though light as air, are as strong as links of iron."

It

in such rich fragments as these from Shakespeare, Milto the Bible, that Burke naturally expresses himself, occ sionally giving from these sources or from his favori Latin poets, a more literal quotation. more literal quotation. His eloque Sursum corda is drawn from the Roman Cathol liturgy, while from the Philadelphia Address to Gre Britain echoes that telling phrase "the former unsu pecting confidence in the mother country." Th legends of the Minotaur and of the Roman daughte contribute to his descriptions, picturesque events in his tory afford him illustrations, while nothing satisfies th demand of his critical imagination but the most definit and accurate details. The mountains are Appalachian the outlaws are English Tartars; it is Angola negroe whom the Guinea captain seeks to import, into Virgini and Carolina. Payne has made a very happy illustra tion of this poetic quality of Burke's style, by quoting the following passages side by side:

"In all the despotisms of the East it has been observed tha the further any part of the em pire is removed from the cap ital the more do its inhabitants enjoy some sort of rights and privileges; the more ineffica cious is the power of the monarch; and the more feeble and easily decayed is the organization of the government."—In quiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers, by Lord Brougham.

his particularizing style is the essence of poetry; n prose it is impossible not to be struck with the which it produces. Brougham's passage is excellent its way; but it pales before the flashing lights of Burk's sentences.

"1

But hough the beauties of Burke's style are the beauties of poetry, his prose is a true prose, and has the excellences of prose. There is no need to dwell upon the means by which Burke perfects the sequence of sentences and paragraphs, or the nice ratio between theme and amplification, or the variety and force of his phrases, or the accuracy and vigor of his vocabulary. These things are self-evident. It may be well however to touch upon one virtue of his prose language, which is possessed in equal perfection by few orators. I mean his ingenuity in neatly expressing what would naturally have been considered inexpressible except in many and perhaps awkward words. I will cite several examples of this skilful compression, though they lose their keenest point when isolated : "Considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument (§ 31); "Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory" (§ 33); “Will it not teach them that the government against which a claim of liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government to which submission is equivalent to slavery?" (§ 60); "But courts incommodiously situated in effect deny justice; and a court partaking in the fruits of its own condemnation is a robber" (§ 116).

To be convinced with a discouraging degree of thoroughness that these passages are not thrown off by

1 Payne's comment, Burke's Select Works, I., xl.

It is

an average literary gift, one need but attempt to ton, phrase them in their various contexts. Yet Burke ccaneither this virtue nor any of the more ornate haborite expression in a spirit of pedantry. Every element uen style seems to have come at the call of his gen eraholi pose, a purpose, not in itself literary, but voicin, Gre through the operation of literary genius in extracunst beauty and vigor of style.

T

The student's total impression of Burke's Flaugh that it not only serves the orator's conscious purpos¤; furthering with sincerity and vividness the granting of constitutional freedom to America; it will be felt that to the furthest limit of thought or imagination,—of exposi tion, enforcement, summary, refutation, of description, illustration, or appeal,-the subserviency of his style is perfect and unconscious. It is part of the man. It is as supple as the Arab horse to his master's hand; and like that, while it obeys, it carries him on to where new obedience is exacted. Burke habitually relies upon the certainty with which the right words will appear and fall harmoniously into their right places. To share in the satisfactions of that confidence is fully to enjoy the style of Burke, and enjoyment of Burke's style is by no means the least important end to which work on this oration should contribute.