provocations, which afforded no pause in which the judgment might resume its right; not to mention that the whole took place in the presence of third parties. As the dispute was public, pride rendered retreat impossible.

After this it is not to be wondered at, that the breach became wider and wider. The topics on which the two statesmen differed were not of a transitory nature or of secondary importance; the introduction of those topics into debate did not depend on a specific discussion; they came in contact with almost every point of the wide field of politics.

As Mr. Burke was now openly accused of treason to his former principles and party, he deemed it right to attempt to justify his opinions, and to show that he was still in all essential points unchanged; that he had not apostatized from his former principles, but that his friends had gone beyond them. For this purpose he published his " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," in which he endeavours to show that the Whigs of the era of the Revolution held the same doctrines as those of the Reflections. The defects of this work, which in our opinion are serious, will come hereafter into consideration.

In the close of the year 1791, Mr. Burke put forth a paper, under the title of "Thoughts on French Affairs." The principles it was designed to enforce, are these, that no internal causes would produce a counter-revolution in France; that the system would strengthen the longer it continued; and that so long as it existed, it would be the interest of France to disturb and distract all foreign governments.

About the same period, he once more exerted himself on behalf of the Irish Catholics, against the severity of the penal laws. It was on this occasion that he wrote the letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe. The Bill soon after introduced into the Irish parliament, conferred upon the catholics the privileges of practising law; intermarrying with protestants; together with several other important advantages, in connexion with education and commerce; and, at length, the elective franchise.

It was at this time death robbed him of as dear a friend in Sir Joshua Reynolds, as politics had snatched from him in Charles Fox. This celebrated man, and not more celebrated for his genius than his worth, died in February, 1792, leaving Mr. Burke one of his executors; he also left him the sum of £2000, and a cancelled bond to the same amount. Never was friendship more pure or ardent than that which subsisted between these two gentlemen. Mr. Burke drew up the following eulogy for him, which a competent judge emphatically pronounced the eulogium of Parrhasius, spoken by Pericles. "It is," said a political opponent, "as fine a portrait as Sir Joshua Reynolds ever painted."

"His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of any thing irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution; and he contemplated it with that entire composure, which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every consolation from family tenderness, which his own kindness to his family had indeed well deserved.

"Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that department of the art in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history and of the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to have been derived from his paintings. He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.

d

"In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.

"His talents of every kind-powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters-his social virtues in all the relations and in all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to provoke some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow.

“Hail! and farewell!”

During this session, Burke opposed Mr. Grey's motion for Parliamentary Reform, and the Unitarians' Petition introduced by Mr. Fox. But the most important event of the session was the complete schism which took place in the Whig party on the question of the proclamation against seditious doctrines and writings. At this point the Duke of Portland's friends, forming the more moderate party, left Mr. Fox. In the mean time changes not less important had been taking place on the ministerial side. Mr. Pitt, finding the chancellor, who had so long and so quietly borne the yoke, suddenly refractory, sought to strengthen himself by a junction with the Portland party. In this arrangement efforts were made to include Mr. Fox; but as he persisted in refusing, unless Mr. Pitt would resign the office of premier, they proved futile.

In the midst of parliamentary duties, Mr. Burke did not forget France for an instant. It absorbed his time and his thoughts. In November he drew up "Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs." Its object was to excite war, and to show that no country in Europe could successfully wage war with France unaided by England. He was still as diligent as ever in obtaining information of the state of France. He even sent his son to the French princes, staying at Coblentz. On his return, he brought over M. Cazales, a member of the National Assembly, and distinguished as the opponent of Mirabeau. By his son's efforts he also opened a correspondence with some of the ministers of Austria and Prussia. No sooner did parliament meet than he again came into collision with Mr. Fox. Indeed, they had some words on the very first day of the session, as well as on the two following days, more especially on Mr. Fox's motion to send an ambassador to Paris to treat with the republican government. But their final quarrel was on the 28th December, on the second reading of the Alien Bill. On this occasion Mr. Burke's conduct showed the influence which his horror of the French Revolution had exerted on his imagination, and into what egregious acts of injudicious violence and bad taste it could sometimes force him. After mentioning that he understood that 3000 daggers had been ordered from Birmingham, he drew one from under his coat, and exclaiming, “This is what you are to gain by an alliance with France, this is your fraternization," he threw it on the floor. At the close of his speech, addressing himself to Mr. Fox, he exclaimed, " My Right Honourable friend no more." No sooner had he said this, than he darted across the house and seated himself by the side of Mr. Pitt, on the ministerial benches.

All this, admirers as we are of Mr. Burke, we are constrained to pronounce in very bad taste. The very idea of deliberately procuring a dagger, concealing it under his coat, drawing it out just at the critical moment, and hurling it on the floor with such theatrical violence of gesture, betrayed a coolness and premeditation which may do very well for stageeffect, but is utterly irreconcileable with genuine natural emotion. It must have been, and could but be felt to be a-scene.

The "Traitorous Correspondence Bill," and some other measures, drew from him several eloquent speeches. This was the last parliament in which he sat.

The war, that war which was destined to rage, with pauses few and transient, for more

than twenty years, was now at hand, accelerated by the execution of Louis XVI. and the violence of the National Assembly. Mr. Burke, as is well known, was one of the most vehement and strenuous advocates of the war, much more so in fact than Mr. Pitt, who, indeed, never carried it on vigorously enough to please him. That Mr. Burke was wrong in this conduct we have no doubt. It was another proof of the excess to which his terrors could urge on his imagination. But on this matter we reserve further observations till a subsequent page. It is worth remarking, that during the war special messengers were frequently sent off to Mr. Burke, as to a minister of state, upon the arrival of any important intelligence.

It was about the same time that he wrote his pamphlet, entitled " Observations on the Conduct of the Minority;" one of the greatest stains on his character. It was addressed to the Duke of Portland. Postponing, as usual, all further remarks, it will suffice to say here that it was written in the form of a strictly private letter, that it was published without Mr. Burke's consent by his amanuensis, who had surreptitiously obtained a copy. About the same time he wrote another on the " Affairs of the Catholics." It was addressed to his son, and will be found in these volumes.

In November 1793, he published another piece on that exhaustless theme-French affairs. It was entitled, "Remarks on the Policy of the Allies." It attributed the disasters of the war to want of combination and energy on the part of the allies-to mutual jealousies -to cowardice in some, and secret love of revolutionary principles in others. He also wrote a very able preface to Mr. William Bourke's Translation of Brissot's Address to his Constituents, which contains a brilliant and masterly sketch of the Brissotin and Robespierre faction. In parliament, Mr. Burke scarcely spoke at all till quite towards the close of the session.

The parliament broke up in July 1794. Soon after, the Duke of Portland's party joined the ministry, a step which was strongly urged by Mr. Burke, and mainly effected by his mediation.

The darkest hour of Mr. Burke's life was now drawing on; a calamity awaited him which did more to paralyze his energies and to hasten his death than all the agitating conflicts and labours of his past life put together. We allude, of course, to the death of that only, that beloved son, from whom he had hoped so much-to whom he looked as the stay and solace of his declining age, and as the heir not only of his fame, but of a fame still brighter than his own. That young Burke possessed almost all to justify a father's affections is well known. He was distinguished by excellent talents, and these talents had been most assiduously cultivated. That his knowledge was extensive who can hesitate to believe, when it is considered that his studies were directed, and his mind formed, under such a father--a man himself of boundless knowledge-a man whose most casual conversation was rich with instruction—a man, too, who believed that almost every thing might be accomplished by industry, and who was such an enemy to those great allies of ignorance,-sloth and dissipation? To all this the youth added, what was still more delightful, the utmost amiability of disposition and the most entire devotedness of affection to his parents. These real accomplishments, and real excellences, the father's ardent imagination had decked out in celestial colours and ideal graces, and on this picture of imaginary perfection his fancy had been accustomed to feast itself for years; who can wonder then that he should have watched with anxiety so intense the opening of this fair flower, or that he should have felt with overwhelming anguish the rude stroke that laid its young beauty in the dust?

This calamity was felt to be the greater, as indeed must always be the case, because it fell just when the father's fairy visions seemed on the very eve of being realized. The harvest was blighted just when the joyous husbandman was putting in his sickle.

It appears that exactly when the fatal symptoms of his son's last illness disclosed themselves, Mr. Burke had relinquished to him his seat for Malton, and had even procured for him the appointment of secretary to Lord Fitzwilliam, lord lieutenant of Ireland. Dazzled by the

bright scenes which his hopes had conjured up, he could not see,-what every one else saw plainly enough, that the days of his son were already numbered. Of all this he was totally unconscious, and no one dared to tell him. Dr. Brocklesby, the physician of the family, declared from his long knowledge of the intensity of Burke's affection, that any such disclosure would probably be fatal, and short as was the term of the son's existence, would render that of the father still shorter.

Young Burke was now removed to Cromwell House, near Brompton, for the sake of the country air. The unhappy father, who still never thought of danger, selected for him this residence so near town, that he might be ready to depart for Ireland at a moment's notice, as soon as his health permitted. Here, however, all the symptoms rapidly grew worse, and the physician no longer able to disguise the truth, disclosed the horrors of the case just a week before its fatal termination. From this moment, Burke abandoned himself to all the desperation of sorrow; "his was a grief which would not be comforted."

Young Burke passed the night before his dissolution in much pain and restlessness. Early in the morning, he heard the voice of sorrow in the adjoining apartment, where his parents had spent a night of yet deeper wretchedness. Anxious to alleviate their sorrows, he resolved if possible to delude them, by an affectionate deceit, into the belief that he was stronger than he really was. Rising with some difficulty, he requested to be supported to the door of the apartment in which his father and mother were sitting. There he dismissed his attendants; and making a last effort, walked twice or thrice across the room. But his parents were not to be deceived. They looked on him in silent agony. Finding his efforts to console them vain, "Speak to me," said he, "my dear father-speak to me of religion-speak to me of morality-speak to me of indifferent matters, for I derive much satisfaction from all you say." Hearing the wind whistling through the trees, he was reminded of the noble lines of Milton:

"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."

These lines he repeated twice: he had just strength to repeat them the second time, when, exhausted by the effort, he staggered across the room and fell in a state of insensibility into his father's arms: shortly after which he expired.

The grief of Burke was appalling. He would now sit in that unnatural calmness of despair, which is yet more terrific than the most stormy displays of passion, and now bursting into a frenzy of grief, would rush into the chamber where his son lay, and throwing himself on the body, call in accents of the most fearful anguish for "the hope of his age, the stay of his life, the only comfort of his declining and now joyless years." He was prevailed upon after the first day, though with some difficulty, to promise that he would see the corpse no more; a promise which he kept. The mother was equally distracted; to Mr. Burke's frequent efforts to get her away from the room, her only reply was, " No, Edmund, while he remains there, I will remain." At length, however, her husband prevailed.

Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted an admirable portrait of young Burke. This, Burke ordered to be engraved; and in the affecting and beautiful inscription which he placed under it, exhibited at once his taste and his sensibility. It was an expression of sorrow, such as one might naturally expect from such a man as Burke. The lines were from Dryden's poem of Eleonora

“As precious gums are not for common fire,

They but perfume the temple and expire;

So was he soon exhaled and vanish'd hence,
A short sweet odour at a vast expense."

Underneath these exquisite lines were the words,

"O dolor atque decus."

It is hardly matter of surprise, that such a stroke as this should have utterly unfitted Burke for politics. The only wonder is that he should ever have recovered his elasticity of mind. sufficiently to enter that scene of strife again. It was well, however, that this was the case. It was the only means left of weaning him from the perilous indulgence of solitary grief; the only thing which called off the vultures of memory from preying on his vitals.

In 1795 he wrote his letter on the Catholic Question, addressed to W. Smith, Esq. in reply to one from that gentleman. It contains an admirable discussion of all the chief topics connected with it. A letter on the same subject to Sir Hercules Langrishe (the second to that gentleman) soon followed.

His sarcastic letter to William Elliot, Esq. in defence of his conduct against the attacks of the minority, was his next publication.

Another piece written about the same time, displaying his extensive knowledge of the minutest facts connected with the state of the country, and full of the most enlightened principles of political economy, was his "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity." It was addressed to Mr. Pitt.

In 1795, and not till then, be it recollected,-after the publication of by far the larger part of those works which it was alleged he had written to secure himself the favour of the Crown, and more than five years after the principal of them, he received his pension. That pension was unsolicited, and, as was said, originated in the express desire of the king. It was severely reflected on in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, attacks which elicited Mr. Burke's celebrated "Letter to a noble Lord in Defence of his Pension." More of this hereafter.

His last publication, one, it may be said, which displays his intellectual greatness almost as strongly as any of his earlier productions, was his "Letters on a Regicide Peace.” They were called forth by the disasters of the war, and were intended to animate to renewed exertions the drooping energies of the nation. These letters are four in number; two appeared in his life-time, and two are posthumous.

Grief

But Mr. Burke was now fast arriving at the close of his long and arduous career. and toil had at length broken down energies, which were at one time equal to almost any measure of human endurance or exertion. As often happens in cases where the strength has been long overtasked, he sank almost at once into the last stage of debility and prostration. It was even reported that, towards the close, his mind partook of the decay which had touched his outward frame. This, however, was wholly untrue; it shone out in all its lustre even to the last, unsmothered amidst the falling ruins of the body, that frail tenement which indeed its own fierce fires had been the principal means of bringing to the ground.

Finding medical skill unavailing, he repaired to Bath for the benefit of the waters. He remained there for four months, but without any material improvement of his health. At length, despairing of any change for the better, he resolved on being removed to Beaconsfield. "It is so far, at least," said he, " on my way to the tomb, and I may as well travel it alive as dead." The same sentiment he yet more touchingly expressed in a short letter to a friend at this period. "I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield to-morrow, to be nearer to a habitation more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion."

Even amidst the debility of his present state, he still broke out into momentary ardour