which it is said he was in the habit of improving in youth, by sedulous cultivation under the direction of Pope.

A gentleman (Mr. Baillie), who had been deeply indebted to Lord Mansfield's professional abilities, bequeathed 1500l. to erect a monument to his memory. The commission was entrusted to worthy hands, for it was given to Flaxman. A sketch of his work is given on the opposite page.

The Life of the Earl of Mansfield,' by Mr. Halliday, is the only biographical account of this eminent lawyer which we know to exist. It is too manifestly panegyrical, and, as has been intimated, contains a very meagre account of the private history of its noble subject. It is mainly occupied by reports of Lord Mansfield's speeches and judgments, and must therefore be chiefly acceptable to legal readers.

THE years which have elapsed since the death of Edmund Burke are not sufficient to secure a right and impartial sentence on his character., We are still within the heated temperature of the same political agitations in which he lived and struggled. We are not, perhaps our children will not be, qualified to judge him and his contemporaries, with that calmness with which men weigh the merits of things and persons who have exerted no perceptible influence over their own times. It is fortunate, therefore, that the limits of this brief Memoir prescribe rather a succinct statement of unquestioned facts, than a disputable adjudication between opposite opinions.

Edmund Burke, son of Richard Burke, an attorney in extensive practice in Dublin, was born in that city,

January 1, 1730. Of his early life little is known with certainty. He appears to have distinguished himself at Trinity College, Dublin, by his acquirements and talents, especially by a decided taste and ability for the discussion of subjects relating to English history and politics. His first literary effort of any importance was made before he quitted that university, in some letters directed against a factious writer called Lucas, at that time the popular idol. These are not preserved. In 1750 he came to London, and was entered a student of the Middle Temple. It is singular that the idle rumour, expressly contradicted by himself, of his having completed his education at St. Omer's, should be still in some degree accredited by the author of the article Burke,' in the Biographie Universelle. Whether, in 1752 or 1753, he became a candidate for the chair of Logic at Glasgow, is a more doubtful question: the opinions of Dugald Stewart and Adam Smith, who took some pains to ascertain the truth, were in the negative. It is certain, however, that the extraordinary talents of Burke soon began to attract attention; he wrote in many political and literary miscellanies, and formed an acquaintance with some distinguished characters of the time. Among these should be mentioned Lord Charlemont, Gerard Hamilton, Soame Jenyns, and somewhat later, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Hume. His first avowed work, the Vindication of Natural Society,' was published in 1756, and excited very general admiration. The imitation of Bolingbroke's style in this essay was so perfect, that some admirers of the deceased philosopher are said to have overlooked the evident signs of irony, and to have believed it to be a genuine posthumous work. This may appear strange; but it is surely more strange, that forty years afterwards this Vindication' should have been republished by the French party,

with a view of serving democratic interests. Before the close of 1756, appeared the Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,' which added largely to Burke's reputation, and procured him the valuable friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Shortly afterwards, the public attention being at that time much directed to the American colonies, was published An Account of the European Settlements in America,' of which Burke was probably not the sole but the principal author. It was much read, as well on the Continent as in England; and indeed no inconsiderable portion of it has been incorporated into the celebrated work of the Abbé Raynal. About this time Burke married the daughter of Dr. Nugent, an intelligent physician, who had invited him to his house while suffering under an illness, the result of laborious application. This union was a source of uninterrupted comfort to him through life. Every care vanishes," he was in the habit of saying, "when I enter my own home." A confined income, however, rendered literary exertion still more indispensable to him than before; and in 1759 The Annual Register,' that most useful work, for many years entirely composed by Burke, or under his immediate superintendence, was undertaken by him in conjunction with Dodsley. At length, in 1765, with the first Rockingham administration, he entered on a more extensive sphere of action; being appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, through the recommendation of his friend Mr. Fitzherbert.

Coming now into Parliament as member for Wendover in Buckinghamshire, Burke became an eminent supporter of the Whig party. The situation of affairs was critical. Mr. Grenville's stamp act, a fatal departure from the policy on which the colonies had been previously governed, had excited much discontent