EDMUND BURKE Edmund Burke was the son of a respectable barrister in Dublin, and was born in that city on the first day of January, 1730. Being of a delicate and consumptive habit, he was unable to share in the ordinary sports of childhood; and was thus led to find his earliest enjoyment in reading and thought. When eleven years old, he was sent to a school at Ballitore, about thirty miles from Dublin, under the care of a Quaker named Shackleton, who was distinguished, not only for the accuracy of his scholarship, but for his extraordinary power of drawing forth the talents of his pupils, and giving a right direction to their moral principles. Mr. Burke uniformly spoke of his instructor in after life with the warmest affection, and rarely failed, during forty years, whenever he went to Ireland, to pay him a visit. He once alluded to him in the House of Commons, in the following terms: "I was educated," said he, as a Protestant of the Church of England, by a Dissenter who was an honor to his sed, though that sect has ever been considered as one of the purest. Under his eye, I read the Bible, morning, noon, and night; and have ever since been a happier and better man for such reading." Under these influences, the development of his intellect and of his better feelings was steady and rapid. He formed those habits of industry and perseverance, which were the most striking traits in his character, and which led him to say in after life," Nitor in adversum, is the motto for a man like me." He learned that simplicity and frankness, that bold assertion of moral principle, that reverence for the Word of God, and the habit of going freely to its pages for imagery and illustration, by which he was equally distinguished as a man and an orator. At this period, too, he began to exhibit his extraordinary powers of memory. In every task or exercise dependent on this faculty, he easily outstripped all his competitors; and it is not improbable that he gained, under his early Quaker discipline, those habits of systematic thought, and that admirable arrangement of all his acquired knowledge, which made his memory one vast storehouse of facts, principles, and illustrations, ready for use at a moment's call. At this early period, too, the imaginative cast of his mind was strongly developed. He delighted above all things in works of fancy. The old romances, such as Palmerin of England and Don Belianis of Greece, were his favorite study; and we can hardly doubt, considering the peculiar susceptibility of his mind, that such reading had a powerful influence in producing that gorgeousness of style which characterized so many of his ductions in after life. pro Quitting school at the end of three years, he became a member of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1744. Here he remained six years, engaged chiefly in a course of study of his own, though not to the neglect of his regular college duties. It was said by Goldsmith, perhaps to excuse his own indolence, that Burke's scholarship at college was low. This could not have been the case; for in his third year he was elected Scholar of the House, which, his biographer assures us, "confers distinction in the classics throughout life." Still, he gave no peculiar promise of his future eminence. Leland, the translator of Demosthenes, who was then a fellow, used to say, that "he was known as a young man of superior but unpretending talents, and more anxious to acquire knowledge than to display it." That his college life was one of severe study, is evident from the extent and accuracy of his knowledge when he left the University. A few things have come down to us, as to his course of reading. He had mastered most of the great writers of antiquity. Demosthenes was his favorite orator, though he was led in after life, by the bent of his genius, to form himself on the model of Cicero, whom he more resembled in magnificence and copiousness of thought. He delighted in Plutarch. He read most of the great poets of antiquity; and was peculiarly fond of Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius, a large part of whose writings he committed to memory. In English he read the essays of Lord Bacon again and again with increasing admiration, and pronounced them "the greatest works of that great man." Shakspeare was his daily study. But his highest reverence was reserved for Milton, "whose richness of language, boundless learning, and scriptural grandeur of conception," were the first and last themes of his applause. The philosophical tendency of his mind began now to display itself with great distinctness, and became, from this period, the master principle of his genius. "Rerum cognoscere causas," seems ever to have been his delight, and soon became the object of all his studies and reflections. He had an exquisite sensibility to the beauties of nature, of art, and of elegant composition, but he could never rest here. "Whence this enjoyment?" On what principle does it depend?" How might it be carried to a still higher point?"—these are questions which seem almost from boyhood to have occurred instinctively to his mind. His attempts at philosophical criticism commenced in college, and led to his producing one of the most beautiful works of this kind to be found in any language. In like manner, history to him, even at this early period, was not a mere chronicle of events, a picture of battles and sieges, or of life and manners: to make it history, it must bind events together by the causes which produced them. The science of politics and government was in his mind the science of man; not a system of arbitrary regulations, or a thing of policy and intrigue, but founded on a knowledge of those principles, feelings, and even prejudices, which unite a people together in one community-" ties," as he beautifully expresses it, "which, though light as air, are strong as links of iron." Such were the habits of thought to which his mind was tending even from his college days, and they made him pre-eminently the great PHILOSOPHICAL ORATOR of our language.' Being intended by his father for the bar, Mr. Burke was sent to London at the age of twenty, to pursue his studies at the Middle Temple. But he was never interested in the law. He saw enough of it to convince him that it is "one of the first and noblest of human sciences-a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all other kinds of learning put together." Still, it was too dry and technical for a mind like his; and he felt, that, "except in persons very happily born, it was not apt to open and liberalize the mind in the same proportion." He therefore soon gave himself up, with all the warmth of his early attachment, to the pursuits of literature and philosophy. His diligence in study was now carried to its 1 Notwithstanding the extent of his reading in the classics, Mr. Burke (like many Irish scholars) paid but little attention to the subject of quantity, and a blunder in this respect, which was charged upon him in the House of Commons, gave rise to one of his happiest retorts. In attacking Lord North for being in want of still larger supplies, in the midst of the most lavish expenditure, he quoted the words of Cicero, "Magnum vectigal est parsimonia," accenting the word vectigal on the first syllable. Lord North cried out in a contemptuous tone from the Treasury Bench, vectigal, vectigal. Mr. Burke instantly replied, "I thank the right honorable gentleman for his correction; and, that he may enjoy the benefit of it, I repeat the words, Magnum vectigal est parsimonia." 2 These early tendencies of Mr. Burke's genius explain a fact which has been spoken of with surprise by all his biographers; namely, that he preferred the Eneid of Virgil to the Iliad of Homer, though he admitted, at the same time, the superiority of the latter in invention, force, and sublimity. To a mind like his, so full of sentiment and philosophy, there is something more delightful in the description of the world of spirits, in the sixth book of the Æneid, and the almost Christian anticipations of the Pollio, than in all the battle scenes of Homer. His extravagant attachment to Young's Night Thoughts, in early life, may be accounted for in the same way. highest point. He devoted every moment to severe labor; spending his evenings. however, in conversation with the ablest men engaged in the same employments, and thus varying, perhaps increasing, the demand for mental exertion. Few men ever studied to greater effect. He early acquired a power which belongs peculiarly to superior minds-that of thinking at all times and in every place, and not merely at stated seasons in the retirement of the closet. His mind seems never to have floated on the current of passing events. He was always working out trains of thought. His reading, though wide and multifarious, appears from the first to have been perfectly digested. His views on every subject were formed into a complete system; and his habits of daily discussing with others whatever he was revolving in his own mind, not only quickened his powers, but made him guarded in statement, and led him to contemplate every subject under a great variety of aspects. His exuberant fancy, which in most men would have been a fatal impediment to any attempt at speculation, was in him the ready servant of the intellect, supplying boundless stores of thought and illustration for every inquiry. Such were his habits of study from this period, during nearly fifty years, down to the time of his death. Once only, as he stated to a friend, did his mind ever appear to flag. At the age of forty-five, he felt weary of this incessant struggle of thought. He resolved to pause and rest satisfied with the knowledge he had gained. But a week's experience taught him the misery of being idle; and he resumed his labors with the noble determination of the Greek philosopher, yŋpáσkɛiv didaσkóμevoç, to grow old in learning. Gifted as he was with pre-eminent genius, it is not surprising that diligence like this, which would have raised even moderate abilities into talents of a high order, should have made him from early life an object of admiration to his friends, and have laid the foundation of that richness and amplitude of thought in which he far surpassed every modern orator. Being on a journey to Scotland in 1753, Mr. Burke learned that the office of Professor of Logic had become vacant in the University of Glasgow, and would be awarded to the successful competitor at a public disputation. He at once offered himself as a candidate. Farther inquiries, however, showed that private arrangements in the city and University precluded all possibility of his being elected. He therefore withdrew from the contest; and the name of Mr. James Clow has come down to posterity as the man who succeeded when Edmund Burke failed. Soon after his return from Scotland, the literary world was much excited by the publication of Lord Bolingbroke's philosophical works. Unwilling to incur the odium of so atrocious an attack on morals and religion, his Lordship had left his manuscripts, with a small legacy, in the hands of Mallet, to be published immediately after his death. This gave rise to Johnson's remark, that "Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and a coward—a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; and a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger." Mr. Burke took this occasion to make his first appearance before the public. He wrote a pamphlet of one hundred and six pages, under the title of a Vindication of Natural Society, which came out in the spring of 1756, and had all the appearance of being a posthumous work of Bo lingbroke. His object was to expose his Lordship's mode of reasoning, by running it out into its legitimate consequences. He therefore applied it to civil society. He undertook, in the person of Bolingbroke, and with the closest imitation of his impetuous and overbearing eloquence, to expose the crimes and wretchedness which have prevailed under every form of government, and thus to show that society is itself an evil, and the savage state the only one favorable to virtue and happiness. In this pamphlet he gave the most perfect specimen which the world has ever seen, of the art of imitating the style and manner of another. He went beyond the mere choice of words, the structure of sentences, and the cast of imagery, into the deepest recesses of thought; and so completely had he imbued himself with the spirit of Bolingbroke, that he brought out precisely what every one sees his Lordship ought to have said on his own principles, and might be expected to say, if he dared to express his sentiments. The work, therefore, can hardly be called ironical, for irony takes care to make its object known, by pressing things, at times, into open extravagance. But such was the closeness of the imitation, that Chesterfield and Warburton were for a while deceived, and even Mallet felt called upon to deny its authenticity. If he had made it professedly ironical, it would undoubtedly have taken better with the public. Every one would have enjoyed its keenness, had it come in the form of satire. But, as it was, some were vexed to find they had mistaken the author's meaning, and others regarded it only as "a clever imitation." Thus it happened to Mr. Burke in his first appearance before the public, as in some cases of greater importance in after life, that the very ability with which he executed his task, was for a time the reason of its being less highly appreciated. If his Vindication of Natural Society was at first a failure, his speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts was so little understood at the time of delivery, and heard with so much impatience by the House of Commons, that Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville considered it as needing no reply! Mr. At the close of the same year, 1756, Mr. Burke published his celebrated treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful. This was the first attempt in our language to discuss the subject with philosophical accuracy and precision. Addison had, indeed, written a series of papers on the Pleasures of the Imagination; but his object was rather to exemplify and illustrate, than to trace those pleasures to any specific source. Burke boldly propounded a theory designed to account, upon a few simple principles, for all the diversified enjoyments of taste. His treatise shows great ingenuity, surprising accuracy of observation, and an exquisite sense of the sublime and beautiful, both in the works of nature and art. Like all his writings, it abounds in rich trains of thought, and observations of great value in themselves, whatever we may think of his theory. It contains, also, many things which are purely fanciful, as when he traces the pleasures of taste to states of the bodily system; and maintains that the sublime is connected with "an unnatural tension and certain violent motions of the nerves," while beauty acts "by relaxing the solids of the whole body!" These are some of the things which he learned to laugh at himself, in after life. His theory, as a whole, is rather defective than erroneous. It is one of those hasty generalizations which we are always to expect in the first stages of a new science. The work, however, was an extraordinary production for a youth of twenty-six; and in style and manner, was regarded by Johnson as "a model of philosophical criticism." With some few blemishes, such as we always look for in the writings of Burke, it has a clearness of statement, a purity of language, an ease and variety in the structure of sentences, and an admirable richness of imagery, which place it in the foremost rank of our elegant literature. Such a work, from one who had been hitherto unknown to the public, excited a general and lively interest. Its author was every where greeted with applause. His acquaintance was sought by the most distinguished literary men and friends of learning, such as Pulteney, Earl of Bath; Markham, soon after Archbishop of York; Lord Lyttleton, Soame Jenyns, Johnson, and many others. In such society, his remarkable talents for conversation secured his success. Every one was struck with the activity of his mind, the singular extent and variety of his knowledge, his glowing power of thought, and the force and beauty of his language. Even Johnson, whose acknowledged supremacy made him in most cases "Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne," was soon conciliated or subdued by the conversational powers of Burke. It was a " striking spectacle to see one so proud and stubborn, who had for years been accustomed to give forth his dicta with the authority of an oracle, submit to contradiction from a youth of twenty-seven. But, though Johnson differed from Burke on politics, and occasionally on other subjects, he always did him justice. He spoke of him from the first in terms of the highest respect. 'Burke," said he, " is an extraordinary man. His stream of talk is perpetual; and he does not talk from any desire of distinction, but because his mind is full." "He is the only man," said he, at a later period, when Burke was at the zenith of his reputation, "whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take him up where you please, he is ready to meet you.' No man of sense," he said, "could meet Burke by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower, without being convinced that he was the first man in England." A striking confirmation of this remark occurred some years after, when Mr. Burke was passing through Litchfield, the birth-place of Johnson. Wishing to see the Cathedral during the change of horses, he stepped into the building, and was met by one of the clergy of the place, who kindly offered to point out the principal objects of curiosity. "A conversation ensued; but, in a few moments, the clergyman's pride of local information was completely subdued by the copious and minute knowledge displayed by the stranger. Whatever topic the objects before them suggested, whether the theme was architecture or antiquities, some obscure passage in ecclesiastical history, or some question respecting the life of a saint, he touched it as with a sun-beam. His information appeared universal; his mind, clear intellect, without one particle of ignorance. A few minutes after their separation, the clergyman was met hurrying through the street. 'I have had,' said he, ‘quite an adventure. I have been conversing for this half hour past with a man of the most extraordinary powers of mind and extent of information which it has ever been my fortune to meet with; and I am now going to the inn, to ascertain, if possible, who this stranger is.'' In 1757, Mr. Burke married a daughter of Dr. Nugent, of Bath, and took up literature as a profession. The colonies upon the American coast being now an object of public interest, he prepared, during this year (perhaps in conjunction with his two brothers), a work in two octavo volumes, entitled an Account of the European Settlements of America. These labors, thus casually undertaken, had great influence in shaping his subsequent course as a statesman. He became deeply interested in the early history of the British colonies; and was led naturally, by his habits of thought, to trace the character of their institutions to the spirit of their ancestors, and to follow out that spirit in the enterprise, perseverance, and indomitable love of liberty, which animated the whole body of the people. He saw, too, the boundless resources of the country, and the irrepressible strength to which it must soon attain. Thus was he prepared, when the troubles came on, ten years after, and when there was hardly a man in England, except Lord Chatham, who had the least conception of the force and resolution of the colonies, to come forward with those rich stores of knowledge, and those fine trains of reasoning, conceived in the truest spirit of philosophy, which astonished and delighted, though they failed to convince, the Parliament of Great Britain. In the next year, 1758, Mr. Burke projected the Annual Register, a work of great utility, which has been continued for nearly a century, down to the present time. The plan was admirable, presenting for each year a succinct statement of the debates in Parliament; a historical sketch of the principal occurrences in every part of the world connected with European politics; and a view of the progress of liter ature and science, with brief notices of the most important works published during the year. Such an undertaking required all the resources and self-reliance of a man |