A short time before the demise of Sir Joshua, another of Burke's early friends, Mr. Gerrard Hamilton, departed this life." He was a man to whom Mr. Burke owed much from whom he early separated; and with whom he afterward refused to be intimate. Mr. Hamilton is with good reason thought to be the author of at least one of the letters of Junius, from the circumstance of being acquainted with its contents before it appeared in public.-The judgment which he very early passed on Burke deserves to be known, because it continued to be just when applied to him at the latest time of life." Whatever opinion," said Mr. Hamilton, "Burke, from any motive, supports, so ductile is his imagination that he soon conceives it to be right."

We now come to the last and most important epoch in the life of Mr. Burke,-The French Revolution :-that point whence, if he did not really turn back in the orbit in which he had hitherto shone so brightly as the able advocate of popular right and liberty, he certainly appeared, at least to common eyes, to become retrograde. To prepare the reader for the line of conduct which Mr. B. adopted with respect to that great event, Dr. Bisset enters into a very long disquisition on the old government of France, the progress of metaphysical learning, which led to the subversion of that government, the process of the revolution, the violence and injustice with which it was accompanied, and the extravagant notions of liberty entertained by some who approved it: but, more especially, he dwells on the effects which it produced on the mind of Mr. Burke; who, from principle and habit, guided by experience in his judgments and conduct, considered liberty as a matter of moral enjoyment, and not of metaphysical disquisition; and who, like Livy, did not think a borde of barbarians equally fitted for the contests of freedom as men in a more advanced state of knowlege and civilization.' Under the old govnerment of France, the Doctor acknowleges, the suggestion of a priest or a prostitute would desolate a province, and drive from the country its most industrious inhabitants; the peasant was, like the ox, the mere property of his superior, and the tyranny of the lord was only suspended and checked by the tyranny of the officers of government, who dragged him from his starving family to work.in some corvée of public concern, or of absurd magnificence; or to sell him salt, respecting which he was neither permitted to choose the time at which he would purchase, nor the quantity he would take.' The revolution, which delivered twenty-four millions of people from this kind of established 80vernment, excited in the cautious mind of Mr. Burke only the reflexions that, bad as arbitrary power was, unwise efforts to shake it off might produce still greater evils; that the notions

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of liberty which prevailed in France were speculative and visionary; that the impetuous character of the French required much closer restraints than that of many other states; and that the composition of the National Assembly, the degradation of the nobility, the abolition of orders, and the confiscation of the property of the church, all tended to prove that a compound of anarchy and wickedness would be substituted for the old arbitrary government. Mr. Burke's cautious opinions, however, on this subject, were not those of Englishmen in general. The love of liberty, a sentiment in itself so noble and so congenial to their feelings, was so powerful as to conquer every other sentiment, and inspire admiration of the exertions which overthrew despotism.' Even a statesman of high rank, and the highest talents, venerating liberty in general, presuming French liberty would render its votaries happy, imputing the aggressions of France on this country and others to the corrupt ambition of the old court, and anticipating tranquillity from her renovated state, rejoiced at a change that foreboded peace to Britain and to Europe.' In this class was Mr. Fox; who, in his speech on the army estimates, in 1790, adverting to the revolution of France, said that he considered that event as a reason for rendering a smaller military establishment advisable on our part. "The new form," he said, "that the government of France was likely to assume, would, he was persuaded, make her a better neighbour and less propense to hostility, than when she was subject to the cabal and intrigues of ambitious and interested statesmen." Burke, who had been waiting for an opportunity of declaring his disapprobation of the principles and the proceedings of the French Revolutionists, delivered his sentiments on this occasion. In the course of his speech, after having dissented from Mr. Fox, he expressed his fear of this country " "being led, through an admiration of successful fraud and violence, to imitate the excess of an irra tional, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy." Without inquiring whether this sentiment of Mr. Burke may or may not be reconciled by metaphysical ingenuity with some latent principle extracted from the great mass of his former writings and speeches, it is easy to conceive that the application of the words "ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy," to men who had overthrown the French despotism, by a man who during a long life had been the most bold and zealous member of a popular party, and who had justified and praised America for venturing on all the horrors of a revolution, rather than submit to the imposition of a trivial impost, must have been heard by his old friends with astonishment. Mr. Fox, in his reply, having expressed in very high

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terms his esteem and veneration for his old coadjutor, declared that he could not agree in his opinion respecting the French Revolution, at which he rejoiced as the triumph of liberty over despotism.-In this reply, all was mild and conciliating: but Mr. Sheridan expressed his disapprobation of Burke's reasoning and opinion in a manner much less complimentary. He thought them, he said, quite inconsistent with the general principles and conduct of so constant and powerful a friend of liberty, and one who valued the British government and revolution."The National Assembly," he said, "had exerted a firmness and perseverance hitherto unexampled, and which had secured the liberty of France and vindicated the cause of mankind. What action of theirs authorised the appellation of a bloody, ferocious, and tyrannical democracy?"-In answer, Mr. Burke said that his observations had been uncandidly construed, and that from that moment Mr. Sheridan and he were for ever separated in politics!" Mr. Sheridan has sacrificed my friendship in exchange for the applause of clubs and associations; I assure him he will find the acquisition too insignificant to be worth the price at which it is purchased."

Mr. Burke was now the declared enemy of the French Revolution. He had applied himself with much industry to colFect information respecting the events which took place as Paris; and he received letters, among others, from Thomas Paine, Mr. Christie, and Baron Cloots. It was in answer to one of these letters, which endeavoured to trick out the Revolution in its most gaudy colouring, that he wrote his celebrated "Reflexions." The sentiments declared by Messrs. Fox and Sheridan in the House of Commons, and in Dr. Price's sermon at the Old Jewry, induced him to enlarge the first sketch of that work, until it assumed the form in which it appeared before the public in October 1790. Dr. Bisset enters very largely into the merits and object of this pamphlet.

The first public mark of approbation, with which this extraordinary composition was honoured, was an address from the University of Oxford. It was proposed, by many mem bers of that learned body, that the University should confer the degree of LL.D. on the author: but the proposal was rejected by seven to six, from an apprehension, it is said, that the degree. would not have met with the unanimous votes of the members of convocation. The address, which came from the resident graduates, was conceived in terms very flattering to Mr. Burke and his performance. It was conveyed by Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, through whom Mr. Burke returned his answer. The ministry and their friends conceived an opinion not less favour able than that of the University of Oxford, with respect to

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Mr. Burke's publication; but several men of the highest talents, the majority of Mr. Burke's former associates, the very ablest of those in the House of Commons, and some of the ablest in the House of Peers, and all those who entertained high speculative notions of liberty, while they admired the exe cution, condemned the tendency of the "Reflexions." The first answer to this work came from the ready pen of Dr. Priestley; who on this occasion vindicated Dr. Price's opinion concerning the source and tenure of monarchical power in England, and gave a prediction very different from that of Burke as to the effects to be expected from the principles which produced the French Revolution; from which he foreboded "the enlargement of liberty, the melioration of society, and the increase of virtue and of happiness."-This reply was followed by the much more celebrated one of T. Paine, entitled "The Rights of Man;"- the plain perspicuity of whose language, (to use the words of Dr. Bisset,) the force of whose expressions, and the directness of whose efforts, wore so much the appearance of clear and strong reasoning, that numbers, borne down by his bold assertions, supposed themselves convinced by his arguments."

The next publication of Mr. Burke was his "Second Letter to a Member of the National Assembly;"-in which, after having re-touched the several topics of the "Reflexions," he now carries his view to the effects of the revolution on private and social happiness, and labours to prove that the plans of education and civil regulations, which the Assembly had formed, sprang from the same source of untried theory, and tended to the same disorder and misery. Knowing that Rousseau was the model held up to the imitation of their youth, he analyses the character of Jean Jaques, along with those of Voltaire and Helvetius.

In 1791, in discussing the bill for forming a constitution for Canada, Burke again introduced the subject of the French Revolution, of which he talked in the same strain as formerly. Mr. Fox replied; and, after having declared his attachment to the constitution of this country, he repeated his praises of the French Revolution, expressed his dissent from Mr. Burke's opinions on that subject, and contended that they were incon sistent with his former principles. Mr. Burke complained that he had been treated by Mr. Fox with "harshness and malignity," denied the charge of inconsistency, defended his opinions relative to the French Revolution, and said that, though Mr. Fox and he had often differed, there had been no breach of friendship: but, he added, "there is something in this cursed French Constitution which envenoms every thing."

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Mr. Fox whispered, "there is no breach of friendship between us." Burke answered "there is! I know the price of my conduct; our friendship is at an end!" Thus prompt was Mr. Burke to terminate a friendship which had been cemented by so many ties, and had lasted for so many years! It is said that the animosity arising from political differences had been aggravated by some critical observations that Mr. Fox had made on the "Reflexions," which he called rather "the effusion of poetic genius, than a philosophical investigation." This difference between Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke was noticed by the Whig Club; who, by a publication in the Morning Chronicle, of May 12, 1791, declared Mr. Fox to have maintained the pure doctrines by which the Whigs of England were bound together. That publication gave rise to Mr. Burke's " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs;" in which he defends his reasonings on the French Revolution, and endeavours to prove them to be consistent with the principles that he always professed, and with those which distinguished the old Whigs.

In this summer, (1791,) appeared Mackintosh's Vindicia Gallica; in which that able writer made a most powerful assault on the principles and reasoning of the Reflexions. Dr. Bisset, acknowleging the merit of the work, endeavours by general observations to weaken its force.

On the annunciation by the French Ambassador of the acceptance of the new constitution by the King, Burke wrote his "Hints for a Memorial," to be delivered to M. de Montmorin; which went to prove, first, that no revolution is to be expected in France from internal causes solely secondly, that the longer the present system exists, the greater will be its strength; and thirdly, that, as long as it exists, it would be the interest of the revolutionists to distract and revolutionize other countries.

The process of affairs in France had now greatly increased the violence of those who in this country demanded parliamentary reform. Burke opposed every idea on that subject which was delivered in parliament, with great vehemence and perseverance; and soon after the retreat of the king of Prussia and the successes of the Republicans, he wrote the "Second Memorial," contained in his posthumous work; in which he exhorts this country to take the lead in forming a general combination for the repression of French power and French principles.

At the commencement of the war, he had sent his son (with the approbation of government) to Coblentz, in order to collect information relative to the disposition of the allied powers; and from him he learned how little was to be expected from them without the interposition of Great Britain. During this period, in which Burke, though now at his grand climacteric, REV. SEPT. 1798. continued

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