their order in cold and decent respect. I hold them to be of absolute necessity in the Constitution. But I think they are good only when kept within proper bounds. If by the aristocracy, which indeed comes nearer to the point, they mean an adherence to the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, this would indeed be a very extraordinary part. I have incurred the odium of gentlemen in this House, for not paying sufficient regard to men of ample property. When indeed the smallest rights of the poorest people are in question, I would set my face against any act of pride and power countenanced by the highest that are in it. And if it should come to the last extremity, and to a contest of blood, my part is taken; I should take my fate with the poor and low and feeble.

"But if those people come to turn their liberty into a cloak of maliciousness, and to seek a privilege of exemption not from power, but from the rules of morality and virtuous discipline, then I would join my hand to make them feel the force which a few, united in a good cause, have over a multitude of the profligate and ferocious.”

Yet the event was still distant which was to separate the leaders of Opposition for ever. On the amendment to the address moved by Fox, touching the right of taxing America, November, 1781, Burke supported him, in a powerful speech on the absurdity of claiming a right, where the right was impracticable. In this he introduced the strong apostrophe which was so long recorded, as the shearing of the wolf.

VOL. I.

"But I must say a few words on the subject of those rights which have cost us so much, and which were likely to cost us our all. What were those rights? Can any man give them a body and soul, a tangible substance? We did all this because we had a right to do it! And all this we dared to do, because we dared.

"We had a right to tax America, says the Noble Lord, and as we had a right, we must do it. We must risk every thing, forfeit every thing, take no consideration into view but our right, nor measure our right with our power. Infatuated Ministers! not to know that right signifies nothing without might, and that the claim, without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory and idle in the copyhold of rival States. But, says a silly man, full of his prerogative of dominion over a few beasts of the field, there is excellent I wool on the back of the wolf, and therefore he must be sheared. What, shear a wolf! Yes; but will he comply? Have you considered the trouble? How will you get this wool? Oh, I have considered nothing, and will consider nothing but my right. A wolf is an animal that has wool; all animals that have wool are to be shorn; and therefore, I will shear the wolf. This was just the reasoning used by the Minister."

The principle for which Burke contended here was unquestionably true; for, a right being given for a beneficial purpose, the right which confers no such purpose loses its essential property, and ought to be abandoned at once. But, it is to be remembered, that the

inability to enforce a right, neither extinguishes its existence, nor exonerates those by whom it is resisted. But the Ministry were paralysed at home by the perpetual attacks of their opponents. The general feebleness with which victory abroad was followed up, and the slackness with which defeat was repaired, made the war a mere matter of calculation between the budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the coffer of the United States. The capture of Cornwallis, unwarned by the failure of Burgoyne, and without his palliatives; at length, turned the whole tide of national scorn on the Ministry. Every division in the House was thenceforth a new death-wound. General Conway's motion for finishing the war was lost by only one, (Feb. 22.) A vote of censure by Lord John Cavendish next threatened their personal safety. Finally, after a succession of violent attacks, Lord North came down to the House with an announcement that he had delivered the seals of office into his Majesty's hands, (19th March, 1782.) Opposition was now triumphant; the party prepared to divide the spoil; and the most boastful, most deeply pledged, and most popular Ministry that England had seen for a hundred years, began their reign;-to be extinguished in the shortest space ever known, to disappoint every expectation, to fall into fragments, and to remain in political exile for a quarter of a century!

CHAPTER VII.

Fox, the leader of the Ministry-Death of Rockingham-Pitt Minister-The Coalition-The India Bill-New Era of EuropeGrattan's opinion of Burke.

THE contrast between the Ministerial system of England and those of foreign countries, is one of the most striking characteristics of European government. France, now nearly republicanised, has lately become still more fluctuating than England; but the other leading Powers of the Continent seldom know a change of Ministry but by death. The Monarch and his Minister carry on the sluggish machinery of irresponsible government together, until time puts a stop to both Monarch and Minister; and the machine is to be thenceforth wound up by two other individuals under the same relation, equally unquestioned by the country; running their course side by side with the same uniformity, and finally giving up their location to two successors as like themselves as possible. But in England, political life is a lottery, in which the Cabinet is the grand prize of the wheel. It is equally characteristic that the Government becomes more difficult as the country becomes more at its ease.

War may try the Cabinet; but peace is proverbial for the fluctuation of authority. The bold hazards and brilliant achievements of war turn the public eye exclusively to the field. The Minister is then simply a recruiting officer, a commissary, a pay-master. His diplomacy is the art of supplying the Quartermaster-General, and the first-fruits of his Cabinet Councils are the concoction and publication of Gazettes. But peace brings back the true time of trial. The people are urged to pry into Ministerial conduct. Party watches every step, not to reclaim the error of Ministerial ways, but to seize on Ministerial power. Politicians grow weary of the monotony of an unchanged Ministry, and the Cabinet is either suddenly stricken with decay for the benefit of its antagonists, or gradually absorbs the more active portion of the opposition principle, until its identity is lost, its creed is changed, the world grows sick of its negativeness, and the miscellany of " All the Talents" becomes as suddenly abhorred as the popular tongue can find utterance for its zeal against the abomination. It falls amid a general outery, and another steps over its body to the throne.

All common sense is in favour of the possession of power by the opulent, the highly educated, and the highly born. The English are a people of common sense, and the national feeling is therefore Toryism. Men of great ability may spring from the lower ranks at intervals; but when ardour is united with understanding, and understanding with honesty, the aspirant