SIR,

London, July 15, 1791.

It is with great satisfaction to me, that the generous victims of injustice and tyranny accept in good part the homage which I have offered to their virtues. It is a distinction which I would not have had occasion to merit from the clergy of France in the time of their credit and splendour. Your church, the intelligence of which was the ornament of the Christian world in its prosperity, is now more brilliant in the moment of its misfortunes, to the eyes who are capable of judging of it. Never did so great a number of men display a constancy so inflexible, a disinterestedness so manifest, a humility so magnanimous, so much dignity in their patience, and so much elevation in their sentiment of honour. Ages have not furnished so many noble examples as France has produced in the space of two years. It is odious to search in antiquity for the merit we admire, and to be insensible to that which passes under our eyes. France is in a deplorable situation, both in its political and moral state; but it seems to be in the order of the general economy of the world, that when the greatest and most detestable vices domineer, the most eminent and distinguished virtues raise their heads more proudly. Such is not the time for mediocrity. We may have some diversity in our opinions, but we have no difference in principles. There is but one kind of honour and virtue in the world; it consists in sacrificing every other consideration to the sentiments of our duty, of right, and of piety. It is this which the clergy of France have done. I will not examine scrupulously by what motives men like you have thought it your duty to support all that you have done. All that I see, I am forced to admire. The rest is out of my reach-out, perhaps, of the reach of those, who are better instructed than me. One thing I see distinctly, because the bishops of France have proved it by their example; and that is, that they have made known to all the orders and all the classes of citizens, the advantages which even religion can derive from the alliance of its own proper dignity with the character which illustrious birth and the sentiment of honour gives to man.

It is with good reason, that in France the noblesse should be proud of the clergy,

and the clergy of the noblesse, although these two classes be for the present condemned to passive courage, which gives so much glory to the one and the other.

I shall present to the bishop of St. Paul de Leon your fine and affecting address; perhaps, he has already received it. I am sure that he will remain fixed; if I may judge from the little I have seen of him, he is a most estimable and a most amiable man. He has been received here by our high clergy, and by many others, not certainly in the manner due to his rank and merit, but with a respect for the one and the other, with which, from his natural goodness, he seems to be satisfied.

I do not know if it is to the complaisance of your lordship, that I owe the chefs-d'œuvres of ingenuity, intelligence, and superior eloquence, varied as the occasions require, in the different discourses and letters which I, from time to time, receive. They are the works of a great statesman, of a great prelate, and of a man versed in the science of administration, We cannot be astonished that the state, the clergy, the finances, and the trade of the kingdom should be ruined, when the author of these works, instead of having an important share in the councils of his country, is persecuted and undone. The proscription of such men is enough to cover a whole people with eternal reproach. Those who persecute them have, by this one act, done more injury to their country in depriving it of their services, than a million of men of their own standard can ever repair, even when they shall be disposed to build upon the ruins they have made.

Maintain, sir, the courage which you have hitherto shown; and be persuaded, that though the world is not worthy of you and your colleagues, we are not insensible of the honour which you do to our

common nature.

and I cannot conceal the impression, that the suffrage of the man, the most cele brated for talents, virtues, and success, has made on my heart. Give me leave, above all, to acknowledge with an interest infinitely superior to all personal consideration, the eulogy which you have made on the respectable order of which I have the honour to partake the misfortunes. The first orator of England has become the defender of the clergy of France. Yours is the voice that has so long directed, and balanced the opinion of a nation, of which France ought rather to be the rival by its progress in intelligence, than by its political interest. Oh! that the dark clouds which overhang my country may not for ever obscure the rays of light which the sciences, letters, and the arts bestow! We are in a time of trouble; we attend only to the noise of our discussions; we read only the productions of party; and how many wise men and enlightened citizens remain in silence! We can no longer judge for ourselves, and a foreign observer only can decide for us, what ought to be the judgment of posterity.

When my colleagues, in addressing themselves to you, chose me for their organ, I was penetrated with their sentiments, and with those of the ministers of all ranks, whom nothing can separate from their consciences. I spoke for them with the feeling which they gave me; and the noble thoughts, the touching expressions, I can boldly say, were only the daily impressions which the knowledge of their virtues inspires. It is wanting to their glory that you should see them, as I have seen them, simple in their conduct, tranquil in their adversity, and content with having fulfilled their duty. The church of France is the stranded bark which the waters have left after the tempest, and every one of us in the shipwreck contemplates with astonishment those new heavens, and this new earth, which were unknown before. By what destiny must it be, that after having supported, all my life, those maxims of Christian charity, of which the first ages of the church gave us both lessons and examples, I see myself the victim of intolerance and persecution! It is in the eighteenth century-it is in a nation that boasts of its philosophy-it is even in the moment that they announce the Revolution of Liberty, that they per

secute those who practise what they be lieve in religion, and who wish to preserve the worship of their fathers! We read in the Constitution, that "No one ought to be disturbed for his religious opinions;" we read in the laws concerning religion, oaths, deprivations, infamous penalties, and exile; and it is on the overthrow of their new Constitution that they found the civil Constitution of the clergy. What has become of all those natural laws, which were to serve for the basis of all their laws? We are the men whom, they wish to accuse with prejudices, who plead this day the rights of liberty. The cause, sir, that we have defended, is the noble, just, and holy cause of liberty, humanity, and religion. The clergy of France have demonstrated what it waspersuasion without fanaticism-courage without excess-and resistance without trouble, and without insurrection. We have suffered all kinds of loss; we have endured all sorts of rigour; and we remain tranquil and firm, because nothing is so unconquerable as the probity which supports itself on religion. Behold that of which they cannot judge in the world! They conceive that honour is the only sentiment which influences men of all conditions to the accomplishment of the most sacred duties. God forbid that I should weaken this noble instinct, which comes to the aid of reason, which rallies the warrior in the day of combat, and which can animate to the love of the public weal when it does not mislead us in the pursuit! But you have better defined this simple and true sentiment, “which consists in the habitual impression of our duty, of right and of piety." This sentiment ought to be in general that of good citizens, and there are no morals in a country where it is not acted upon. If they wish to destroy religion in France, it will be the first example of an empire without religion; and no one has proved, sir, with more eloquence than yourself, how much it imports to attach the principles of human society to something too high for man to outrage or destroy. They must consecrate by religion, respect for the laws; for what must the laws be, which an entire people obey only through constraint, and not by inclination? They will soon perceive that the force to which they yield is only the force which they give; this force will weaken of itself by

general corruption, and the state is no

more !

You have reason, sir, to encourage us in the laborious career to which we are doomed. It is the writings of such men as you, which maintain in all nations a wholesome morality. We cannot help believing that our fellow-citizens will sooner or later do us the justice which we receive from foreigners; and that we shall revive, in more peaceable times, the principles of religion and humanity.

I do not speak to you, sir, of those other writings, in which I am desirous of showing how useful would be the lights of a long and peaceable administration. It does not belong to me to judge of the use which may be made of them, and it must not astonish us, that men are ungrateful for truths which come from us, who have no passion for revolutions.

Accept, sir, the testimonies of the veneration and attachment, which well-intentioned men ought to feel for the enlightened and virtuous of all countries. I cannot tell you how sensible we have been to the attention, which the clergy of England have shown towards one of our most virtuous and respectable colleagues. You are equally just to his character in society, as to his principles and courage; and such are the regrets of his diocese, that they consider his absence as a public calamity.

I have the honour to be,

&c. &c. &c.

On the 23d of February 1792, died Sir Joshua Reynolds, the old and constant friend of EDMUND BURKE, who, on the impulse of the moment, drew up a beautiful sketch of his character, for the public papers. This eulogium, which has been compared to that of Apelles, by Pericles, we here insert, as alike honourable to the merits of the deceased, and the feelings of the survivor:

Last night, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, died, at his house in Leicester Fields, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of any thing irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had from the beginning of his malady a distinct view of his dissolution, which he contem

plated with that entire composure, that nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every consolation from family tenderness, which his own kindness to his family had indeed well deserved.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishmen who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the greatest masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner, did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history, and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits, he appeared not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend upon it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings.

He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.

In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art, and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye, in any part of his conduct or discourse.

His talents of every kind-powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters his social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no

man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow. HAIL AND FAREWELL!

Sir Joshua Reynolds gave a striking testimony of the steadiness of his attachment to Mr. BURKE, by appointing him one of his executors, and bequeathing to him £2,000, in addition to a like sum which he had lent to him some time before, and the bond for which he directed to be cancelled.

It has been said, and at one time the report was pretty generally credited, that the published discourses of Sir Joshua, upon the principles of the art which he adorned, were in a great measure indebted for their elegance to the pen of BURKE; but this assertion has been so completely disproved by those who possessed the best means of information, as to be no longer worthy of credit.

This was a busy year to Mr. BURKE, who, besides his private avocations, and the multiplicity of his correspondence, felt himself bound to stand forward against the innovations proposed by his old associates. Early in the session, Mr., now Earl Grey, introduced his motion for a Parliamentary Reform, which ill-timed measure was opposed by Mr. BURKE in a very powerful speech. He began by comparing his situation to that of a wornout invalid in the battles of the state, and who was now left to guard the citadel of the constitution. After this exordium he waived the general subject as offering nothing new, but he showed the danger of the discussion, by exhibiting proofs that there was an avowed party in the country whose object was to overthrow and change the constitution. Upon being urged by the most clamorous calls, to produce his evidence, he entered into particular details, and named several societies recently formed on revolutionary principles. "When such persons," said he, "the advocates for Paine's doctrines, the solicitors of a confederacy with the most infamous foreign clubs, were also the advocates for a Parliamentary Reform, it was high time to sound the alarm of danger to the constitution. In France, the advocates of Reform, at the very moment their king was carrying into effect a real and substantial change for the national good, snatched the crown from his head, and overturned his throne; the conse

quence of which was, that instead of one governor they had seven hundred tyrants."

With such an instance before their eyes, Mr. BURKE said, his advice was, "Be wise by experience; hold fast the blessings you enjoy, and trust to no theoretical remedies."

Soon after this, Mr. Fox came forward with a motion in favour of the Unitarian Dissenters; which Mr. BURKE also opposed, not upon intolerant grounds, but from a persuasion that the claimants were dangerous subjects, who aimed at the downfall of every system which was dear to the country, and whose religion was connected with political principles hostile to the welfare of the establishment both civil and religious. This charge roused the members around him, (for he still sat on the opposition bench,) to an excessive degree of animosity. In answer to those who demanded proofs of what he alleged, Mr. BURKE narrated the proceedings of some late meetings of the Unitarian Dissenters, which demonstrated unequivocally their connexion with the French cannibals. This expression being caught up by the supporters of the motion, produced a repetition on the part of Mr. BURKE, who said, Gentlemen might cry out, "Hear! hear!" as long as they thought proper; he had, however, asserted no more than what he could prove; for he could show, by documents, that the French cannibals, after having torn out the hearts of those they had murdered, squeezed the blood into their wine and drank it.

As the name of Dr. Priestley was brought up in the course of this debate, Mr. BURKE took occasion to bestow some severe censures upon the principles of that restless polemic. This will account for the angry tone in which the doctor ever after spoke of his old acquaintance; but when he circulated the story that Mr. BURKE, on hearing of the riots at Birmingham, ran about in an ecstacy of joy, congratulating every body he met, he was guilty himself of the very offence against charity, which he attempted to fasten upon another, for he had no authority whatever to adduce in proof of what he related.

Such was the serious aspect of the times, that parliament assembled again at the end of the same year, to adopt measures for the security of the country, the peace

of which was threatened by societies affili ated on the pretext of Reform, but palpably intended to bring about a Revolution, similar to that of France. In the debates that arose upon the address, Fox and Sheridan ridiculed the alarm that had been excited, and condemned the speech from the throne, as a libel upon the people. BURKE, in reply, maintained that with the same justice Cicero might have been charged with libelling all Rome, when he announced the conspiracy of Cataline and his companions, and their intention to burn the city, and massacre the senate.

Against the proposition of Mr. Fox for a negociation with the French republicans, he entered his solemn protest in this energetic language: "Stained with crimes, blasting and damning all the courts of Europe, ought France to be acknowledged? Ought she to be acknowledged without waiting (in the words of Hamlet) for the whetting of the axe ?" Ought she to be acknowledged in the teeth of all her decrees of universal hatred to monarchies, and in the teeth of the commission of regicide? Oh! if she were, the nation might depend upon it, that the murder of the king of France would only be preliminary to the murder of the king of England!"

Mr. BURKE then proceeded to declare, that as soon as Great Britain acknowledged the existing state of things in France, by a formal negociation, from that moment, rebus extantibus, she must bow the neck to that country. This was a consequence which he insisted would be the result of such policy. "In her system of conduct," observed the orator, "France has followed that of Mahomet, who, affecting to preach peace, carried his Koran in one hand, and the sword in the other, to punish all who would not acknowledge his mission. Thus has acted the French republic. It has published a declaration of the rights of man, and propagated them by the sword."

Mr. Fox, however, was not to be driven from his purpose by these arguments, though they were confirmed by the glaring evidence of facts on every side. He persevered in maintaining that there was no danger to be apprehended from the revolutionary doctrines which were then rapidly spreading over the country, and he still continued to palliate the conduct of the French republicans, though at the same time he professed to abhor regicide,

and to admire a monarchical form of government. In the mean time the ranks of opposition became thinner every day, and many of the friends of Mr. Fox followed the example of BURKE, when he crossed the floor of the house, and declared that he quitted the camp for ever.

On taking a retrospect of these tempestuous scenes, and considering the marvellous events, that for a series of years resulted from the revolutionary abyss then opened in France, one cannot help admiring the penetrating genius of the man who first detected the deceitful mass that lay beneath, and foretold the desolation which the eruption would produce. Mr. BURKE might truly be called the Cassandra of his day, for every speech that he uttered, and every line that he wrote on the subject of France, received in the issue, the stamp of an oracle. It is true, that his zeal on this subject, sometimes carried him to great lengths, but if in a few instances, as when he exhibited a dagger to illustrate the character and faith of republican amity, he appeared too theatrical; the integrity of the motive must be admit ted, and much allowance therefore is due to the enthusiasm by which he was animated. At this critical period, the thoughts of Mr. BURKE were directed wholly to the general welfare, while Mr. Fox courted the applause of the multitude. The coolness that had subsisted between these two great men for three years, was not however of such a nature as to preclude all hopes of reconciliation, till this session of parliament. Efforts indeed had actually been made, to bring about a union of parties for the public benefit, but they were all rendered nugatory by the obstinacy of Mr. Fox, who even refused to consult the most respectable members of the opposition, on the measures proper to be adopted in the senate.

It seemed therefore evident, that he was setting up for himself, and as he espoused the cause of the French abroad, and that of the republican faction at home, there was reason enough to apprehend the most serious consequences from his ascendency. BURKE knew that revolutionary principles must produce revolutionary practices; and it was this conviction which made him so active in exposing the danger of that friendship with regicides, which his opponents assiduously sought and earnestly recommended. At the end of this stormy session, Mr. BURKE drew