association, prepared the way for another characteristic of Mr. Burke, his remarkable power of generalization. Without this he might have been one of the greatest of poets, but not a philosopher or a scientific statesman. To generalize," says Sir James Mackintosh, "is to philosophize; and comprehension of mind, joined to the habit of careful and patient observation, forms the true genius of philosophy." But it was not in his case a mere "habit," it was a kind of instinct of his nature, which led him to gather all the results of his thinking, as by an elective affinity, around their appropriate centers; and, knowing that truths are valuable just in proportion as they have a wider reach, to rise from particulars to generals, and so to shape his statements as to give them the weight and authority of universal propositions. His philosophy, however, was not that of abstract truth; it was confined to things in the concrete, and chiefly to man, society, and government. He was no metaphysician; he had, in fact, a dislike, amounting to weakness, of all abstract reasonings in politics, affirming, on one occasion, as to certain statements touching the rights of man, that just "in proportion as they were metaphysically true, they were morally and politically false!" He was, as he himself said, “a philosopher in action;" his generalizations embraced the great facts of human society and political institutions as affected by all the interests and passions, the prejudices and frailties of a being like man. The impression he made was owing, in a great degree, to the remoteness of the ideas which he brought together, the startling novelty and yet justness of his combinations, the heightening power of contrast, and the striking manner in which he connected truths of imperishable value with the individual case before him. It is here that we find the true character and office of Mr. Burke. He was the man of principles; one of the greatest teachers of "civil prudence" that the world has ever seen. A collection of maxims 'might be made from his writings infinitely superior to those of Rochefoucauld; equally true to nature, and adapted, at the same time, not to produce selfishness and distrust, but to call into action all that is generous, and noble, and elevated in the heart of man. His high moral sentiment and strong sense of religion added greatly to the force of these maxims; and, as a result of these fine generalizations, Mr. Burke has this peculiarity, which distinguishes him from every other writer, that he is almost equally instructive whether he is right or wrong as to the particular point in debate. He may fail to make out his case; opposing considerations may induce us to decide against him; and yet every argument he uses is full of instruction: it contains great truths, which, if they do not turn the scale here, may do it elsewhere; so that he whose mind is filled with the maxims of Burke has within him not only one of the finest incentives of genius, but a fountain of the richest thought, which may flow forth through a thousand channels in all the efforts of his own intellect, to whatever subject those efforts may be directed.

With these qualities and habits of mind, the oratory of Mr. Burke was of necessity didactic. His speeches were lectures, and, though often impassioned, enlivened at one time with wit, and rising at another into sublimity or pathos, they usually became wearisome to the House from their minuteness and subtlety, as

"He went on refining,

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining."

We see, then, in the philosophical habits of his mind (admirable as the results were in most respects), why he spoke so often to empty benches, while Fox, by seizing on the strong points of the case, by throwing away intermediate thoughts, and striking at the heart of the subject, never failed to carry the House with him in breathless attention.

His method was admirable, in respect at least to his published speeches. No man ever bestowed more care on the arrangement of his thoughts. The exceptions to this remark are apparent, not real. There is now and then a slight irregularity

in his mode of transition, which seems purposely thrown in to avoid an air of sameness; and the subordinate heads sometimes spread out so widely, that their connection with the main topic is not always obvious. But there is reigning throughout the whole a massive unity of design like that of a great cathedral, whatever may be the intricacy of its details.

In his reasonings (for he was one of the greatest masters of reason in our language, though some have strangely thought him deficient in this respect) Mr. Burke did not usually adopt the outward forms of logic. He has left us, indeed, some beautiful specimens of dialectical ability, but his arguments, in most instances, consisted of the amplest enumeration and the clearest display of all the facts and principles, the analogies, relations, or tendencies which were applicable to the case, and were adapted to settle it on the immutable basis of the nature and constitution of things. Here again he appeared, of necessity, more as a teacher than a logician, and hence many were led to underrate his argumentative powers. The exuberance of his fancy was likewise prejudicial to him in this respect. Men are apt to doubt the solidity of a structure which is covered all over with flowers. As to this peculiarity of his eloquence, Mr. Fox truly said, "It injures his reputation; it casts a vail over his wisdom. Reduce his language, withdraw his images, and you will find that he is more wise than eloquent; you will have your full weight of metal though you melt down the chasing." In respect to Mr. Burke's imagery, however, it may be proper to remark, that a large part of it is not liable to any censure of this kind; many of his figures are so finely wrought into the texture of his style, that we hardly think of them as figures at all. His great fault in other cases is that of giving them too bold a relief, or dwelling on them too long, so that the primary idea is lost sight of in the image. Sometimes the prurience of his fancy makes him low and even filthy. He is like a man depicting the scenes of nature, who is not content to give us those features of the landscape that delight the eye, but fills out his canvas with objects which are coarse, disgusting, or noisome. Hence no writer in any language has such extremes of imagery as Mr. Burke, from his picture of the Queen of France, "glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy," or of friendship, as "the soft green of the soul, on which the eye loves to repose," to Lord Chatham's administration "pigging together in the same truckle-bed," and Mr. Dundas, with his East India bills, "exposed like the imperial sow of augury, lying in the mud with the prodigies of her fertility about her, as evidences of her delicate amours."

His language, though copious, was not verbose. Every word had its peculiar force and application. His chief fault was that of overloading his sentences with secondary thoughts, which weakened the blow by dividing it. His style is, at times, more careless and inaccurate than might be expected in so great a writer. But his mind was on higher things. His idea of a truly fine sentence, as once stated to a friend, is worthy of being remembered. It consists, said he, in a union of thought, feeling, and imagery of a striking truth and a corresponding sentiment, rendered doubly striking by the force and beauty of figurative language. There are more sentences of this kind in the pages of Mr. Burke than of any other writer.

In conclusion, we may say, without paradox, since oratory is only one branch of the quality we are now considering, that while Mr. Burke was inferior as an orator to Lord Chatham and Mr. Fox, he has been surpassed by no one in the richness and splendor of his eloquence; and that he has left us something greater and better than all eloquence in his countless lessons of moral and civil wisdom.

SPEECH

OF MR. BURKE ON AMERICAN TAXATION, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 9, 1774.

INTRODUCTION.

THE measures of the different British ministers respecting American taxation, from the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765 to the repeal of all taxes except that on tea in 1770, have been detailed already, in connection with the speeches of Lord Chatham. Lord North's policy in respect to America was arbitrary and fluctuating. It was well described by a contemporary writer as "a heterogeneous mixture of concession and coercion; of concession not tending to conciliate, and of coercion that could not be carried into execution at once exciting hatred for the intention and contempt for the weakness." After the destruction of the tea in the harbor of Boston, violent measures prevailed. In March, 1774, laws were passed depriving Massachusetts of her charter, and closing the port of Boston against all commerce. Some, however, who had supported Lord North in these measures, thought they should be accompanied by an act indicative of a desire to conciliate. Accordingly, Mr. Rose Fuller, of Rye, who usually voted with the ministry, moved on the 19th of April, 1774, "that the House resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to take into consideration the duty of threepence per pound on tea, payable in all his Majesty's dominions in America," with a view to repealing the same. Mr. Burke seconded the proposal, and sustained it in the following speech. The unfavorable circumstances under which be commenced, and the complete mastery which he soon gained over his audience, have been already described. The applause so lavishly bestowed upon this speech was richly merited. No one had ever been delivered in the Parliament of Great Britain so full at once of deep research, cogent reasoning, cutting sarcasm, graphic description, profound political wisdom, and fervid declamation. Lord Chatham alone had surpassed it in glowing and impassioned eloquence.

In discussing the subject, Mr. Burke confined himself to the single question, " Ought the tax on tea to be abandoned, and with it the entire scheme of raising a parliamentary revenue out of the colonies?" The measure had been popular throughout all England, except in a few commercial cities; and, whether wisely adopted or not, there were strong objections to an abandonment of the system while America remained in the attitude of open resistance. Instead of reserving these objections to be answered in form at the close of the main argument, Mr. Burke disposes of them at once in a preliminary head, under what he calls "the narrow" view of the subject; i. e, the mere question of repeal. Here he obviates the difficulties referred to; not speaking to the several points, however, under the name of objections, but rather turning the ta bles on Lord North with admirable dexterity, and showing that by his previous concessions he had himself opened the way for an immediate and entire repeal. Mr. Burke next enters on his main argument by giving a historical sketch of the colonial system of England from the passing of the Navigation Act in 1651. He shows that this system did not originally contemplate any direct taxation of the colonies. He traces the steps by which the scheme of obtaining a revenue from America was introduced and modified; sketches the character of the men concerned; and urges a return to the original principles of the Naviga tion Act, as the only means of restoring peace to the empire.

It would be difficult to find any oration, ancient or modern, in which the matter is more admirably arranged. The several parts support each other, and the whole forms a complete system of thought. The sketches of Mr. Grenville, Mr. Townsend, Lord Chatham, and his administration, are not strictly excrescences, though it would be unsafe for any man less gifted than Mr. Burke to arrest the progress of the discussion, and conduct the audience through such a picture-gallery of statesmen. They do, in one sense, form a part of the argument; for it was the character of the men that decided the character of the measures, and showed how England had been led to adopt a system which ought forever to be abandoned. Even the glowing picture of General Conway's reception by "the trading interest," as they "jumped upon him like children on a long-absent father," and "clung upon him as captives about their redeemer," when he carried through the repeal of the Stamp Act, adds force to the argument, for it shows how American taxation was regarded by those who were best informed on the subject.

The language of this speech is racy and pungent. It is nowhere so polished or rounded off as to lose its sharpness. The folly of American taxation is exposed in the keenest terms, from the opening paragraph, where the House is spoken of as having, "for nine long years," been "lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients," to the closing sentence, in which Mr. Burke tells the ministry, "Until you come back to that system [the system of the Navigation Act], there will be no peace for England."

SPEECH, &c.

SIR,-I agree with the honorable gentleman' who spoke last, that this subject is not new in this House. Very disagreeably to this House, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, session after session, we have been lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients. I am sure our heads must turn, and our stomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every shape; we have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is exhausted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obstinacy is not yet conquered.

The honorable gentleman has made one endeavor more to diversify the form of this disgust ing argument. He has thrown out a speech composed almost entirely of challenges. Challenges are serious things; and, as he is a man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say he has very well weighed those challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit at the same side of the House, and to agree with the honorable gentleman on all the American questions. My sentiments, I am sure, are well known to him; and I thought I had been perfectly acquainted with his. Though I find myself mistaken, he will still permit me to use the privilege of an old friendship; he will permit me to apply myself to the House under the sanction of his authority; and on the various grounds he has measured out, to submit to you the poor opinions which I have formed upon a matter of importance enough to demand the fullest consideration I could bestow upon it.

Two modes

bounded as the subject and the extent of his great abilities.

Sir, when I can not obey all his laws, I will do the best I can. I will endeavor to obey The broad such of them as have the sanction of his view the example; and to stick to that rule, proper one. which, though not consistent with the other, is the most rational. He was certainly in the right when he took the matter largely. I can not prevail on myself to agree with him in his censure of his own conduct. It is not, he will give me leave to say, either useless or dangerous. He asserts that retrospect is not wise; and the proper, the only proper subject of inquiry is, not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to get out of it." In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our invention and to reject our experience. The mode of deliberation he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason, and every principle of good sense established among mankind; for that sense and that reason I have always understood absolutely to prescribe, whenever we are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pursued, that we should take a strict review of those measures, in order to correct our errors, if they should be corrigible; or at least to avoid a dull uniformity in mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught in the same snare.

Sir, I will freely follow the honorable gentle. man in his historical discussion, without the least management for men or measures, farther than as they shall seem to me to deserve it. But before I go into that large consideration, because I would omit nothing that can give the House satisfaction, I wish to tread,

I. The NARROW GROUND, to which alone the honorable gentleman, in one part of his objections to speech, has so strictly confined us.

the repeal

if we were

Will not the

Americans de

mand more?

He has stated to the House two grounds of deliberation, one narrow and simple, of discussion. and merely confined to the question on your paper; the other more large and complicated; comprehending the whole series of the (1.) He desires to know whether, parliamentary proceedings with regard to Amer- to repeal this tax agreeably to the ica, their causes, and their consequences. With proposition of the honorable gentleregard to the latter ground, he states it as use- man who made the motion, the Amerless, and thinks it may be even dangerous to en-icans would not take post on this concession, in ter into so extensive a field of inquiry. Yet, to my surprise, he has hardly laid down this restrictive proposition, to which his authority would have given so much weight, when directly, and with the same authority, he condemns it, and declares it absolutely necessary to enter into the most ample historical detail. His zeal has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. In this perplexity, what shall we do, sir, who are willing to submit to the law he gives us ? He has reprobated in one part of his speech the rule he had laid down for debate in the other; and, after narrowing the ground for all those who are to speak after him, he takes an excursion himself, as un

1 Chas. Wolfran Cornwall, Esq., one of the Lords of the Treasury, and afterward Speaker of the House of Commons.

order to make a new attack on the next body of taxes; and whether they would not call for a re peal of the duty on wine as loudly as they do now for the repeal of the duty on tea? Sir, I can give no security on this subject. But I will do all that I can, and all that can be fairly demanded. To the experience which the honorable gentleman reprobates in one instant and re verts to in the next; to that experience, without the least wavering or hesitation on my part, I steadily appeal; and would to God there was no other arbiter to decide on the vote with which the House is to conclude this day!

When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in the year 1766, I affirm, first, that the Americans did not, in consequence of this measure, call upon you to give up the former parliamentary revenue which subsisted in that country, or even any one

of the articles which compose it. I affirm, also, | that when, departing from the maxims of that repeal, you revived the scheme of taxation, and thereby filled the minds of the colonists with new jealousy, and all sorts of apprehension, then it was that they quarreled with the old taxes as well as the new; then it was, and not till then, that they questioned all the parts of your legislative power; and by the battery of such questions have shaken the solid structure of this empire to its deepest foundations.

it.

Of those two propositions I shall, before I have done, give such convincing, such damning proof, that, however the contrary may be whispered in circles, or bawled in newspapers, they never more will dare to raise their voices in this House. I speak with great confidence. I have reason for The ministers are with me. They, at least, are convinced that the repeal of the Stamp Act had not, and that no repeal can have, the consequences which the honorable gentleman who defends their measures is so much alarmed at. To their conduct I refer him for a conclusive answer to his objection. I carry my proof irresistibly into the very body of both ministry and Parliament; not on any general reasoning growing out of collateral matter, but on the conduct of the honorable gentleman's ministerial friends on the new revenue itself.

condemned by himself, and by all his associates, old and new, as a destroyer, in the first trust of finance, in the revenues; and in the first rank of honor, as a betrayer of the dignity of his country.

Most men, especially great men, do not always know their well-wishers. I come to rescue that noble Lord out of the hands of those he calls his friends, and even out of his own. I will do him the justice he is denied at home. He has not been this wicked or imprudent man. He knew that a repeal had no tendency to produce the mischiefs which give so much alarm to his honorable friend. His work was not bad in its principle, but imperfect in its execution; and the motion on your paper presses him only to complete a proper plan, which, by some unfortunate and unaccountable error, he had left unfinished.

I hope, sir, the honorable gentleman who spoke last is thoroughly satisfied, and satisfied out of the proceedings of the ministry on their own favorite act, that his fears from a repeal are groundless. If he is not, I leave him, and the noble Lord who sits by him, to settle the matter, as well as they can, together; for if the repeal of American taxes destroys all our government in America-he is the man!-and he is the worst of all the repealers, because he is the last.4

a repeal?

(2.) But I hear it continually rung in my ears, now and formerly, "the preamble ! Will consistwhat will become of the preamble, if ency permit you repeal this tax?" I am sorry to be compelled so often to expose the calamities and disgraces of Parliament. The preamble of this law, standing as it now stands, has the lie direct given to it by the provisionary part of the act; if that can be called provisionary which makes no provision. I should be afraid to express myself in this manner, especially in the face of such a formidable array of ability as is now drawn up before me, composed of the ancient household troops of that side of the House, and the new recruits from this, if the matter were not clear and indisputable. Nothing but truth could give me this firmness; but plain truth and clear evidence can be beat down by no ability. The clerk will be so good as to turn to the act, and to read this favorite preamble.

The act of 1767, which grants this tea duty, sets forth in its preamble that it was expedient to raise a revenue in America for the support of the civil government there, as well as for purposes still more extensive. To this support the act assigns six branches of duties. About two years after this act passed, the ministry-I mean the present ministry-thought it expedient to repeal five of the duties, and to leave, for reasons best known to themselves, only the sixth standing. Suppose any person, at the time of that repeal, had thus addressed the minister :3 "Condemning, as you do, the repeal of the Stamp Act, why do you venture to repeal the duties upon glass, paper, and painters' colors? Let your pretense for the repeal be what it will, are you not thoroughly convinced that your concessions will produce, not satisfaction, but insolence, in the Americans; and that the giving up these taxes will necessitate the giving up of all the "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue rest?" This objection was as palpable then as should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in it is now; and it was as good for preserving the America, for making a more certain and adequate five duties as for retaining the sixth. Besides, provision for defraying the charge of the admirthe minister will recollect, that the repeal of the istration of justice and support of civil governStamp Act had but just preceded his repeal; and ment in such provinces where it shall be found the ill policy of that measure (had it been so im- necessary, and toward farther defraying the expolitic as it has been represented), and the mis-penses of defending, protecting, and securing the chiefs it produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of the honorable gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the minister has nothing at all to answer. He stands There is reason to believe that the colonies would not have made any opposition to duties imposed for the mere regulation of trade.

Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was minister at the time of this repeal, March 5th,

1770.

[It was read in the following words:

said dominions."]

You have heard this pompous performance. Now where is the revenue which is to do all these mighty things? Five sixths repealedDoes abandoned—sunk —gone-lost forever.

The pungency of this argumentum ad hominem is increased by the ingenious turn given to it by Mr. Burke, that he is defending Lord North against his own friends and adherents.