merable others of the like nature, might be adduced in contradiction to the assertion, that Burke was not a warm friend of literary merit.*

Young Mr. Burke was, at this time, with Mr. Windham, Mr. Malone, the Hon. Frederick North, and others, admitted to the honorary degree of L L. D.

The eagerness of Burke to repress French principles and power appeared this summer, in the joy he discovered on hearing the news of the taking of Valenciennes. Mr. Dundas dispatched a messenger to communicate the tid

* Another asssertion, equally ill-founded, that Burke's knowledge of languages was superficial, stands refuted by unquestionable authority. Mr. Winstanley, in a letter to a friend, expresses himself in the following terms, which, though unauthorized, I take the liberty to transcribe.

"It would be indeed as useless, as it would be presumptuous, in me, to attempt to add to the reputation of Mr. Burke. Among the studies to which I have immediately applied, there is one, which, from his attention to the more important concerns of active life, it might be supposed that he had overlooked :-I mean that of ancient and modern languages. Those, however, who were acquainted with the universality of his information, will not be surprised to hear that it would be exceedingly difficult to have met with a person who knew more of the philosophical history and filiation of languages, or of the principles of etymological deduction, than Mr. Burke."

The character of Mr. Winstanley, as a man profoundly skilled both in the ancient and modern languages, stamps an authority upon his judgment, sufficient to overturn all vague assertion, that Burke was little acquainted with the learned

tongues.

4

ings to Mr. Burke, whom he found at a country' theatre, at Charlefont, some miles from Beaconsfield. Burke, on reading the letter, went upon the stage, and read it to the audience with every mark of delight. Towards the close of the year, when affairs wore a less favourable aspect to the Allies, he wrote a third memorial, entitled "Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with respect to France." In this paper he intimates, that the object of the several allied Powers was evidently private aggrandizement more than the support of legitimate government, religion, and property, against Jacobin ism. He gives a very pathetic description of the dreadful state of France under the existing anarchy; and contends that whatever partial changes may take place, that while the principles continue, similar misery, if not the same, is to be expected; that the reduction of parts of the French territories under the dominion of any of the Allies could not promote the wisest purpose of the war. The only certain means of restoring order, religion, and property in France, was, by committing the chief direction of every thing respecting her internal affairs to the emigrant princes, nobility, gentry, and clergy. These, which he calls the "Moral France," ought to have the arrangement of the government now usurped over the arithmetical and geographical France. Under them only could it be expected, he thought,

[ 550 ]

that the blessings of religion, order, virtue, and property could be established. After the great convulsions and the state of anarchy then prevalent, it was his opinion, that the establishment of a fixed and permanent constitution could not be effected without the preparatory exercise, by those classes, of something approaching to a military government. When that should be fixed, he recommends a scheme of "discriminating justice, tempered with enlightened mercy," of the greatest wisdom, if it were expedient that those classes should possess the power which it pre-supposes. It might be a question with many, whether these emigrants, either in their general conduct and characters, or in their behaviour, had. exhibited such talents and qualities as would render a discretionary power in their possession likely to form a good government. At the same time, those who think the most meanly of the emigrants as a body, will allow that there was some probability that any government they had contrived could not be more inconsistent with liberty and happiness, than the Robersperian and succeeding schemes in France.

The vigilance of Government, and the prevention of all communication with France, had repressed, but not crushed the doctrines of. Paine and his coadjutors. Of the new theories, there were gradations and classes, adapted to different kinds of readers or hearers. For the

vulgar there were the vehement declamation, the unqualified invective, the poignant abuse, the well-aimed sophistry of Paine himself, and on his plan. As genius invents, humbler talents imitate. There were thousands of Jacobinical writers, who endeavoured to accommodate his notions, speculations, and precepts, to the varying circumstances of affairs, in order the more effectually to inflame. Demagogues, calling themselves political lecturers, did their best to promote the same end of exciting disaf fection, desire of innovation, and the consequent action. As the lessons of Paine and his imitators in writing, and the efforts of Thelwall and his fellow labourers, could produce effect among only the very lowest and most ignorant, there were authors of a higher cast of literature, though much beneath the abilities of Paine. By these novels were constructed to misrepresent the existing institutions, orders, and classes, to readers of a taste above relishing the coarseness of Paine, or the feebleness and ignorance of itinerant lecturers. There were others to devise systems of philo. sophy, to please those that dabbled in what they supposed metaphysics. These set themselves about overthrowing the doctrines of religion and a future state; free agency, natural affection, friendship, and patriotism; that thus philanthropy might not operate in the cases in which it was most likely to produce happiness,

אי

[ 552 ]

'as a as a moral improvement: they proposed the dissolution of all government, the annihilation of property, and the levelling of ranks and distinctions,-as a political improvement. To excite, foment, or increase discontent among the uninformed, there were Paine and coadjutors; for persons of more taste and knowledge, but with confined views of mankind, there were Hol.croft's novels; for those that had a glimmering of metaphysics, and who, engaging in what they did not understand, forgot what they did, there was Godwin. Paine, Holcroft, and Godwin had established three great banks of anarchy and infidelity (there might be much greater capitalists that did not avow themselves) whose notes inferior dealers took, and circulated for current cash.

Inflamed by teachers and ministers of sedition, many of the populace conceived themselves to be totally deprived of their rights, and that nothing would restore them but a national convention. A plan of this sort having been tried in Edinburgh, and a meeting having taken place, under that name, in which also the subordinate phraseology of the French was adopted, to shew the model of imitation; the meeting having been' dispersed by the activity of the chief magistrate, and the leaders punished, an assembly of the same kind was

* A national convention of delegates having, by our constitution, no authority to alter the government; but, according