England to Ireland 
 Wales, Chester, and Durham, for the purpose of shewing 
 that a rigorous treatment has been always unsuccessful, and 
 a mild one the reverse ; and that " freedom, and not servi- 
 tude, is the cure for anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is 
 the true remedy for superstition." In the course of this 
 profound and truly masterly historical review, the philoso- 
 phical lesson to be deduced from it, is displayed with equal 
 eloquence and power. 
 
 He then proceeds through his resolutions seriatim, and 
 afterwards deals with the objections which he anticipates. 
 He passes on to contrast his propositions with those of 
 Lord North ; and after exposing the latter, he concludes 
 with the following peroration, of which it is praise enough 
 to say, that it is worthy of the author and the subject. 
 
 " My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows 
 from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, 
 and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, 
 are strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the 
 idea of their civil rights associated with your government; — they 
 will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be 
 of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once
 
 19 
 
 understood, that your government may be one thing, and their 
 privileges another ; that these two things may exist without any 
 mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened j 
 and every thing hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you 
 have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country 
 as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our 
 common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England 
 worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The 
 more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more 
 ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. 
 Slavery they can have any where. It is a weed that grows iu 
 every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from 
 Prussia. But until you become lost to all feeling of your true 
 interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none 
 but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the 
 monopoly. This is the true act of navigation, which binds to you 
 the commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you 
 the wealth of the world." 
 
 " All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical 
 to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who 
 have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that nothing 
 exists but what is gross and material; and who, therefore, far from 
 being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, 
 are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated 
 and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the 
 opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial 
 existence, are in truth every thing, and all in all. Magnanimity 
 in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and 
 little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, 
 and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our station and 
 ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on 
 America with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda ! We 
 ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which 
 the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity 
 of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness 
 into a glorious empire , and have made the most extensive, and the 
 only honourable, conquests ; not by destroying, but by promoting 
 the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us 
 get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. 
 English privileges have made it all that it is j English privileges 
 alone will make it all it can be." 
 
 Such is the speech which I have submitted so fully to 
 your attention, because it conveys such a perfect idea of 
 Burke, and does more than a whole day's talk could do, to 
 impress you practically and deeply with his characteristic 
 merits. You must have felt the weight with which he strikes 
 a blow. You will be at no loss to understand why Lord
 
 20 
 
 Erskine declared iti one of his fiticst forensic orations, [For 
 Home Tooke,] that he was deeply indebted for his style of 
 eloquence to the study of the pages of Mr. Burke, and that 
 he should compel his children, as an essential part of their 
 education, to copy again and again their immortal contents. 
 You must agree with me, that it is difficult to panegyrize 
 too highly such a composition. It is one not meant for the 
 passing interests of a day, or the party conflicts of an hour — 
 nor does it resemble the magnificent bursts of Lord 
 Chatham, adapted to their time, and place, and auditory; 
 but it is to be read in every country and every age, as a 
 permanent repository of great political truths, and as an 
 exemplar for all future statesmen. If, as we are told by 
 Quintilian, the admiration of Cicero be an essential charac- 
 teristic of a true orator, I will be bold enough to declare, 
 that a genuine sympathy with this oration of Burke is 
 a test of a true statesman. It is, indeed, a monument 
 affording matter for deeply interesting speculation. We 
 are bound to recognise the gracious dispensation of Pro- 
 vidence, which has so truly educed "good out of evil," and 
 has converted our foolish neglect of Burke's salutary coun- 
 sels to our benefit, and made that neglect the means of ten- 
 fold blessings upon either nation. Sad was the struggle, as 
 it has been nobly described by one of the first of modern 
 poets, Campbell, in his " Gertrude of JFi/oming" 
 
 " Sad was the year, by proud oppression driv'n, 
 " When transatlantic liberty arose; 
 *' Not in the sunshine and the light of heav'n, 
 " But wrapt in whirlwinds and begirt with woes, 
 " Amidst the strife of fratricidal foes ; 
 " Her birth-star was the light of burning plains, 
 " Her baptism is the weight of blood that flows 
 " From kindred hearts — the blood of British veins, 
 " And famine tracks her steps — and pestilential pains." 
 
 And yet, how wide is the difference, and how beneficial, 
 between our subject colony and our kindred country ! Rival, 
 it may be, but rival in that generous race of arts and com- 
 merce, where they who lose are the better for the efforts 
 they have even vainly made for the prize.
 
 21 
 
 About the period of the delivery of that speech, appeared 
 the famous " Letters of Junius,'' in the " Public Advertiser." 
 The alleged authorship of those extraordinary composi- 
 tions afforded the world a subject for endless speculation 
 at the time, and has continued to puzzle it ever since. 
 We are no nearer to the solution of the difficulty now 
 than then ; for time and accident have thrown hardly 
 any additional light on this intricate question. The palm 
 has been claimed for several men, some otherwise dis- 
 tinguished by their political and literary talents, and among 
 them Burke was considered in his own day, and has ever 
 since continued in many quarters to be looked upon as 
 their author; probably for the reason given by Dr. John- 
 son, viz. that no other person known to literature could 
 have written those letters. It has been thought more rea- 
 sonable to believe that Burke was their author, than that 
 two such suns as himself and Junius should be shining in 
 the political hemisphere at the same time. In the various 
 disquisitions on this subject, with which the world has been 
 filled— the constant objection urged against this theory has 
 been, that the style of Burke is completely dissimilar to that 
 of Junius; the one being distinguished by its gorgeous ampli- 
 fication, and the other by its terseness and condensation. 
 But the admirers of Burke reply that it may be without 
 much difficulty supposed, that such a master of language was 
 able to alter his style, to suit his purpose and escape detec- 
 ^>^tion, as he might have disguised his hand-writing, and that 
 both styles, have, at any rate, this merit in common, that 
 each is perfect in its kind. Many collateral and extrinsic 
 arguments have been adduced on behalf of other men, among 
 whom Sir P. Francis seems to be the general favourite. Mr. 
 Butler, in his interesting " Reminiscences," adopts a new 
 and middle hypothesis, and considers thai the only mode 
 of reconciling the external and internal evidence is to sup- 
 pose Sir P. Francis the njnanuensis of Junius. Every death 
 among the eminent men who were closely connected with 
 the persons and events of the memorable era in which the 
 letters were written, has excited a fallacious hope that the 
 .secret would be out at last, or, at any rate, some additional 
 
 c 
 
 7
 
 22 
 
 light be thrown upon it. A few months ago Lord^Grenville 
 was gathered to his fathers, and then the mysterious veil 
 was to be drawn. More recently, the son of Sir P. Francis Avas 
 summoned from the world; when again a hope has been raised 
 that something would transpire on this interesting problem. 
 And I am informed, that at the sale of Sir Phillip's library, 
 which took place very lately, some MSS. and documents were 
 discovered, which afford very cogent, additional, and circum- 
 &tantial proof of his title to the authorship. Those who wish 
 to pursue this subject further in reference to Burke, may con- 
 sult Mr. Prior's interesting " Memoirs ;" where that gentle- 
 man has collected, among other proofs, the concurring tes- 
 timonies of his friends and cotemporaries, that one other 
 laurel must be added to his wreath, and that the elegant 
 " Letters of Junius" must be read as the satires of Burke. 
 
 His next work is a reprint of his celebrated speech on 
 " Economical Reform," delivered in 1780. It introduced 
 to Parliament his " Plan of reform in the constitution of se- 
 veral parts of the public economy,'^ of which the object was 
 to effect a complete alteration in the arrangement of the 
 public offices. A great number of useless ones were abo- 
 lished, the salaries of many were reduced, and, in short, 
 an entirely new adjustment was made of the civil list. 
 Burke was obliged to introduce the subject two or three 
 times in Parliament before he could succeed in carrying it 
 through; for, although Gibbon, himself a sinecurist, whose 
 office was abolished by Burke's bill, said, [Memoirs,'] that 
 " he never could forget the delight with which the dif- 
 " fusive and ingenious orator was heard by all sides of the 
 *^ House, and even by those whose existence he proscribed," 
 it may be, nevertheless, easily believed, that those who were 
 charmed by the oratory, might not so much relish the 
 reform, and would not be backward in voting against the 
 speaker, whose eloquence they might admire. And even 
 in more exalted quarters, a similar repugnance was felt, if 
 we may credit the humourous description of the caustic sa- 
 tirist of that day, Peter Pindar, [Lousiad, canto i.] who says? 
 
 " Not with more horror did their eye-balls work, 
 
 " Convulsive on the patriotic Burke —
 
 23 
 
 " When guilty of economy, the crime ! 
 ** Edmund wide wandered from the true sublime ; 
 " And cat-like, watchful of the flesh and fish, 
 " Cribb'd from the royal table many a dish — 
 " Saw every slice of bread and butter cut, 
 " Each apple told, and number'd every nut ; 
 " Convinc'd that in his plan of state-salvation, 
 '* To starve the palace was to save the nation.'' 
 
 It was, as the chancellor of the exchequer not long ago 
 observed, {^Debate on Pensions, Dec. 1837,] " the greatest 
 step ever made in economical reform." But the glory is behind. 
 One of the offices most reduced in emoluments was that 
 which he himself then held, the paymastership of the forces. 
 Mr. Prior, in the work to which I have just referred, I am 
 afraid too truly tells us, that his " sacrifices gained from the 
 " country at large, and parliament, just as much credit as 
 " such things voluntarily given, usually do, little notice and 
 '*no recompense." Let us hope, however, that a bettertime 
 is at hand, when such conduct will be duly appreciated by 
 cotemporaries, and, at any rate, let posterity do justice to 
 Burke for such an act of noble disinterestedness. 
 
 Milton has told us, that " Eloquence the soul, song charms 
 the sense ;" and if Mozart and Rossini can so justly entrance 
 their audiences, I may say, that the superior powers of a 
 Burke should exercise a similar spell over the higher facul- 
 ties of our nature. But I am warned by the time, not to 
 give way to the desire which I feel of calling your attention 
 more minutely to this speech, justly pronounced by the 
 chancellor of the exchequer, on the occasion to which I 
 have before alluded, as " masterly and unrivalled." 
 
 Such services, such talents as those of Jiurke, were, I 
 regret to say, not then duly appreciated by his constituents, 
 the citizens of Bristol. He was rejected at the ensuing 
 election, on account of the unpopularity of some of his pro- 
 ceedings. T should not hesitate elsewhere to say, that I think 
 his conduct, in the respects then objected to him, as equally 
 wise and liberal, viz. his advocacy of the causes of the Ame- 
 ricans and Roman Catholics, his vote in favour of Lord
 
 24 
 
 Beauchamp's bill to abolish imprisonment for debt, and his 
 support of propositions for the removal of restrictions on 
 Irish commerce. I shall, here, however, take up much nar- 
 rower ground in his justification, and say, that his conduct 
 was, at any rate, disinterested and courageous, for he pur- 
 sued the course he did solely from 2)ri7iciple, and at the 
 almost certain danger of displeasing his constituents. I am 
 alluding to this circumstance in his public life, because it 
 was the occasion of the delivery of a speech, which was his 
 next published work. This speech is at once so eloquent, 
 and so full of moral and political truths — so bold and inde- 
 I>endent, and yet respectful to the assembly he was address- 
 ing, that I confess 1 never can read it without admiration. 
 I recommend its attentive perusal to all who desire to see 
 in vvhat manner Edmund Burke thought that a public as- 
 sembly of his countrymen should be addressed, satisfied 
 that they are well able to feel and appreciate the excellence 
 they can never reach, and may even be unable, critically, to 
 explain. 
 
 The next important subject which called forth his powers 
 was one to which I shall refer, although it partakes, un- 
 doubtedly, of a political character, because all considerations 
 of political expediency, however important, must sink 
 into comparative insignificance when weighed with the 
 absorbing moral and religious principles connected with it. 
 I allude to the abolition of the slave trade, one of the great 
 glories of our country, and to which Burke contributed his 
 powerful aid. I repeat, that considerations of political in- 
 terest are merely collateral to an inquiry where our moral 
 duty to our fellow-men in recognising the rights conferred 
 on them by our common Father, is clear and distinct. The 
 philosophical wisdom of antiquity promulgated, and modern 
 moralists and magistrates have adopted, the celebrated 
 aphorism, " Fiat justitia, ruat caelum," of which the sense 
 may be freely given in the noble maxim, " Be just and fear 
 not," and which is the foundation of the sublime truth, that 
 " Nothing which is morally wro7ig can he politically right." 
 You are all well aware that the late Mr. Wilberforce per- 
 severingly and ceaslessly directed the attention of parlia-
 
 25 
 
 metit and the country to this important subject for many 
 years, until he finally succeeded in effecting the abolition* 
 not only of the slave trade, but of the system of slavery 
 itself, throughout the British dominions. The evening of 
 his life was cheered by the glory of his triumph ! Mr. Pitt, 
 Mr. Burke, and Mr. Fox, assisted his generous endeavours 
 by their splendid eloquence, and the last of these statesmen 
 in introducing the famous bill of 1808, which completely 
 carried out the principle established by the temporary mea- 
 sure of 1/02, and abolished the British slave trade, at once, 
 and for ever, thus referred to the speeches formerly deli- 
 vered by Edmund Burke upon the subject: — " Surely, Sir, 
 ** it does not yet remain to be argued, that to carry men 
 " away by violence to slavery in distant countries — to use 
 " the expression of an illustrious man, now no more, Mr. 
 *' Burke, a man distinguished in every way, and in nothing 
 " more than for his great humanity — is not a traffic in the 
 " labour of man, but in the man himself." [Hansard, Pari. 
 Deb. 1806, vol. 17-] And afterwards, he says, " I would 
 refer gentlemen to, perhaps, the most brilliant and con- 
 vincing speech that ever was, I believe, delivered in this 
 " or any other place, by that consummate master of elo- 
 " (juence, of which it would be impossible to report the 
 " manner, — for the voice, the gesture, the manner, were not 
 " to be described. Oh ! si ilium vidisses, si ilium audivis- 
 " ses !" Well may most of us say, with Mr. Fox, " Oh ! could 
 " we but have seen him, could we but have heard him !" 
 
 I shall read a short extract from his speech in 1/89, in 
 answer to what was then, and has frequently since been, 
 urged as the main reason against any abolition, viz. the hap- 
 piness of the slaves. ]\lr. Burke tells us, [Speeches, vol. iii.] 
 iti the spirit of a |)hilosophy equally true and dignified, 
 " Nothing can make a hapjty slave but a degraded man. 
 " In proportion as the mind grows callous to its dcgrada- 
 " tion, and all sense of manly pride is lost, the slave feels 
 "comfort. In fact, he is no longer a man. If I were to 
 " defitje a man, I would say with Shakspeare, 
 " Man is a being — holding large discourse, 
 *' Looking before and after." 
 
 (( 
 
 u
 
 2G 
 
 " A slave is incapable of looking cither before or after." 
 
 The remainder of his most important works, besides his 
 speeches in parliament, relate to two subjects which ex- 
 ercised a great influence over his life, and which require too 
 extensive and separate a consideration to allow me to enter 
 into them now : I must, therefore, reserve them for my 
 next Lecture. You need not be informed that I refer to 
 the state of Indian affairs, with the trial of Warren Hastings; 
 and the French Revolution. His other works consist of 
 several very able letters on the " Popery laws," advocating 
 their repeal, and the propriety of admitting Catholics to the 
 elective franchise; a few minor political essays; his contri- 
 butions to the Animal Register, (to which he was a chief 
 contributor for many years,) and an " Abridgemejit of 
 English History.'' 
 
 This history was one of his earliest compositions, having 
 been published in i7^7> and probably written merely for 
 the sake of remuneration. It comes up to a more recent 
 period than 31iltons, (which stops at the Conquest,) viz. to 
 the reign of King John ; and is commonly supposed to 
 have been discontinued in consequence of Mr. Hume un- 
 dertaking the same task. But, though so limited in its 
 scope, scanty in its materials, and hasty in its compo- 
 sition, it may be read, especially by young students, with 
 pleasure and advantage, and we cannot but deeply regret 
 that it was not completed in a manner worthy of the author. 
 No undertaking could be more worthy of Burke, than a 
 complete history of his native land. The great men of an- 
 tiquity seem to have regarded such an undertaking almost 
 as a duty, and we must search for the finest writers, the 
 most penetrating spirits among the historians. Herodotus 
 and Livy, Thucydides and Tacitus, are still the models ; the 
 former of elegant perspicuity and lively description, and 
 the latter of sententious force. Until the appearance of the 
 * Pictorial History,' almost all entire histories of this great 
 country, of any note, had been expressly written with partial 
 views, and for peculiar objects. Two hundred years ago, 
 Milton complained that, " If the Athenians made their
 
 27 
 
 <( 
 
 small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent wv\- 
 *' tersj England hath had her noble achievements made 
 " small by the unskilful handling of monks and mecha- 
 *' nics." {^Reason of Church Government urged against Pre- 
 laty, B. ii,] Since that day several writers have undertaken 
 the task, and certainly relieved us from much of that impu- 
 tation. No one will say that Hume had a great deal of the 
 monk or mechanic in him, nor that his history has been 
 *' unskilfully handled." His " inimitable graces," as Gibbon 
 called them, have thrown a charm of style over his work 
 which it would be difficult, perhaps, to excel; but his 
 warmest admirers would hardly claim for him the character 
 of impartiality. His unfairness has been often exposed; 
 and, indeed, I do not think that he desired to make a secret 
 of his design in writing as a partizan of the Stuart dynasty. 
 The spirit of the advocate peeps out at every page. Dif- 
 ferent great classes in the State have had their able parti- 
 zans, as the Catholics, in Dr. Lingard, and the Puritans, in 
 Neale. Rapin's excellent work may lay claim to the cha- 
 racter of impartiality, and Henry's to that of utility ; but 
 the style of both is dry and barren, and the former has the 
 incurable fault of being written by a foreigner. Sir James 
 Mackintosh's Fragmentary Treatise is useful, as far as it 
 goes, but it shared the fate of every thing undertaken 
 by that accomplished scholar, and contains just enough to 
 excite a hope that was disappointed. I admit that some 
 particular portions of our annals have been ably illustrated, 
 witness Robertson, Clarendon, and Burnet; and 1 hail 
 with satisfaction the recent appearance and popularity of 
 the " Pictorial History,"* to which 1 have before referred, 
 written on the true principleof philosophically investigating 
 those important events which have successively influenced 
 the opinions, feelings, manners, and comforts of the nation; 
 instead of following, with minute and tedious accuracy, the 
 personal histories of corrupt or feeble sovereigns. Too 
 much, indeed, is history (as hitherto written), subject to 
 Locke's reproach of it, in his admirable Thoughts on Edu- 
 cation, when he says, that " All the entertainment and talk 
 " of history is of nothing but of fighting and killing. ' — 
 
 * I'ublishcd by C. Knight and Co.
 
 28 
 
 But I must, ucveitliclcss, repent my rej^ict, that a writer so 
 ud/iiiriibly (lualified in every way as Edmund Burke, to 
 compose the annals of his country contented himself with 
 the fragment he has left us, and did not feel that he owed 
 it to that country to devote his gigantic powers to the im- 
 perishable record of its illustrious events. Such a work, 
 from such a hand, would have been, indeed, a monument 
 more enduring than brass, and must have survived so long 
 as literature remains cultivated among men ! 
 
 His '^ Abridgment" voiiiahis, also a fragment which he 
 has entitled an " Essai/ towards a Hisfori/ of the Laws of 
 " England." A more important subject, and one more 
 worthy of his pen, he could not have undertaken ; and 
 after the specimen which he has left us in the " Report of 
 *' the Committee appointed to inquire into the causes of 
 *' the duration of the trial of Warren Hastings," there can 
 be no doubt of the masterly manner in which it would have 
 been executed. The author would have constantly de- 
 serted the narrative for reflection, — and the subject, which 
 would in no part have been treated in the spirit of a tech- 
 nical lawyer, would have lost even the character of merely 
 interesting narration, and have expanded into one of philo- 
 sophical disquisition. The innate statesman's spirit of the 
 writer would have pervaded and animated the whole ; and 
 it would have been found invaluable in the Herculean attempt 
 to simplify the Statute Book. Our regret, indeed, at Burke's 
 omission to complete this history of our laws, must be, 
 doubtless, abated, as regards the loss of an elegant and 
 perspicuous narrative, by the manner in which Sir Wm. 
 Blackstone has executed a similar task in his popular 
 "Commentaries;" but the loss of the general history of 
 the empire forces us to feel the truth of Goldsmith's com- 
 plaint, [Retaliation,] that Burke, 
 
 " Born for the universe, narrowed his mind, 
 " And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." 
 The interest of sections of the community — the ministe- 
 rial struggles of the day— absorbed that si)lendid genius and 
 that extensive learniiig which ahould have been devoted to 
 works of univ(!rsal importance and of enduring character.
 
 LECTURE, &c. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 That extensive portion of the globe called India, affords one 
 of the most interesting subjects for investigation in the 
 whole compass of historical inquiry. Its immense antiquity, 
 which, after we have rejected all the fabulous claims asserted 
 for it by designing or deluded historians, we must still feel 
 to extend to a period so remote that the present states of 
 Europe seem the creatures of yesterday; — its early civiliza- 
 tion, which, though clearly shown by Mr. Mill to have been 
 greatly and absurdly exaggerated, is, yet, so far admitted by 
 modern scholars, as to divide the learned world on the ques- 
 tion of its superior claims over Egypt to the character of the 
 first country on the earth inhabited by civilized man ; — its 
 curious and stationary classifications of society, which have 
 endured through centuries of time, and through successive 
 revolutions of government ; — its reputed exhaustless sources 
 of wealth, and that mysterious charm which has been ever 
 thrown over the Oriental nations by the people of Europe, 
 and which have tempted so many and various expeditions of 
 conquest and commerce, from the hostile invasion of Alex- 
 ander to the recent peaceful attempt to navigate the Eu- 
 phrates, and the accomplishment of a route across the 
 Isthmus of Suez; — all combine to impart to //jc//rt an in- 
 terest which has been felt by reflecting minds in every age 
 and nation, and has made it the subject of philosophical 
 inquiry by ancient and modern writers, by Strabo and Dio- 
 dorus, by Robertson and Mill. But to the sources of in- 
 terest thus presented to every contemplative scholar, must 
 be added one, which to Env;lishmen makes that region of 
 the globe an object of peculiarly anxious attention : fVeare 
 its riders. The enormous j)()pulation of that country, con- 
 sisting of one hundred millions ; its fertile |)lains extending 
 through several degrees of latitude, and teeming with pro-
 
 30 
 
 ducts wliich have become with ns, necessaries of existence, 
 are under the dominion and controul of the British people ; 
 and by a late most important act of the legislature, are now 
 thrown open as an unlimited field for British industry, en- 
 terprise, and wealth. Motives of self-interest and of duty, 
 therefore, alike demand of us to become acquainted with 
 our mighty colony. We are instigated by the former motives, 
 that we may not be foolishly wasteful of resources, which 
 properly and wisely applied would be productive of immense 
 benefit to the country which supplies, and the country which 
 receives them. And we are instigated by motives of the 
 latter description, from the obligations which are cast upon 
 us by our relation of rulers, resulting from the rights to 
 revenue and allegiance. The order of Providence which has 
 subjugated India to our sway, has imposed upon us the im- 
 perative duty of carefully watching over the vast interests 
 thus committed to our charge. The rights and duties of 
 humanity demand from us the most attentive examination 
 into the condition of our subjects, that we may apply those 
 principles of government which are best adapted to them. 
 The vulgar ambition of weilding an iron sceptre over a 
 prostrate people is rapidly passing away in the enlightened 
 portions of the globe. Governors and governed are learn- 
 ing the reciprocal rights and duties which necessarily and 
 inherently attach to their position. Under the influence of 
 this feeling, it is difficult to pronounce with certainty what 
 beneficial results may not be expected to follow in every 
 direction ; but we may be permitted to indulge the warmest 
 anticipations, and the most sanguine hopes for the future 
 destinies of mankind ! 
 
 India has been the subject of the frequent inroads of in- 
 vaders, from the transient conquest of Alexander and the 
 sweeping descent of Timour, to the final expulsion of the 
 French, and defeat of the natives by the English within the 
 last half century. For a considerable period, India was 
 under the Mahommedan sway, with results which Mr. Mill 
 has ably shown to have been advantageous to the much less 
 civilized Hindoos. The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the 
 French, have successively shared with the English in the
 
 31 
 
 dominion and trade of India, and have presented serious 
 military and commercial difficulties in the way of British 
 revenue and empire. Some of these obstacles once acquired 
 a formidable character ; but, eventually, the arms and enter- 
 prise of Britain achieved their usual fortune, and gradually 
 acquired the immense dominion we now possess. It is 
 impossible for me, in the limited period allotted, to 
 suffer myself to be drawn even into the most rapid and 
 summary historical narrative of the mode in which that 
 power was gradually and finally acquired. You may read it 
 in the charming narrative of Robertson, and the philosophic 
 history of Mill. I must necessarily confine myself to much 
 narrower ground. 
 
 The period in which Indian affairs were first drawn pro- 
 minently to the public attention, and when English states- 
 men seriously occupied themselves, and interested par- 
 liament in the subject of our Eastern empire, was 
 between the years 1/80 and 1/90. Warren Hastings had 
 succeeded to the vigorous, but often corrupt and cruel, go- 
 vernment of Lord Clive, and was contesting with one 
 of the most formidable opponents whom the English ever 
 encountered. You anticipate my referring to the celebrated 
 Tippoo Saib, who had succeeded his no less celebrated and 
 dreaded father, Hyder Ali, in 1/83, the year in which 
 Mr. Fox introduced into parliament his famous East India 
 bill. The object of that bill was to vest a superintending 
 power over the administration of India by the East India 
 Company, in a Board of Controul to be appointed by the 
 Crown. It was urged against the measure that the natural, 
 nay, necessary effect and secret design of it was, to bestow 
 on the Whig ministers the enormous patronage of India, 
 and to perpetuate through that influence a dictatorship in 
 Mr. Fox. An outcry to that effect was so vehemently and 
 successfully raised by Mr. Pitt and the court party through 
 the country, and the monarch and people were so alarmed 
 by the terrors of the ministerial despotism, which the Whigs 
 were alleged to intend establishing, that Mr. Pitt was borne 
 most triumphantly into office, and was enabled to maintain 
 his place to the almost total exclusion of his rivals, for
 
 32 
 
 nearly ii (inartcr of a century. He found it necessary, how- 
 ever, to direct his iniriiediate attention to the subject of 
 Indian affairs, and introduced the Act by which the Board 
 of Controul was constituted. But, notwithstanding all the 
 outcry which was raised against Mr. Fox and the Whigs 
 for their alleged attempt to grasp at patronage, impartial 
 historians have declared, that an attentive examination of 
 the two bills reveals that Mr. Pitt's bill effected the object 
 he charged his opponents with designing, as completely, 
 though more covertly. [See Mill's admirable and searching 
 examination, v. 5. c. 9.] He was exposed night after night 
 to the argument of Fox, the wit of Sheridan, and the splen- 
 did declamation of Burke, who laid open with great ability 
 the designs of the author, and the evils of the bill. Burke 
 astonished the House of Commons throughout these dis- 
 cussions by his extensive and intimate acquaintance with 
 Indian affairs ; and his speeches on " Mr. Fox's bill," and the 
 " Nabob of Arcot's debts," justly excited the admiration of 
 his cotemporaries, and remain for the instruction and 
 delight of all succeeding times. The future denouncer of 
 Warren Hastings, the eloquent anathematizer of Eastern 
 oppression, may be sometimes distinctly foreseen. The 
 course of inquiry into which Burke had entered, and the 
 disclosures which ensued in the debates on the India bills, 
 brought before the public eye many transactions which bore 
 at least a suspicious appearance, and which excited in the 
 generous, perhaps, impatient, mind of Burke the warmest 
 indignation ; for his greatest enemies must admit, that, in 
 his earlier day, at any rate, the hatred of tyranny, and a 
 sincere desire to vindicate the oppressed, beat nobly in his 
 bosom. 
 
 In 1782, the House of Commons had voted resolutions 
 strongly condemnatory of the conduct of Warren Hastings, 
 and which had been moved and supported by the person 
 who subsequently became his warmest, and, perhaps, ablest 
 champion, the celebrated Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord 
 Melville. The contests between the Whig and Tory parties 
 on the different East India bills, occupied parliament till 
 Mr. Pitt's was finally carried in 1784. The next important
 
 33 
 
 subject connected with Indian atTairs, which engaged the 
 attention of the House of Commons, related to the payment 
 of the Nabob of Arcot's debts, which the ministry proposed 
 should be made out of the public monies. Burke very 
 strongly protested against such a course; as he contended 
 that the debts were fraudulently contracted by the agents 
 of the East India Company for their own purposes. The 
 famous speech which he delivered on this subject has been 
 pronounced by Mr. Moore, one of the greatest efforts of 
 oratory, either ancient or modern, of which the world can 
 boast; \^Life of Sheridan, ch. 11,] and if we had time to 
 examine it, I feel little doubt that you would not think the 
 eulogium undeserved. 
 
 After a few intermediate debates in the House of Com- 
 mons, Mr. Burke brought forward, in 17^6, \\\s, Articles for 
 the hnpeachment ofJFarren Hastings, consisting of charges 
 against him of almost every form of corruption and cruelty 
 that can stain a ruler; bribery and extortion — the unjust 
 invasion, the rapacious desolation, of provinces — the pro- 
 fuse and extravagant expenditure of the revenues thus ini- 
 quitously levied — and the unjust destruction of those who 
 dared to prefer complaints, or could testify, as disagreeable 
 witnesses against him. At the commencement of his pro- 
 ceedings, in his early charges, Burke was out-voted ; as the 
 ministry, or rather minister, of the day, threw a mantle 
 over Mr. Hastings, and protected him from the dangerous 
 attack. But, by one of those sudden, and, apparently, un- 
 accountable changes of conduct, which puzzle us so often 
 in private, and oftener still in public life, the protecting 
 power was withdrawn, and Mr. Pitt supported a subsequent 
 motion for impeaching Mr. Hastings, who was, conse- 
 quently, consigned to the fate which appeared to be im- 
 pending over him. 
 
 The conduct of the minister on this occasion has been 
 the subject of severe and ingenious scrutiny ; and men have 
 passed judgment, as they always will, and necessarily must 
 in such circumstances, according to their opinion and feel- 
 ing of his character and conduct in general. The friends of 
 Warren Hastings were, of course, violent in their denunci-
 
 34 
 
 ations of what they deemed a base desertion ; some of the 
 enemies of Mr. Pitt assumed, as the ground of his conduct, 
 a growing jealousy and dread of Hastings's influence at 
 court; and others have believed that the minister was 
 secretly not displeased at so favourable an opportunity to 
 employ the talents of his formidable opponents in matters 
 entirely foreign to his own policy ; while his friends have 
 seen in his sudden and courageous union with the opposi- 
 tion, a sincerely noble determination to bring to condign 
 punishment, and submit to public example a high state cri- 
 minal. It is not my business to pronounce here any de- 
 cided opinion one way or the other. My duty is limited to 
 the task of narration. Whatever, therefore, were the 
 motives and objects of those in power, Burke and his co- 
 adjutors succeeded in their endeavours to induce the House 
 of Commons to come forward as the public prosecutors of 
 Warren Hastings, for high crimes and misdemeanours in his 
 office of Governor- General. Accordingly, on the 13th of 
 February, 1788, (now upwards of half a century ago,) a 
 day which will be ever memorable in English annals, Mr. 
 Burke appeared in Westminster Hall, at the bar of the 
 House of Lords, as the appointed organ of the House of 
 Commons, to open the articles of impeachment; and the 
 accounts of all cotemporaneous narrators concur in the repre- 
 sentations of splendour and interest which were presented 
 by that important occasion. Let us imagine the august 
 scene ! Let us suppose ourselves in that noble Hall, on 
 which the lapse of centuries has conferred an additional 
 interest to what is derived from its architectural magnifi- 
 cence, crowded with all that was illustrious by rank, power, 
 and intellect; with the delegated and concentrated greatness, 
 as it were, of the empire, there assembled, to hear the 
 complaints of a people, separated from us by thousands of 
 leagues, and by every conceivable variety of language, man- 
 ners, and religion, and whose ordy claim to the attention of 
 the congregated judges, arose from their dependent weak- 
 ness, and their supposed miseries and oppressions ! Let us 
 imagine that assembly, listening with breathless silence to 
 the awful eloquence of Sheridan and Burke, while denounc-
 
 35 
 
 ing the crimes of tyranny, depicting its horrors, and expos- 
 ing its consequences with such searching power, that the 
 gathered multitudes shook with sympathetic terror, and 
 trembled at imagin.iry spoliations and visionary murders, 
 as if committed under their eyes ; — the greatest efforts of 
 those great men, thus consecrating their mighty talents to 
 the cause of Liberty, and laying them as a votive offering on 
 the sacred altar of Justice ! 
 
 It is in vain to look in the whole compass of history for a 
 spectacle more imposing. The prosecution of Verres, on 
 the complaint of the people of Sicily, like that of Lord 
 Strafford, for his government in Ireland, (which are the only 
 proceedings in ancient or modern annals that I know of at 
 all analogous to it,) referred to tyrannies of a much less ex- 
 tensive kind ; to misconduct of delegated rulers over neigh- 
 bouring islands of the mother state, and over a people whose 
 complaints could easily reach the seat of imperial govern- 
 ment. The prosecution of Verres was soon discontinued ; 
 and the orations of Cicero, which remain for the pleasure 
 of mankind, are full of invectives which were never pro- 
 nounced, and may be regarded as merely rhetorical compo- 
 sitions. The impeachment of Lord Strafford, indeed, was 
 carried to a complete and successful termination, and 
 the great Wentworth expiated his apostacy on the scaffold, 
 while affording an additional proof of the little faith that 
 '* should be placed in Princes." But the charges against 
 him, though weighty were few ; the evidence was not com- 
 plicated or multitudinous, and the trial was of manageable 
 extent, and was concluded in a reasonable period. And it 
 will be admitted by many of those who think him justly 
 condemned, that his prosecution was instituted and carried 
 on as much from feelings of personal malice and party 
 spirit as of public justice. The impeachment of Warren 
 Hastings stands distinguished in all these particulars. It 
 referred to the alleged tyranny of a Viceroy over a country 
 almost as extensive as Europe, and over a people whose 
 cries had to traverse half the globe before they could reach 
 the cars of British justice. The prosecution has certainly 
 been alleged to have had its origin in vindictive motives on
 
 36 
 
 the part of some of the managers, like Lord Strafford's ; but 
 I do not see any sufficient evidence to warrant the sugges- 
 tion; and it certainly cannot apply to the House of Com- 
 mons, who were the prosecutors. Indeed, I think this 
 charge against the individual managers has obtained credit 
 from what seems to me the great error committed by them, 
 viz. the distracting multiplicity and overwhelming extent of 
 the articles of accusation. Nothing can be more mistaken 
 than the idea that such an accumulation of apparent diffi- 
 culties is disadvantageous to the party impeached. On the 
 contrary, they who are experienced in judicial proceedings, 
 know well that it rather operates in his favour. The truth 
 is, that the limited nature of human powers and the perpe- 
 tual accidents that interfere in human affairs, and divert 
 them from their otherwise natural course, render it a matter 
 of certainty that many of such charges must remain un- 
 proved, even if there be evidence in existence sufficient to 
 have established them. The eloquent invectives of Burke 
 and Sheridan were poured forth, as if every thing asserted 
 had been proved, and as if what was satisfactorily estab- 
 lished in their own breasts, had been settled by conclusive 
 testimony on the trial. The result was what always does and 
 always will follow in such circumstances, that a prejudice was 
 created in favour of the party accused, who was supposed 
 to be unfairly suffering under the weight of talents and in- 
 fluence which were enough to crush the most innocent in- 
 dividual.* The tide of feeling turned from against the ac- 
 cused to his accusers, and as the crimes alleged against 
 him were those of a ruler, which, if successful, will always 
 secure the admiration of the vulgar- minded, whether rich 
 or poor, high or low; the natural prejudice to which I 
 have just before referred, was seconded by the additional 
 
 * The great historian of the Rebellion has made a similar obser- 
 vation on the men accused before parliament at the beginning of the 
 reign of Charles I. l^ol. i. b. i. p. 13. ed. 1826.] He says :— 
 
 "Besides that, after the first storm, there is some compassion 
 naturally attends men like to be in misery ; and besides the lati- 
 tude of judging in those places, whereby there is room for kind- 
 ness and affection, and collateral considerations to interpose ; the 
 truth is those accusations (to which this man contributes his malice.
 
 37 
 
 one arising from the nature of his character. Unfortunately 
 the conduct of rulers must be very bad or very foolish, in- 
 deed, if it ever subjects them to any serious public disap- 
 probation. The managers should have limited themselves 
 to two or three of Hastings's weightiest alleged offences, 
 and, thereon, concentrated the public attention. They 
 might then have concluded the trial in a reasonable time, 
 and have called for judgment, if he had been convicted, 
 before the public feeling had cooled or turned. Warren 
 Hastings, however, was acquitted by both houses, and was 
 even subsequently honoured by the house which impeached 
 him. He stands, therefore, free, by the adjudication of the 
 constituted authorities of the land ; but as his conduct has 
 now become matter of history, each of us may enter- 
 tain an independent opinion upon it. On the one hand, in 
 his defence, the view most generally adopted, has been the 
 one eloquently described by Lord Erskine, [In the trial of 
 Stockdale for a libel on the House of Co/mno7is,] that 
 Warren Hastings was compelled from the very nature 
 of the power entrusted to him, to resort to cruelty and 
 fraud ; and that it was unjust to tax him with those neces- 
 sary consequences which resulted from the peculiar cha- 
 racter of our dominion in the East. On the other hand, it 
 has been alleged that his cruelty was often unjustifiable 
 upon any plea of necessity, and that his rapacity was greater 
 than the exigencies of government, upon any plausible pre- 
 text, could require. This is not the time and place for 
 entering into that inquiry; but those who wish to pursue it, 
 will find it fully treated in the various publications of the 
 day on the subject, and by the modern historians of India.* 
 The extraordinary powers of eloquence displayed by 
 Burke and Slieridan in openitig the charges are well known, 
 
 another his wit, all men what they please, and most upon hearsay, 
 with a kind of uncharital)le delight of making the charge as heavy 
 as may be) are commonly stuffed with many odious generals, that 
 the proofs seldom make good ; and then a man is no sooner found 
 less guilty than he is expected, hut he is concluded more innocent 
 than he is ; and it is thought but a just reparation for the reproach 
 that he deserved not, to free him from the censure he deserved." 
 
 * Sec also Moore's Life of Sherid.-in, ili. II. 
 
 D
 
 38 
 
 and have divided critics, and the world in general, in opi- 
 nion, as to which of them is entitled to the palm of excel- 
 lence. The speech of Sheridan in the House of Commons, 
 on the Begum charge, excited the warmest admiration of 
 his illustrious cotemporaries, one of whom, Mr. Pitt, actu- 
 ally moved an adjournment of the House immediately after 
 its delivery, on the ground that, " they were under the 
 wand of an enchanter." His speech on the same subject, 
 delivered at the bar of the Lords, appears to have rivalled 
 its predecessor ; and as far as we can judge from the extracts 
 which alone Mr. Moore has given to the world in his de- 
 lightful " Life of S/ieridan," richly deserved its fame. But 
 full justice cannot possibly be done to the talents of those 
 extraordinary men, and especially of Burke, without read- 
 ing the trial throughout, so as fully to perceive the readi- 
 ness and fertility of those resources which no surprise could 
 disconcert, and no efforts exhaust; and that amazing extent 
 and variety of knowledge which the constant exigencies of 
 the impeachment rendered it necessary to display. I shall 
 present before you specimens of both orators, and leave you 
 to decide to whom the palm is due. The judgment of most 
 of you, will, probably, be similar to the one you would pro- 
 nounce on Sir Walter Scott's novels, that the best is the last 
 youtread. 
 
 The following extract is from Mr. Sheridan's speech : — 
 
 " An honourable friend of mine,* who is now, I believe, near 
 me — a gentleman, to whom I never can on any occasion refer with- 
 out feelings of respect, and, on this subject, without feelings of the 
 most grateful homage ; a gentleman, whose abilities upon this oc- 
 casion, as upon some former ones, happily for the glory of the age 
 in which we live, are not entrusted merely to the perishable elo- 
 quence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour 
 when all of us are mute, and most of us forgotten 5 — that ho- 
 nourable gentleman has told you that Prudence, the first of virtues, 
 never can be used in the cause of vice. If, reluctant and diffident, 
 I might take such a liberty, I should express a doubt whether ex- 
 perience, observation, or history, will warrant us in fully assenting 
 to this observation. It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, my Lords, 
 worthy the mind of him who uttered it, worthy that proud dis- 
 dain, that generous scorn of the means and instruments of vice, 
 which virtue and genius must ever feel. But 1 should doubt whe- 
 ther we can read the history of a Philip of Macedon, a Caesar, or 
 
 * Burke.
 
 39 
 
 a Cromwell, without confessing, that there have been evil purposes, 
 baneful to the peace and to the rights of men, conducted — if I may 
 not say with prudence or with wisdom — yet with awful craft, and 
 most successful and commanding subtlety. If, however, I might 
 make a distinction, I should say that it is the proud attempt to mix 
 a variety of lordly crimes, that unsettles the prudence of the mind, 
 and breeds this distraction of the brain. One master-passion, do- 
 mineering in tlie breast, may win the faculties of the understand- 
 ing to advance its purpose, and to direct to that object every thing 
 that thought or human knowledge can affect ; but, to succeed, it 
 must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind ; — each rival pro- 
 fligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage upon its throne. 
 For the Power that has not forbad the entrance of evil passions 
 into man's mind, has at least forbad their union ; — if they meet, 
 they defeat their object, and their conquest or their attempt at it is 
 tumult. Turn to the V^irtues — how different the decree ! Formed 
 to connect, to blend, to associate, and to co-operate j bearing the 
 same course, with kindred energies and harmonious sympathy, each 
 perfect in its own lovely sphere, each moving in its wider or more 
 contracted orbit, with different but concentering powers, guided 
 by the same influence of reason, and endeavouring at the same 
 blessed end — the happiness of the individual, the harmony of the 
 species, and the glory of tlie Creator. In the Vices, on the other 
 band, it is the discord that insures the defeat — each clamours to be 
 heard in its own barbarous language ; each claims the exclusive 
 cunning of the brain ; each tiiwarts and reproaches the other ; and 
 even while their fell rage assails with common hate the peace and 
 virtue of the world, the civil war among their own tumultuous le- 
 gions defeats the purpose of the foul conspiracy. These are the 
 Furies of the mind, my Lords, that unsettle the understanding; 
 these are the Furies, that destroy the virtue. Prudence, — while the 
 distracted brain and shivered intellect proclaim the tumult that is 
 within, and bear their testimonies, from the mouth of God himself, 
 to the foul condition of the heart."* 
 
 Of this magnificent passage it is not saying too much 
 that it is almost impossible for the human powers to soar 
 higher ; but I shall put it to the only test adequate to it, 
 and read a passage from Burke. I select his description of 
 the Devastation of the Cnrnatic : — 
 
 " When at length Myder Ali found that he had to do with men 
 who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no 
 signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of 
 human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed 
 by those incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable ex- 
 ample to mankind. He resolved, in tlie gloomy recesses of a mind 
 capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlast- 
 ing monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a 
 * Moore's Life of Sheridan, chap. 11.
 
 '~ 40 
 
 l)ainer between liim and those, against wliont the faitli which holds 
 the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. He 
 became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, 
 that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Hav- 
 ing 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 desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while 
 on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these 
 evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which 
 blackened all tiieir horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the 
 whole of its contents upon the plains of the Caruatic. Then en- 
 sued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart 
 conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the hor- 
 rors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new 
 havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed 
 every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants 
 flying 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, enve- 
 loped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of 
 drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into cap- 
 tivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to 
 evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from 
 fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. 
 
 " Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, 
 this comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest 
 of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is : but I find 
 myself unable to manage it with decorum 5 these details are of a 
 species of horror so nauseous and disgusting ; they are so degrad- 
 ing to the sufferers and to the hearers ; they are so humiliating to 
 human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find it more advisa- 
 ble to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to 
 your general conceptions." 
 
 The mind is overwhelmed — criticism is disarmed— the 
 human faculties can soar no higher I 
 
 The next important subject which occupied the gifted pen 
 of Mr. Burke, was one which exercised the most potent 
 spell over his life, and changed the whole course of its cur- 
 rent. I refer to that stupendous event of modern days, the 
 French Revolution ; which not only upset thrones and 
 nobles, not only disorganized all society in France, and, 
 afterwards, through the agency of its then invinicible 
 armies, carried dismay to every corner of continental
 
 41 
 
 Europe, but penetrated even here, and produced the most 
 important effects in British politics. The shock of the great 
 earthquake was felt across the channel. The terrific hur- 
 ricane swept the neighbouring seas, and spent its remain- 
 ing force in the British Isles. At the outset, indeed, of that 
 awful catastrophe, almost every man of liberal and enlight- 
 ened views hailed it with satisfaction. Mr. Pitt and Mr. 
 Fox concurred in anticipating from it the most beneficial 
 results to France and to Europe. They hoped that the weak 
 despotism of the Bourbons had come to a close; and that 
 the amiable monarch then reigning, free from the personal 
 vices of his predecessors, would become the fountain of a 
 new line of sovereigns, limited by the wise precautions 
 which guard the British monarchy. They saw with grati- 
 fication the destruction of the feudal privileges of a noblesse 
 possessed of no title to respect but antiquity, and of the ob- 
 noxious power which superstition had conferred on an en- 
 slaving priesthood. They hailed with joy the advent of a 
 period when France, free from the influence of her ancient 
 feelings, would learn to exchange the vain and guilty am- 
 bition of military glory, for the genuine, substantial, and 
 untarnished splendours of peace and commerce. They ex- 
 pected that she would derive political wisdom from her en- 
 lightened neighbour, and, taking advantage of the lights 
 of experience, adapt the British Constitution to her reno- 
 vated existence. Alas ! these hopes were delusive ; but I 
 confess I cannot see how they could be otherwise. A jieople 
 is not to be made free, or fit for freedom, in a few months 
 or years. Nations cannot, by the mere possession of the 
 power, immediately become able to carry on a government 
 pure and intelligent ; for they, like individuals, must go 
 through a process of political education and training before 
 they can act with any advantageous effect. The majority 
 of the French people had been too long treated as slaves or 
 children to be qualified to rule themselves. Accustomed 
 for centuries to the double rein of the church and the crown, 
 when that restraint vvjis suddenly and violently withdrawn, 
 no curb was left to check their licentiousness and fury. 
 Superstition had been disarmed of its terrors, the prestige
 
 4i2 
 
 of the throne of Louis XIV. was gone, and the infuriated 
 slaves arose in the dreadful excitement of unbridled pas- 
 sions, the scourge and lesson of the world. As the Revo- 
 lution advanced, its partizans decreased. Men were split 
 into schisms of opinion on its character and bearings, and 
 viewed it through the medium of their peculiar feelings. 
 Whatever may be the form of government adopted in any 
 state, those principles of human nature, I suspect, will yet 
 long, if not ever, prevail, which give some men a strong bias 
 against aristocratic, and others as strong a bias against de- 
 mocratic power. They in whose breasts the love of liberty 
 beat with more warmth than prudence, and in whom that 
 noble sentiment was untempered by the practical wisdom 
 resulting from a philosophic study of history and a wide 
 experience of mankind, which checks the enthusiasts of 
 philanthropy by the knowledge of the obstacles which are 
 presented to their endeavours by human passions and in- 
 terests, viewed the early progress of the Revolution with a 
 joyful confidence of success, which an attentive reflection 
 on the circumstances would have much abated. On the 
 contrary, they with whom the aristocratic principle natu- 
 rally predominated, and who feared the exercise oi popular 
 power as destructive of the peace and order of society, were 
 struck with terror at the out-burst of the Revolution, but 
 soon recovered sufficient courage to predict, with certainty, 
 the failure of the popular hopes, which finally ensued. The 
 ferment into which the nation at large was thrown, agitated, 
 of course, the great political parties of the State. Mr. 
 Burke withdrew from the side of his friend Mr. Fox, with 
 whom he had so long struggled in opposition, and led after 
 him a small but powerful minority of the Whig party. The 
 scene which occurred in the House of Commons on the 
 first public exposure of their difference is described to have 
 been extremely interesting. Mr. Fox actually shed tears, 
 and Mr. Burke was deeply affected. He said he was "aware 
 " of the sacrifice which he must make, and he was prepared 
 " to make it. He and his friends were from that moment 
 " separated for ever." Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, and the 
 great body of the Whig party were of opinion, that the
 
 43 
 
 thunder-storm which had broken over France was neccs" 
 sary to clear the political atmosphere. No men felt greate'* 
 or more genuine disgust at the horrors which were pro- 
 duced by it. They were shocked at the dreadful termina- 
 tion of the reign of the amiable but weak, misguided, and 
 unfortunate monarch, on a scaffold of his capital ; and, as 
 to the reign of terror, the only answer which they, or any 
 men deserving of the name, could give to any person who 
 pretended to disbelieve their indignation at it, was, to treat 
 the imputation as a personal insult. But while no one 
 could possibly feel greater horror at such excesses than 
 those two distinguished statesmen, and the respectable 
 Whig party whom they led, yet, they did not, therefore, 
 join in the execration so commonly and lavishly bestowed 
 on the French people. They thought that, although great 
 men negative the rule, and negative it because they are 
 great, yet, that large masses of men are deeply influenced, 
 and almost moulded by the circumstances which surround 
 them, and the habits and education which they have derived 
 from the institutions of the society in which they live. 
 They were of opinion, that when such masses are kept in 
 brutal ignorance, their follies and ferocities are not to be 
 placed so much to their own account, as of the persons by 
 whom that brutal ignorance is fostered. They thought that 
 gigantic abuses were to be got rid of, the obnoxious here- 
 ditary privileges of certain classes of society, which could 
 not be withdrawn without a desperate struggle. They 
 thought it extremely unfair to tax the people with violence, 
 and yet not be angry at the grasping selfishness of those 
 classes who would relax nothing but at the sword's point. 
 And, in fine, they felt then, what some of the philosophic 
 historians of the Revolution have endeavoured to establish 
 since, that it had become necessary in the course of events, 
 and that the horrors by which it was accompanied were un- 
 avoidable evils produced by the nature of things. 
 
 Mr. Burke, on the other hand, differed widely from these 
 views. He disapproved of the Revolution from the begin- 
 ning, and predicted at a very early stage that it would 
 become the mother of every evil. He was shocked at the
 
 44 
 
 destruction of the church, the monarchy, and the aristo- 
 cracy ; and the trampling of every thing sacred, under what 
 he termed '' the hoofs of the swinish multitude." His dis- 
 gust and indignation at the unheard of barbarities and law- 
 less domination of the French canaille were so great, and 
 exercised such a powerful, and, at last, morbid influence 
 over his mind, that he would make no allowance for any 
 supposed provocations, nor enter into any impartial inquiry 
 into the causes which might have produced such dreadful 
 efTects.* His enemies, indeed, have accused him of incon- 
 sistency and dishonesty in the desertion of his party — for 
 pitying the plumage, but forgetting the dying bird of the 
 French nation ; and they appeal, with a confident air 
 of triumph to the pension of 2,500/. per annum which he 
 shortly afterwards received from the government. Into 
 that subject I enter not. I pronounce no opinion. We are 
 here considering Edmund Burke in his literary character, 
 in which he stands among the first rank' of men ; and I may 
 therefore describe the " Reflections on the French Revolu- 
 tion," as a most exquisite production of Literature. This 
 work excited the greatest sensation at the period of its 
 publication, not only among the friends, but the foes of the 
 principles which it so powerfully supported. Monarchs 
 sent him flattering presents for his powerful advocacy of 
 
 * In former times he thought differently of Revolutions. In his 
 " Thoughts on the Discontents," he says, " I am not one of those 
 who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have 
 been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and 
 in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their 
 rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. 
 Experience may perhaps justify me in going farther. When 
 popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may be well 
 affirmed and supported, that there has been generally some thing 
 found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of government. 
 The people have no interest in disorder. When they do wrong it is 
 their error, and not their crime. But with the governing part of 
 the state, it is far otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, 
 as well as by mistake. Les Revolutions qui arrivent dans les 
 grands ^tats ne sont point un effet du hazard ni du caprice des peuples. 
 Pour la populace, ce n'est jamais par envie dattaquer qu elle se 
 souleve, mais par i?npatience de souffrir. These are the words of a 
 great man, [Sully] of a minister of state, and a zealous asserter of 
 monarchy."
 
 45 
 
 what he called the " cause of Sovereigns';" and almost 
 every writer, good, bad, and indifferent, on the opposite 
 side, took the field and broke a lance against him. Two 
 remarkable productions have survived to our own clay, 
 though with a much inferior fame to the immortal work 
 which brought them forth ; the " Vindicse Gallicee" of Sir 
 James Mackintosh, and the powerful " Rights of Man," by 
 Thomas Paine. The former composition bears every stamp 
 of the character of its excellent author— elegant, learned^ 
 and acute ; and so much pleased even Burke himself^ 
 that he invited Sir James to his house at Beaconsfield, 
 as a token of his esteem. The latter work would probably 
 have met with a much better reception from the world, 
 notwithstanding the great unpopularity of many of its sug- 
 gestions, but for the well-known disreputable personal cha- 
 racter of its author, and the obnoxious nature of some of 
 his other works on the sacred subject of religion. 
 
 I shall now proceed to read to you Burke's elegant de- 
 scription of the Queen of France, which is, perhaps, fami- 
 liar to many of you ; but who can ever tire of such a pic- 
 ture ? It is perfect as a piece of composition. He who can 
 read it without emotion is made of very different feelings 
 to me ; and if there be any whose strong disapprobation 
 of the political tenets conveyed by the work in which such 
 literary beauties abound blinds him to them, I can only 
 say, that however I may commend his zeal, I cannot com- 
 mend his taste. 
 
 " It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of 
 France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted 
 on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful 
 vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering 
 the elevated sphere she just began to move in, — glittering like the 
 morning-star, full of life, of splendor, and joy. Oh ! what a 
 revolution ! and what an heart must I have, to contemplate without 
 emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream that, 
 when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, 
 respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp 
 antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I 
 dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon 
 her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and 
 of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped 
 from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her
 
 46 
 
 with insult. — But the tige of chivalry is gone. — That of sophisters, 
 oecoiioinists, and calculators, has succeeded ; and the glory of 
 Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we 
 behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, 
 that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which 
 kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. 
 The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse 
 of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize is gone ! It is gone, that 
 sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain 
 like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, 
 which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself 
 lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness." 
 
 The great praise which I have bestowed on this passage 
 demands of me an explanation, lest I should be misun- 
 derstood to adopt what appear to me the dangerous un- 
 truths conveyed by it. " The age of chivalry," Mr. Burke 
 deeply regrets, " is gone ;" — but, notwithstanding, that 
 a great historian. Gibbon, said " he adored Mr. Burke 
 for his chivalry," I think an attentive and impartial exami- 
 nation of that era of society will justify the remark of Lord 
 Byron, in his preface to Childe Harold, that such a regret 
 was misplaced; for you will find from history that the cha- 
 racteristics of those times were not merely the harmless or 
 generous follies of some individual knighis, which the ini- 
 mitable pen of Cervantes has handed down to the perpetual 
 ridicule of posterity, but a series of cruelty and misery on 
 the most extensive scale ; — society divided into the two 
 classes of the haughty noble and cunning priest, and of 
 the degraded and plundered serf (to which latter class, let 
 it be remembered, almost all of us now present would have 
 been unhappy enough to belong) ; and, to describe in two 
 words the sum of human wretchedness, harassed by " per- 
 petual war.'' Well said Napoleon, in contempt — when de- 
 scribing the policy of Francis I., who is styled the " flower 
 of chivalry," — " The folly of the time ! The extent of feudal 
 intellect ! Francis F. was, after all, but a hero for tilts and 
 tournaments, and a gallant for the drawing-rooms, — one of 
 those pigmy great men !" \_Las Casas, v. 3.] And even 
 in those vivid pictures of this era of society, which the ex- 
 quisite pencil of Sir Walter has presented in his charming 
 novels, (certainly with no wish to depreciate it,) there is
 
 
 47 
 
 quite enough, I confess, to make me thankful that I did not 
 live at the time of the Front de Boeufs and the Templars. 
 Instead, therefore, of weakly regretting, with Mr. Burke, 
 that the " age of chivalry" and of such men " is gone," — let 
 us rejoice that the age of wide-spread intelligence is come ! 
 
 And as to the concluding sentiment of that magnificent 
 burst of eloquence, viz. that " vice loses half its evil by 
 losing all its grossness ;" I do not think a logical moralist 
 would find much difficulty in convincing you that vice has 
 its evils doubled by losing its grossness, and that its allure- 
 ments are never so great and enticing as when they are 
 covered by the veil of refinement. Dr. Johnson, in an 
 early number of the " Rambler," [No. 4,] tells us that, 
 
 Vice, as vice is necessary to be shewn, should always 
 
 disgust us; nor should the graces of gaiety or the 
 " dignity of courage be so united with it as to recon- 
 " cile it to the mind. Wherever it appears, it should raise 
 " hatred by the malignity of its practice, and contempt by 
 " the meanness of its stratagems." And he adds, " There 
 " have been men, indeed, splendidly wicked, whose en- 
 " dowmcnts threw a brightness over their crimes, and 
 " whom scarce any villainy made perfectly detestable, 
 " because they never could be wholly divested of their ex- 
 ** cellencies J but such have been in all ages the greatest 
 " corrupters of the luorld, and their resemblance ought no 
 " more to be preserved than the art of murdering without 
 " pain." And Mr. Burke has answered himself on this 
 point, when delivering his opinion on the " Beggar's Opera," 
 a work to which we are told [Bissetfs Life,'] he objected, 
 because " it represented vice in agreeable colours." 
 
 The Revolution continued to occupy Burke's mind and 
 pen to an almost morbid extent till his death, and was the 
 occasion of one of his finest works, written not long before 
 that event, but with all the fire and imagination of youth — 
 I refer to the " Thoughts ou a Regicide Peace" from 
 which nothing but the want of time prevents my reading 
 some extracts to you. This is an apology to which I have 
 resorted before, and I cannot resist the opportunity of en- 
 forcing upon you the importance of following up the inquiry
 
 48 
 
 which I have commenced, and reading more at leisure and 
 more at length those matchless compositions of which I have 
 been only able to give you a general and inadequate idea. 
 At the commencement of this Lecture I took the liberty to 
 express my strong feeling of the importance and appropri- 
 ateness for public lectures of such subjects as the present; 
 but all that the most skilful and industrious Lecturer can do 
 is to rouse your attention, engage your interest, and direct 
 your path ; and he will be perfectly successful, and will have 
 achieved all that he can rationally propose as the end of his 
 endeavours, or will be, indeed, in his power to effect^ if he 
 can induce a considerable portion of his audience to follow 
 up the inquiry he has instituted, and make themselves tho- 
 roughly acquainted with the works to which he directs their 
 attention. 
 
 The remainii]g subject which occupied Burke's pen, was 
 h\s vindication of his pe7isio7i. The Duke of Bedford and 
 Lord Lauderdale had attacked the ministers in the House 
 of Lords for conferring this pension, and accused Burke of 
 inconsistency in accepting it, which produced one of the 
 most masterly efforts of human composition which the 
 whole world of literature can show. I refer to the justly 
 celebrated " Letter to a Noble Lord."" 
 
 The following extract contains no political allusion. It 
 is a most touching lamentation for the loss of his only son : 
 
 " Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, 
 I should have been according to ray mediocrity, and the mediocrity 
 of the age 1 live in, a sort of founder of a family ; I should have 
 left a son, who, in all the points in which personal merit can be 
 viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honour, in 
 generosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and every 
 liberal accomplishment, would not have shewn himself inferior to 
 the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his 
 line. His grace very soon would have wanted all plausibility in 
 his attack upon that provision which belonged more to mine than 
 to me. HE would soon have supplied every deficiency, and 
 symmetrized every disproportion. It would not have been for 
 that successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of merit 
 in me, or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, living 
 spring, of generous and manly action. Every day he lived he 
 would have re-purchased the bounty of the crown, and ten times 
 more, if ten times more he had received. He was made a public
 
 49 
 
 creature; and had no enjoyment whatever, but in the performance 
 of some duty. At this exigent moment, the loss of a finished man 
 is not easily supplied. 
 
 " But a disposer whose power we are little able'to resist, and 
 whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute; has ordained 
 it in another manner, and (whatever my cpieruious weakness might 
 suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me ; and I lie 
 like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered 
 about me. 1 am stripped of all my honours ; I am torn up by the 
 roots, and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, 
 I most uufeignedly recognize the divine justice, and in some decree 
 submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not 
 know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and incon- 
 siderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some 
 of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted 
 himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not 
 find him blamed for reprehending, and with considerable degree of 
 verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his 
 dunghill, to read moral, political, and oeconomical lectures on his 
 misery. 1 am alone. 1 have none to meet my enemies in the 
 
 gate I live in an inverted order. They who ought 
 
 to have succeeded me, have gone before me. They who should 
 have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe 
 to the dearest relation (which ever must subsist in memory) that 
 act of piety, which he would have performed to me ; I owe it to 
 him to shew that he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford 
 would have it, from an unworthy parent." 
 
 I have now drawn your attention, though in the summary 
 manner alone permitted to me, to the most celebrated writ- 
 ings and the most important public events in the life of the 
 Right Hon. Edmund Burke, — a man who was endowed 
 with marvellous talents, which were neither dissipated nor 
 buried in a napkin by their gifted possessor, but were so 
 employed as to make him a man of as marvellous knowledge 
 and attainments. Nor is it only in the glare of public life 
 nor only for his immortal compositions that Mr. Burke 
 is to be studied and admired. The quiet undercurrent of 
 his existence equally deserves our attentive approbation 
 and honourably distinguishes him from his great cotem- 
 poraries. Mr. Pitt's private life was correct, but unenvia- 
 ble — unenlivened and untried by those delightful respon- 
 sibilities which afford the genuine sphere for the duties 
 and happiness of man. It is chiefly in the cultivation and 
 exercise of the affections^ that our Omnipotent Father 
 has destined us to find our happiness. Mr. F(;x, indeed
 
 60 
 
 was distinguished by the qualities which make men beloved 
 in society, and which were so admirably pourtrayed by his 
 friend in the bewitching but dangerous character of Charles 
 Surface, in the exquisite comedy of the " School for Scan- 
 dal." The wonderful author of that elegant piece of satire, 
 which was written at the age of six-and-twenty, was gifted 
 to a degree hardly ever equalled by the sons of men with the 
 enchanting faculty o^wit. But, both those eminent men were 
 unfortunately notorious for their disregard of some of those 
 important rules of conduct on the observance of which 
 common sense dictates that society must materially depend. 
 He who cheats the man that confides in him, in a witty 
 manner, may make us laugh at his jests, and half disarm 
 our anger (for wit and good humour are qualities which 
 cover a multitude of sins) ; but reflection soon insures him 
 our contempt and indignation. Nor can nights wasted in 
 gambling and drinking, with their sad consequences of ne- 
 glected households and accumulated debts, be redeemed by 
 any professions, or even great exertions, on behalf of public 
 virtue ; for although we may admit the suspicion which 
 the world entertains to be unjust, viz. that men who habi- 
 tually disregard the useful virtues, on which society is based, 
 are hypocritical or impudent pretenders to the great and 
 splendid ones by which it is elevated and adorned ; yet, we 
 must feel, I think, that the continued discharge of the daily 
 duties of life by the great portion of mankind is of more 
 importance to their well-being and happiness, than those 
 occasional efforts even of great genius and great virtues 
 which sometimes are certainly vital to the existence of the 
 most valuable privileges of life, and are always ennobling 
 and delightful to contemplate. The perfection of human 
 character, indeed, and the true path to the greatest sum of 
 happiness attainable by man here, consists in the harmo- 
 nious exercise of all the faculties of our nature, in the 
 discharge and union of private and public virtue. Mr. Burke 
 brought into the field of public contest the advantage of his 
 unexceptionable private life. He was an excellent father 
 and husband in the genuirie sense of those words, in his 
 earnest and sympathizing companionship with the wife of
 
 51 
 
 his bosom, and an anxious and constant superintcndance 
 over the education of his son. All the disquietudes of 
 public life " vanished," he said, " when he entered his 
 home." You have observed the strength with which the 
 parental feeling beat in his breast, in the exquisitely touch- 
 ing description which I read to you of the loss he sustained 
 in the death of his only son ; and that loss certainly has- 
 tened, if it did not actually cause, his own decease. He was 
 a staunch and delightful friend ; one from whose companion- 
 ship equal improvement and pleasure were derived. Dr. 
 Johnson has passed many encomiums on his powers, one 
 of them, probably familiar to you, that, " if any person of 
 " sense had stood up in a gateway to avoid a shower of 
 " rain at the same time as Mr. Burke, he would have dis- 
 " covered him to be an extraordinary man." And Mr. Fox 
 bore equal testimony to the unlimitted stores of his mind, 
 and the facility with which they were poured forth to all 
 around. He declared, in the House of Commons, that, " he 
 " had learned more from Mr. Burke than from all other 
 "sources of reading and experience put together;" and 
 though their quarrel was unfortunately very severe, yet, Mr. 
 Fox watched his declining powers with the most anxious 
 interest, and after his death moved a resolution in the House 
 of Commons that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 How various and profound M'ere his talents and know- 
 ledge, — how elegant and refined his acquirements ! Let 
 us imagine him indulging his fine natural taste in the pur- 
 suit of kindred studies with his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 the Literary Artist, when their varied knowledge in different 
 departments reflected mutual light, and conveyed mutual 
 instruction. 
 
 " Smit with the love of Sister Arts they came, 
 " And met congenial, mingling flame with flame ; 
 " Like friendly colours, see them both unite, 
 " And each from each contract new strength and light."* 
 Let us imagine the author of the "Sublime and Beauti- 
 ful" assisting his friend in the composition of those admira- 
 ble and delightful " Discourses on Painting," which are so 
 
 * Pope's Epistle to Jervas. (See Sir Joshua Reynolds' " Discourses.")
 
 52 
 
 justly celebrated for their literary and professional merits. 
 Let us imagine the statesman, after the delivery of one of 
 those magnificent orations, which must be as imperishable 
 as the language which they have adorned, unbending his 
 mighty soul, and seeking the relaxation natural to such 
 spirits, not in a suspension of the intellectual powers, but 
 merely in a change of their object, and rendering his home 
 a seat of the muses, the sacred retreat of learning and of 
 taste ! The Memoirs of every remarkable person of either 
 sex, in that sera, from Boswell's Life of Johnson to the 
 recent biographies of Madame D'Arblay and Mrs. H. More, 
 make incidental mention of Edmund Burke, and always in 
 terms of the highest eulogy, for the splendour and variety 
 of his talents, and the kindness and sociality of his temper. 
 
 But it was not only when enjoying " the feast of reason 
 and the flow of soul" with his brother wits, at the table of 
 Sir Joshua, or at the Literary Club, nor in the wide circle of 
 his friends and acquaintance, that this intellectual Crichton 
 is the subject of our admiration. Observe his conduct to his 
 superiors and inferiors in station. When Secretary to W. G. 
 Hamilton, commonly called "single speech Hamilton," that 
 gentleman was kind enough to procure Mr. Burke an ad- 
 vantageous position ; but the selfish author of " Parlia- 
 mentary Logic" had no idea of anything being given ^' tvith- 
 out consideration." Accordingly, he was astonished that 
 Mr. Burke thought fit still to pursue an independent line of 
 conduct, and not sell himself body and soul to his generous 
 patron. Mr. Burke immediately threw up the appointments 
 so liberally bestowed upon him, refusing with indignation 
 to submit to such an imposition ; and he afterwards [Let- 
 ter to Flood] says, that his motive in not becoming recon- 
 ciled to Mr. Hamilton was, that " all his proposals for con- 
 ciliation were vitiated by the taint of that servitude with 
 which they were mixed." Now, let us turn to the other side 
 of the picture, and there we see the beneficent protector of 
 the meritorious and the wretched. The impetuous and 
 self-willed Barry, the gentle and unfriended Crabbe, owed 
 almost every thing to Mr. Burke. Nor was it only to painters 
 and to poets that his hand was extended to relieve. His bio-
 
 53 
 
 grapher, Mr. Prior, in the same spirit of reverential admi- 
 ration for his hero with which Boswell writes of Johnson, 
 and Mr. Montague of Lord Bacon, has collected many in- 
 stances of his generosity; and to such an undue extent, 
 indeed, did he carry his propensity of giving, that he was 
 sometimes actually foolishly embarrassed in his own cir- 
 cumstances from his indulgence of that fine foible. In all 
 the private relations of life, then, we see the conduct of this 
 great man harmonious and consistent — anxiously discharg- 
 ing every private duty of husband, father, friend, and fel- 
 low creature, till his great heart had ceased to beat ! 
 
 The reputation of Edmund Burke in literature is now so 
 high and firmly established, that no duty is imposed on the 
 Lecturer of vindicating it ; but his task is confined to the 
 critical explanation of the sources whence it is derived. 
 Adequately, indeed, to discharge that task, and to render 
 full justice to his various talents and acquirements, would 
 demand that something of his own power should animate, 
 and some portion, at least, of his mantle should descend 
 upon the shoulders of his critic. I must content myself, 
 according to the measure of my abilities, and the limited 
 time allotted to me, with a very general and rapid summary. 
 The exquisite harmony of the sentences, the aptness and 
 force of the language, and the general beauty of the compo- 
 sition, must have been recognised by all in the extracts 
 which, throughout the Lecture, I have brought to your atten- 
 tion. But the real source of interest, the pervading charm 
 and the distinguishing excellence of this great author are to 
 be found in the richness and universality of hh illustrations, 
 which, brought from every field of science and of art, dazzle 
 us throughout the composition in ever- flashing corrusca- 
 tions. " The commonest subjects," as Lord Erskine well 
 said, "swell into eloquence at the touch of his sublime ge- 
 nius." This distinguishing attribute of his style stamps the 
 character of his mind. It denotes him the possessor of know- 
 ledge as various as profound, and of the talent enjoyed to a 
 degree equally rare and exquisite,of not only communicating 
 that knowledge to others, but of making it the vehicle of con- 
 veying other truths apparently unconnected, but of deep ini- 
 
 £
 
 54 
 
 portancc, and which are thereby impressed upon the mind 
 of the reader with a strength which such a captivating 
 mode of enforcing them could alone impart. And this 
 predominant characteristic seems to me to explain in some 
 degree the apparent inconsistency which Mr. Macaulay has 
 remarked in his splendid article on Lord Bacon, in a re- 
 cent No. of the Edinburgh Revieiv [July, 183/], — viz., 
 that Burke's imagination appears to have grown warmer as 
 he grew older. That elegant critic says that Burke, in the 
 heat of his youth, wrote of the master-pieces of sculpture 
 and painting, and of the necks and faces of beautiful women, 
 in the style of a parliamentary report ; and, in his age, dis- 
 cussed treaties and tariffs with all the fire of the most 
 glowing rhetoric. The statement of this peculiarity is true 
 to a certain extent, but is, I think, much exaggerated. I 
 do not agree that the Treatise on the Sublime and Beauti- 
 ful, to which the critic here refers, is characterized by dry- 
 ness or dullness, although I admit the suhstantial truth of 
 the observation, that it is inferior in every merit of composi- 
 tion, and even in the display of wit and fancy, to the latest, 
 and, indeed, all the subsequent works of the author, some of 
 which were written in his old age, and almost immediately 
 previous to his death. And, although this peculiarity be an 
 apparent exception to the laws which regulate the mental 
 constitution of the majority of mankind, I do not think it 
 so great an exception as the criticism supposes, in the case 
 of men distinguished for the gift of imagination. For if we 
 view the matter attentively, we shall be probably surprised 
 to see that several of the great writers of that kind are 
 open to something of the same remark. Look at Dryden, 
 who wrote his " Fables" and "Alexander's Feast," at the age 
 of 70. The Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, too, were 
 the last works of a life of literature. It will be difficult, 
 perhaps, to account for this in a manner perfectly satisfac- 
 tory to most people, but, for myself, I confess the difficulty 
 in Burke's case is considerably solved by the characteristic 
 to which I have not long ago referred ; for, as the field of 
 his knowledge became enlarged, the resources of his genius 
 are multiplied j and constant practice and continued indul-
 
 55 
 
 licence in that rich style of composition had so facilitated 
 and habituated it to him, as to render it at last ornate even 
 to a fault. And I am not acquainted with any other writer 
 endowed with that faculty to such an extent as it was 
 possessed by Burke. Between him and Cicero, indeed, 
 there is a remarkable general resemblance, both as regards 
 their literary characteristics and powers and their public 
 proceedings. I recommend the literary student to institute 
 a comparison between them, and after a careful study of 
 both writers, he will find himself probably very dissatisfied 
 with his own efforts, when tested by the standard of their 
 inimitable compositions, but wonderfully the better for the 
 labour which he has bestowed. Every youthful artist who 
 knows his duty to himself, runs to Rome, that, by the ha- 
 bitual contemplation of the sublime productions of Michael 
 Angelo and of Raphael, he may not vainly hope to rival those 
 matchless masters of the chisel and the pencil, but catch the 
 fire of their genius and endeavour to adopt their style. The 
 glories of the Vatican, which check his presumption, ani- 
 mate his zeal. The truth is, to speak it reverently, that it 
 is the glorious prerogative of all really great men, that 
 "virtue goes out of them." A Demosthenes and a Luther 
 transfer their own enthusiasm to the gathered multitudes 
 around them, who not only appear, but for the moment 
 are, possessed of some portion of the fire which burns in 
 their ardent souls. And they who accustom themselves to 
 the perusal of the standard works of literature, although they 
 may certainly labour under the disadvantage of fastithous- 
 ness, arising from correct taste, will find themselves able to 
 use their own pens with much greater facility and force. 
 This habit will strengthen that most useful sentiment, 
 the admiration of greatness, the effective corrector of two 
 vices of a different but equally mischievous nature — inor- 
 dinate vanity, and a disbelief of the noble capabilities and 
 exalted tendencies and destiny of Human Nature. 
 
 Edmund Burke was the first man, at least in modern 
 days, who threw a grace and charm over political disquisi- 
 tions, and was also the first to give an entirely new cha- 
 racter to our senatorial eloquence. Me was the foremost
 
 56 
 
 in that band of extraordinary men, by whom the House of 
 Commons was made the arena of intellectual contests, 
 " above all Greek, above all Roman fame," and which were 
 as unexpected as they were unprecedented. For Dr. Blair, 
 the amiable and elegant Professor of Belles Lettres, at the 
 University of Edinburgh, and who may be presumed to have 
 utterred the sentiments of the literary world, delivered his 
 Lectures a few years before Mr. Burke pronounced his fa- 
 mous speeches on the American question. In his twenty- 
 sixth Lecture, on " Modern Eloquence," the Doctor concurs 
 in the feeling of surprise which Mr. Hume had shortly 
 before expressed in his beautiful Essay on "Eloquence," 
 [See his Essai/s'] at the inferiority of Great Britain in that 
 respect, not only to the Greeks and Romans, but also to the 
 Continent ; and he says, " We have both taste and erudi- 
 " tion in a high degree. We have historians and poets of 
 *' the greatest name ; but of orators or public speakers how 
 *' little have ive to boast ? And where are the monuments 
 " of their genius to he found f " 
 
 This reproach was delivered about the year 1760, when 
 only some of the grand but irregular bursts of Chatham 
 had been heard ; but in ten years afterwards it was re- 
 moved by Edmund Burke, at once and for ever. The 
 immortal orations which he then pronounced, and the 
 series of which they were the commencement, will stand 
 comparison with any efforts of eloquence ancient or mo- 
 dern, of which the world can boast, and will descend to 
 posterity in company with the Phillippics of Demosthenes 
 and (;icero ! 
 
 Printed by A. Hancock, Middle Row Place, Holbora. 
 
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