a country, and his great contemporaries should have been his ministers. He should have originated measures, and they should have carried them into execution. Public servants, as able as they were, and (if that be any criterion of merit) infinitely more successful, have been often seen in the world, but it has required two thousand years to produce one Cicero and one Burke. Great as his fame is, it is not probably near its height; calculated as he is, in the various characters of statesman, orator, and writer, to descend to a late period of time; to gain in reputation as he recedes from the fleeting animosities and prejudices of the day; and perhaps to excite regret and surprise that we should have had among us the great master-spirit in political prophesying and teaching, and not oftener have profited by his admonitions. "If we are to praise a man in proportion to his usefulness," says a distinguished German writer, whose volumes are admired throughout Europe, "I am persuaded that no task can be more difficult than that of doing justice to another Englishman, his (Sir W. Jones's) contemporary, the Statesman and Orator Burke. This man has been to his own country and to all Europe-in a very particular manner to Germany-a new light of political wisdom and moral experience. He corrected his age when it was at the height of its revolutionary frenzy; and without maintaining any system of philosophy he seems to have seen farther into the true nature of society, and to have more clearly comprehended the effect of religion in connecting individual security with national welfare, than any philosopher, or any system of philosophy, of any preceding age. "This I deliberately and steadily affirm," writes a learned man more than once quoted, after an animated eulogy on him as a critic and philosopher, "that of all the men who are, or who ever have been, eminent for energy or splendour of eloquence, or for skill and grace in composition, there is not one who, in genius or erudition, in philanthropy or piety, or in any of the qualities of a wise and good man, surpasses Burke." 66 "If," said Mr. Fox, in opening the first charge of the impeachment, and the allusion to Mr. Burke was rapidly caught by the auditory, "If we are no longer in shameful ignorance of India; if India no longer makes us blush in the eyes of Europe; let us know and feel our OBLIGATIONS to HIM-whose admirable resources of opinion and affection-whose untiring toil, sublime genius, and high aspiring honour, raised him up conspicuous among the most beneficent worthies of mankind!” "To whom," said Sheridan in his happier moments, before the false lights of French liberty misled him, "I look up with homage, whose genius is commensurate to his philanthropy, whose memory will stretch itself beyond the fleeting objects of any little, 588 LIFE OF THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE. partial, temporary shuffling, through the whole range of human knowledge and honourable aspirations after human good, as large as the system which forms life, as lasting as those objects which adorn it;" "a gentleman whose abilities, happily for the glory of the age in which we live, are not intrusted to the perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us shall be mute, and most of us forgotten." pension to . 476 . 479 37, 42 130, 131 Ballitore Barre, Colonel, enthusiasm of, on one of Burke's speeches. letters to 105, 107, 120, 121, 125, 127, 156, 157, Barry, the painter. 7 . 195 239 121 159, 188 Beggars, charity of Burke to Birmingham, merchants of, letter to Burke Boston Port Bill Boyd, Hugh : Bourbons, advice to the Brecon, Archdeacon of, and Burke Brissot's Address to his Constituents Bristol, Mr. Burke elected for Brocklesby, Dr. his letter concerning rejected at Brooke, Henry, ridiculed by Burke 140, 362 72, 212, 220, 221 455, 459 .539 546 . 530 539 . 577 . 102 . 37, 212, 518 .527 . 5,7 . 566 180, 189, 203, 205, 536 general character of the writings of 568,573 family of zeal of anecdotes of 543 486, 500 . Richard, brother to Edmund -jun. son to Edmund 45, 219, 270, 401, 412, 428, 451, Conduct of the minority, observations on, by Burke Crabbe, Rev. Mr. Crewe's, Mr., anecdote of Burke and Sheridan at Dagger produced by Mr. Burke in the House of Commons. Dunning, Mr. 66 369 239 253 Dundas, Right Hon. Henry Dyer, Mr., suspected as the author of Junius's Letters Economical reform Eden, Mr., first proposer of the coalition in 1783 Ellenborough, Lord Elliott, William, Esq., letter to Emigrants, anecdote of with Burke England, he travels in English history, publication of the abridgment of Epitaph, a jocular, on Burke, by Goldsmith proposed alteration of that on Goldsmith 204, 219, 234 240 . 275 . 470 . 394 . 515 13 22 . 45 . 155 . 182 . 184 Fox, Mr. 131, 175, 231,339,375,385, 410,413,420, 424, 425, 430,448, 547 letter to 191, 229 |