contempt for each, and an open determination to wield the supremacy of all, are the securer means by which France now pursues her old object the sceptre of the world. She no longer tears her way through nations with the thunderbolt; her more powerful destroyer is the silent, creeping, wide-spreading malaria of republicanism.

Now, the fact being unquestionable that French principles are the principles of a large, powerful, and reckless party in England, who, alternately regarding Ministers as their tools and their antagonists, feel perfectly satisfied as to their being able to sweep all administrations into their current; it must be of some import to know what those principles are. Forty years ago their creed as to Kings was laid down by the celebrated Condorcet in his paper on the education of the Dauphin, of whom he had been chosen by the National Assembly to be the tutor, or rather the jailor. "The Assembly willed that the uselessness of a King, and the necessity of seeking means to establish something in lieu of a power founded on illusion, should be one of the first truths of fered to the reason of the pupil; the obligation of conforming himself to this, being the first of his moral duties. The object is less to form a King, than to teach him that he should know how to wish no longer to be such." This was the creed of the man who had filled the chair of the National Assembly, was their perpetual secretary and their principal guide. And this was in the period when a King was still acknowledged, and before the philosophers had given the practical illustration of their doctrines by cutting off the King's head.

But while Burke was thus supporting, by his parliamentary labours, and by his unrivalled pen, the cause of the Constitution and human nature, he received a blow which almost totally unmanned him. Richard Burke, his only son, was seized with an illness which speedily made such progress, that to all eyes, but those of his fond and sanguine father, his fate was sealed. It had been Burke's ambition to educate his son for public life, and no pains had been spared to cultivate him for

all the distinctions of Statesmanship. It has been too much the habit to compare the son with the eminent father, and to depreciate him below the level of ordinary talent, as much as he fell below the level of extraordinary. By this unfair estimate Richard Burke has passed for one of the customary examples of parental blindness to filial mediocrity, and has been reckoned altogether beneath his value. But Burke was not a man to be so simply hoodwinked by affection. If the son of Cicero was a blunderer, we have to learn that Cicero proposed him for public business. Burke certainly would not have embarked his son in the most difficult career of talent and of life, if he had not gravely satisfied himself that the bark was equal to the voyage. On retiring from Parliament in June, 1797, he had obtained his son's return for Malton, and had placed him on the first step of office, by Lord Fitzwilliam's appointment of him as his secretary in the Irish Viceroyalty. But his career was to be untried by the temptations of power, and unshaken by the casualties of fortune. His disorder soon gave evidence of consumption. Burke's sensitiveness of heart was so well known to his friends, that Bracklesley, the family physi cian, decidedly suppressed all intimation of the nature of the disease from the unfortunate father, declaring that it would sooner put an end to his life than his son's. The pa tient was now removed to the suburbs for the benefit of the air, until he should commence his journey to Ireland. But that period was never to arrive. At length, but a week before he breathed his last, it was found necessary to give the intelligence to his unhappy father, who, from that moment until he closed the tomb upon him, scarcely slept, tasted food, or was able to restrain himself from the most affecting expressions of sorrow. A longer notice would probably have word him out of the world. Some letters from Dr Laurence, the well-known friend of Burke, and brother of the present Archbishop of Cashell, present a detail of the progress of the disorder, and of what must interest us still more, its influence on the great mind and feeling heart of Burke.

feel myself better, and in spirits, yet my heart flutters, I know not why. Pray, talk to me, sir; talk of religion, talk of morality; talk, if you will, on indifferent subjects.' Then turning round, he said, What noise is that? Does it rain? No, it is the rustling of the wind through the trees.' And immediately, with a voice as clear as ever in his life, and a more than common grace of action, he repeated some beautiful lines from Adam's morning hymn. They are favourite lines of his father's, and were so, as I recollect, of his poor uncle's, to whom he was then going, with those very lines on his tongue,

The letters are to Mrs Haviland, a connexion of the family. A few extracts are here given:-" August 1, 1794— As Dr King" (afterwards Bishop of Rochester) "undoubtedly communicated to you the melancholy contents of my yesterday's letter, you will be anxious to know whether another day has brought any new hope. There is a little, feeble and faint. The sentence is at least respited for a time. A second letter from Mr Burke yesterday evening informed me that the physicians forbade him to despair. The disorder is a consumption, which has, however, not yet reached the lungs. * The family are with poor Richard in lodgings a little beyond Brompton. It is a house of mourning indeed. Dr Bracklesley says, it is almost too much for him, who, as a physician, is inured to such sights, and in some degree callous to them. * *

*

* Mr Burke

writes to me that he is almost dried up. The conclusion of his first letter was highly affecting. He ended with an abrupt exclamation-‘Oh, my poor brother died in time!""

Before the next letter, the catastrophe had arrived. August 4, -When I shortly informed you of the melancholy event on Saturday, I was acquainted with the event, and nothing more, from the mouth of Dr Bracklesley. Some of the particulars I have since collected, as well as I could. They may afflict you, but there is a pleasure in such sorrow, which he who cannot taste, deserves to be pitied. You know every thing till the night previous to his death. During that night he was restless and discomposed. In the morning his lips were observed to have become black. His voice, however, was better. * * *His father and mother did not suffer themselves to be flattered by the favour able symptoms. Their lamentations reached him where he lay. He rose from his bed. He then desired the servants to support him towards the room where his father and mother were sitting in tears.

*

He endeavoured to enter into conversation with his father, but grief keeping the latter silent, he said, after some observations on his own condition, Why, sir, do you not chide me for these unmanly feelings? I am under no terror. I

"His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow

Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,

With every plant, in sign of worship wave!'

"He began again, and again pronounced the lines with the same happiness of elocution and gesture, waved his head in sign of worship, and, worshipping, sank into the arms of his parents, as in a profound and sweet sleep! * The behaviour of our two poor friends is such as might be expected by those who know both their sensibility and their strength of reason. During

*

the first day, the father was, at times, as I have heard, truly terrible in his grief. He occasionally worked himself up to an agony of affliction, and then, bursting away from all control, would rush to the room where his son lay, and throw himself headlong on the bed or on the floor. Yet, at intervals he attended, and gave directions relative to every little arrangement, pleasing himself most with thinking what would be most consonant to the living wishes of his son. At intervals, too, he would argue against the ineffectual sorrow of his wife."

"Aug.

7. At last I have seen poor Burke. His grief was less intolerable than I had supposed. He took me by surprise, or I should then have avoided him. He told me he was bringing his mind by degrees to his miserable situation; and he lamented that he went to see his son after death, as the dead countenance has made such an impression on his imagination, that he cannot retrace in his memory

the features and air of his living Richard!" This letter corrects some of the statements of the foregoing. The patient had reached the room where his father was, but, finding himself feebler, returned to his bed. It was his father who explained to him the noise, as the rustling of the trees. He then repeated the lines from Milton, sank back, and, after a short struggle, breathed no more." Aug. 12. At last I have had the pleasure (I may truly say, under the circumstances) of seeing our dear Mrs Burke. After the first meeting, she was more composed than he; or she played her part more naturally, in order not to discompose him. He took me by the hand, and spoke in a tone of artificial and laborious fortitude; she saw through the disguise, and gently reproved him for not supporting himself as he promised."

There is undoubtedly in this violence of sorrow something that may be reproved, as well as much that must be forgiven. It does not become men who have learned to "bear and forbear" in the high school from which the principles of Burke flowed, to exhibit despair on any visitation, let the blow be however severe. In the excess of sorrow there is an approach to rebellion against the decrees of a wisdom which orders all things in the spirit of benevolence. But much must be allowed to the peculiar glow and susceptibility of Burke's mind: the temperament of genius is not merely tender, but imaginative; and its quickness expands such a vision of sorrow, raises such clouds over the mind, and so sharpens and envenoms every sting of mental suffering, that all its pains, like all its joys, are urged to their keenest pitch; and the spirit that is alone capable of rapt and enthusiastic delight, repays its privilege by turning anguish into agony. The loss of Burke's son would have been melancholy under any circumstances, as his only offspring; but he was lost at an age when he might seem to have ensured a long and active existence, in the height of accomplishment and intellectual vigour; descending into that arena where his father's fame threw a glory round his advance, and where all the noblest prizes of the manliest emulation were open to his

generous contention. He died at thirty-six. On Burke's remaining years the effect was powerful, and he might be said to be visibly approaching the grave from the day when his son was laid within its bosom. His mind was vigorous still. Perhaps the effect on his mind was, by clearing it from the immediate pressure and contact of the world, to add purity to its strength, to generalize its knowledge into the principles and essence of universal wisdom, and, by elevating, to spiritualize alike its views and its powers. But his frame was palpably shaken. He never afterwards entered Beaconsfield Church, nor could bear even to look towards it, since the interment of his son. It was the observation of those friends who had not seen him for some time before and after, that the change portended dissolution; his countenance was meagre, his chest was hollow, and his body evidently infirm and bowed down by the blow.

We have now to see this celebrated man returning to that field in which his fame was first won, and shewing, that if he wore the arms of the patriot and the statesman no longer, it was not for wantof the power to wield them in the front of the battle. But he returned now by compulsion; forced in his latter days, and with his heart subdued by calamity, to defend his character, and waste on party the weapons which were made to war for humankind. Burke had closed his parliamentary career by sealing the exclusion of the Foxites from Ministerial hope. Having first awakened all the rational members of Opposition to a sense of the na tional danger, he roused them into activity in the national cause. A junction of those members with the Ministry was effected by Burke's especial influence; and in July 1794, the junction was made practical and public by the appointment of the Duke of Portland to the third Secretaryship of State, with the management of Ireland, and the addition of the blue riband. Earl Fitzwilliam was President of the Council, after which he accepted the Irish Viceroyalty. Earl Spencer was made Lord Privy Seal, and afterwards First Lord of the Admiralty; and Mr Windham was placed in the Se

cretaryship of War. Lord Lough borough was already Chancellor.

This solid barrier rendered Opposition furious. It had been deprived of all those whose advice and weight had hitherto restrained its violence; and the remainder were desperate with the sense of exclusion. Burke's share in this important transaction was well known, and on his head all the tempest lowered. The first at tack was made on him by a man whom Opposition were in the habit of pushing forward on all formidable occasions, on the principle of the Irish rebels pushing forward their bullocks to disorder the charge of the English cavalry. The Duke of Norfolk was a nobleman of the species most admirably adapted for this service. Coarse, dull, and self-sufficient, he blundered head foremost into the battle; and almost too obtuse to feel when he was struck, and too self-satisfied to doubt that his absurdities were argument, and his vagaries would be listened to as principles, he burlesqued the cause with the most undoubting conviction that he was doing it and himself immortal honour. His personal character was not of an order to make up for the deficiencies of his understanding. Born a Roman Catholic, he had discarded his belief, without any very public evidence that he had imbibed any other in its stead. He was probably-as keen a theologian in his cradle, as he was to his dying day. The change had produced its fruits in the possession of parliamentary privileges and public rank; but the records of White's, and the gross symposia of the party, must be the vouchers for all that is to complete the biography of this heavy-headed patriot, and vulgar voluptuary. Burke felt that this was an antagonist beneath him, and perhaps he gave way rather rashly to his sense of injury, in condescending to notice the babblings of a very foolish and very worthless old encumberer of debate. But he was not in the habit of suffering any man to think that to attack him was a safe exercise, and he flung a loose thunderbolt at the unlucky Duke of Norfolk, which startled his sense of security, if not of shame, and taught him the wisdom of fear for the future. In the close of his remarks,

he says, "Amongst those gentlemen who come to authority, as soon, or sooner than they come of age, I do not mean to include his Grace. He has had a large share of experience. He certainly ought to understand the English Constitution better than I do. He had studied it in the fundamental part. For one election I have seen, he has been concerned in twenty. Nobody is less of a visionary-nobody has more drawn his speculations from practice. No Peer has condescended to watch with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor Commons. With thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear.' Often have his candles glimmered in the sockets whilst he grew pale at his constitutional DUTIES. Long nights has he wasted; long, laborious, shriftless journeys has he made, and great sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, the independence, and the sobriety of elections." But the poor Duke was too imbecile an object for the pen of Burke, the sarcasm was too fine to be felt, and the Duke of Norfolk harangued, voted, and blundered away, half unconscious that he was covered with ridicule, until he gave up the Opposition bench and the bottle together for the grave. But a new event stirred all the latent ire of party into animation. The King, influenced by a just sense of Burke's services to the empire in exposing conspiracy, extinguishing disaffection, and at once rousing and guiding the old national spirit in the path of national wisdom, virtue, and security, awarded to him a pension of L. 1200 a year on the Civil List, and L.2500 on the four-and-a-half per cent fund. The sum was liberal; but if national justice ever authenticated royal liberality, it was in this instance. Yet the outcry of Opposition was instantly let loose. Fox, who had squandered tens of thousands, thrown away in license of all kinds every shilling that he could get into his hands, lived at the gaming-table, and was at this moment subsisting on a party pension, a subscription, was all astonishment alike at the prodigal expenditure and the scandalous degradation! Sheridan was indignant at the extravagance, which could not comprehend the value of pounds,

shillings, and pence. The Duke of Bedford, with a rent-roll of L.100,000 a-year, and yet raising money in all directions, was bursting with wonder, to conceive how so capacious a sum as L.3700 could be occupied in the comforts or uses of any individual, let his merits be what they may. This genuine specimen of all that makes aristocracy a burden, and a burlesque in the national eye, arrogant without dignity, daring without manliness, and officious without zeal, a bloated possessor of wealth which had been dropped on his head by the mere accident of birth, and who, in any fair comparison of the two men, by nature, abilities, or accomplishments, would scarcely have been fit to lacquey Burke's heels, Francis, Duke of Bedford, whose grand demonstration of politics and patriotism was actually to make his footmen comb the powder out of their locks, that he might terrify Mr Pitt into resignation!-this was the man, who, in an unlucky hour for his own repose, set himself forward as the denouncer of Burke for accepting the inadequate reward of services that no money could repay, from the justice of his Sove reign, and the gratitude of the empire. The common suggestions of fact and reason, that Burke had earned public remuneration many a year before, even on the mere ground of official services; that he had surrendered L.20,000 to the public, of the political perquisites of the Army PayOffice; that his bill for the improvement of the public revenue, by abolishing useless offices, had produced a direct annual saving of L.80,000 a-year-all passed unnoticed by those men of narrow notions and capacious patriotism. It was nothing to the purpose that the sum was granted to a man, who, after thirty years of the most vigorous and brilliant efforts in public life,-efforts whose renown had illustrated the British name, as much as they had enlarged his own, in every region of the globe; that it was incapable of being taken as the pledge of corruption by a man who had withdrawn entirely from Parliament; and that it was not beyond the income of a decent barrister, or the profits of a prosperous grocer, and not a twentieth of the unearned income of the

useless Duke of Bedford. The clamour was raised by this pampered son of opulence, and the public saw, with equal disgust and surprise, the new moralists of the age starting up in their masquerade habits from the club, the gaming-table, and the racecourse. Burke's remarks on this equally absurd, ungenerous, and hypocritical proceeding, were given to the public in his "Letter to a Noble Lord;" one of those performances, which, of itself, would be enough to fix the writer in the highest honours of genius. We may be almost grateful to the aggressive folly which produced this noble retaliation. The barbarism, or the absurdity, of the attack, may well be forgiven, when we see the permanent grandeur and loftiness of the rampart thrown up for its repulse. He begins by ac knowledging his obligations to the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale. "Those noble persons have lost no time in conferring upon me that sort of honour which is alone within their competence. To have incurred the displeasure of the Duke of Orleans or the Duke of Bedford, to fall under the censure of Citizen Brissot, or his friend Lord Lauderdale, I consider as proofs, not the least satisfactory, that I have produced some part of the effect I proposed by my endeavours. I have laboured hard to earn, what the noble lords are generous enough to repay. * * * * * Why will they not let me remain in obscurity and inaction? Are they apprehensive, that if an atom of me remains, the sect has something to fear? Must I be annihilated, lest, like old John Zisca's, my skin might be made into a drum, to animate Europe to eternal battle, against a tyranny that threatens to overwhelm all Europe and the human race?

The Revolution of France seems to have extended even to the constitution of the mind of man. The moral scheme of France furnishes the only pattern ever known, which they who admire will instantly resemble. In my condition, though scarcely to be classed among the living, I am not safe from them. They have tigers to fall upon animated strength. They have byænas to prey upon carcasses. The National Menagerie is collected by the first physiologists of the time;