right, his speeches contained a series of causes and effects, antecedents and consequents: they were chains of massy steel, at once strong and brilliant. Whenever he was wrong, he was systematically wrong; the parts were at least congruous. Si non sunt vera saltem sunt inter se apta.

Burke descanted with wonderful eloquence on the inconsistency of Ministry, in proposing, at the same time, addresses and resolutions declaring America in a state of rebellion, and conciliatory bills: acts repealing and coercive; soothing and irritating. "You send out (he said) an angel of peace, but you send out a destroying angel along with him; and what will be the effects of the conflict of these adverse spirits is what I dare not say--whether the lenient measures will cause passion to subside, or the severer increase its fury: all this is in the hands of Providence: yet now, even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation of lenity, though working in darkness and in chaos. In the midst of this unnatural and turbid combination, I should hope it might produce order and beauty in the end."

The great mind of Burke most thoroughly despised mere courtiers, or, as he called them, household troops,-the parrots of court notions and court stories. "Sir, this verniin of court reporters, when they are forced into day, B b

upon one point, are sure to burrow in another; but they shall have no refuge: I will make them bolt out of all their holes." In the same speech, Burke manifests a feature in his character, long afterwards noticed by his very able opponent, Mr. Mackintosh :-" an abhorrence for abstract politics and a dread of innovation.' "I am not (says Burke) going into the distinction of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it. They, and we, and their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Oppose the ancient policy and practice of the empire as a rampart against the speculations of innovators, and they will stand on a manly and sure ground."

Whether we consider this speech of Burke as a display of the most creative genius, as an explanation of the subject in debate, as a chain of reasoning to prove propositions of the highest importance to the hearers and their constituents, as antecedents from which the consequences he drew actually did proceed, or as affording motives which ought to have induced them to the conduct he recommended, it is one of the ablest orations to be met with in any language. Besides being replete with means

adapted to the main end of conviction, and also of persuasion, were men always persuaded by a striking exhibition of their duty and interest, it has other distinguished excellencies: it displays a most penetrating and profound knowledge of human character and its effects: it abounds also in the soundest principles of morality. Transcendent excellence, logical, political, and philosophical, as this oration contains, embellished, enlivened, and elevated as it is by the most beautiful, animated, and grand imagery, which a POET's genius could produce, a hypercritical rhetorician might probably discover some violations of the rules of bis art. The rapidity of Burke's genius frequently produces a mixture of plain and figugurative language, and also a confusion of figures, which a slower mind, with an ordinary recollection of common-place precepts, would have avoided. "Thus, (says Burke, after having confuted vague reports circulated by court-hirelings) are blown away the insectrace of courtly falsehoods! Thus perish the miserable inventions of the wretched runners for a wretched cause, which they have fly-blown into every weak and rotten part of the country, in vain hopes that when their maggots had taken wing, their importunate buzzing might sound something like the public voice." A rhetorician might probably tell us that the falsehoods are considered first metaphorically

as insects, again literally as inventions, and immediately afterwards as insects, all in the same sentence. Critics of more intellectual expansion than verbal minuteness might reply, that the figure, whether rhetorically accurate or not, yet produces the intended effect of exciting contempt.

A second bill respecting American affairs. was now proposed. From the disorders in Massachuset's Bay, it was asserted by Ministers that the civil government of that province was inadequate to the remedy of the alledged defects it was proposed to enact a law to deprive the lower House of Assembly of the privilege of electing the members of the council, and to vest that power in the Crown; and also to vest in the King or Governor the appointment of magistrates and judges. This bill was vigorously opposed by many members. Burke contended that there was no evidence to justify such a deviation from the constitution of the colonies, and such an accession of power to the Crown. A third act was proposed for empowering the Governor, with advice of council, to send to England, to be tried, any person who, in the support of the revenue laws, or suppression of riots, should be charged with murder. find no speech of Burke upon this bill. A fourth act was proposed for the government of Canada, to secure to the inhabitants the Roman Catholic religion, to its clergy the tithes, to supersede

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trial by jury, to re-establish the French mode in its place, and to appoint a council dependent on the King's pleasure. This bill originated in the House of Lords. In opposing it in the House of Commons, Burke principally gave vent to his humour, in which, though he abounded, it seldom formed the leading characteristic of any of his speeches.

During the recess after this session, Burke received, at Beaconsfield, a visit from his friend Johnson. On viewing Burke's beautiful villa, he exclaimed, in the words of the exiled Mantuan to the restored Virgil,、

Non equidem in video miror magis.

Although these two great men had frequently political disputes in town, here there was no altercation. The polite host refrained from subjects of contention. The guest had so much breeding as to abstain from unprovoked attacks, in his own house, on a man of the most engaging hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Burke exerted themselves to please their illustrious visitor, whom Mr. Burke venerated for kindred genius, and his lady, because so prized by her husband; and so effectually studied his pleasure, that he declared he never passed his time with so much delight and instruction. Indeed, the sole con versation of each other must have been, to those eminent personages, a treat which they seldom experienced. In town they often met, but though generally in company respectable for