tyrannical whims of a monarch. "When we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are a standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged," he said, "to make those opinions the masters of my conscience, but if it may be doubted whether omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such things as they and I are possessed of no such power." Burke saw his two great master principlesfirst, that of an unalterable moral order transcending human law; and, secondly, that of a continuous growth as the essential basis of a community-absolutely set at nought by the French people. It is, therefore, no matter for surprise that he expressed himself with the same vigour in regard to their conduct which he had previously displayed upon questions no less vital. It made no sort of difference to Burke that in America it was the English king and Lord North who played the tyrant, and that in India it was a chartered company, while in France it was the Parisian clubs, Commune, and sections. Enough for him that he saw institutions of time-honoured growth levelled to the ground, the essence of social order and morality dissolved from day to day; even the monotheistic ideal the sacred link which with Burke knitted all up into one harmonious system-shattered to its foundations. In Burke's eyes, and, to use the picturesque language of Bunyan, the image of Shaddai was defaced, and there was set up in its stead the horrid and formidable image of Diabolus.

If, however, Burke's vigour was no less upon the question of the revolution in France than it had been in regard to America and India, it must be freely admitted that there was a difference in the method. There is a want of that wonderfully persuasive appeal to reason which half converts even the most prejudiced by its temperance.

It is perhaps hardly to be expected that when a man is practically waging war with pen and ink, he should be as moderate, as luminous, and as forcible as when he is merely attempting to convert those who are not beyond conversion. Face to face with an attack upon all that he held most dear in the very roots of his moral and spiritual being, Burke failed to retain to a certain extent that judicious mastery of himself which makes his speeches upon India, and still more upon America, such a fascinating study. The French people brought to the solution of grave political and social problems the temper and methods of idealism. The ideal from their point of view could only be satisfactorily planted upon the ruins of existing institutions. History proved their method conclusively wrong, and Burke's earlier criticisms were abundantly justified. The immolation of property and privilege, the secularisation of the church, the formation of a paper constitution, the enforcement of a paper currency, were each and all made the subject of scathing invectives, and dispassionate observers can now clearly see that these were fatal steps which hurled down to irremediable ruin all that promised best in the French revolutionary outbreak. Burke was so perturbed by the advent of anarchical principles that our revolution of 1641, which he had formerly regarded with abhorrence, now seemed comparatively beneficent. "Those disturbers," he says, speaking of Cromwell and his compeers, "were not so much like men usurping power as asserting their natural place in society. The hand that, like a destroying angel, smote the country, communicated to it the force and energy under which it suffered." Beside those mighty exemplars of revolutionary virtue, the quacks and pedants of the French revolutionary era appeared in Burke's ideas to merit nothing but derision and condem

nation. Little real difference of opinion can exist as to Burke's analysis of the initial stages of the French Revolution. It was masterly in its kind, and unanswerable in its logic. Wholesale abolition of institutions, and massacres upon a large scale, do not usually pave the way for stability in government, still less confiscation of property, and a free use of the printing press to meet financial necessities. But what really robbed the French Revolution of all immediate, though not potential benefit, was the execrable personnel of that section which obtained supreme power. That there was a party of order in France who will deny? But as this party was, until the advent of Napoleon, invariably defeated by the anarchical forces of the clubs and sections, it is useless to reckon it amongst the effective factors in the struggle. The organised sections of Paris, or in other words, mob law, practically governed France until Napoleon blew them away from the muzzles of his guns. Its government was effective as against a foreign foe, but its immediate effects upon the internal condition of the country were deplorable in the extreme. It is just upon this question of foreign interference that Burke goes far beyond either cool philosophic analysis or even a genuine attempt at reasonable persuasion. He indulges in diatribes of astounding force and vehemence, and urges a crusade for the repression of French revolutionary principles. Looking coolly backward after a hundred years of reflection, we can all see that while Burke was right in criticising the methods of the French Revolution, he failed to gauge the dynamic forces which lay behind it. He did not allow enough for the record of past provocation and misery endured in silence, nor could he discern the real striving after freedom and social regeneration which lay concealed under the mask of a bloody ferocity.

It must, however, be borne in mind that England was eventually compelled by France to act exactly as Burke insisted she should act. It is hardly to be supposed that Burke seriously contributed to bring about this result, and therefore it is only fair to conclude that some factor was working in his direction when he cried out for war as the eternal argument against the demon of French anarchy. That factor was the National Convention itself. It was on the 15th December, 1792, that the National Convention passed its celebrated decree-"That the French nation will treat as enemies any people which, refusing liberty and equality, desires to preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make any accommodation with them." This, of course, was revolution gone mad. Not content with destroying its own institutions, and doing away with their very foundation, it insisted that all other nations should adopt the same wholesome methods. England was thereby compelled to enter upon her supreme mission of compressing into reasonable limits the spirit of the French Revolution-of reducing it by a slow process of exhaustion, of wearing down its anarchical frenzy, of forcing the French people to comprehend the great lesson that conquest of the mind is not to be wrought by the sword. An appeal to arms, however essential in order to prevent the emancipated ideas of Frenchmen from being strangled by their own delirious excess, is not a pleasant subject for philosophic contemplation. Burke beating the war-drum does not please us. It is strange, however, that in this capacity he has arrested most attention; while those earlier monuments of his genius are rather taken for granted than fully discussed.

I had hoped to have said something at length on Burke's literary style, but time and your patience forbid. It was seldom terse or epigrammatic, and accomplished

but little by antithesis. It was noble, free-flowing, eloquent, and carried along in its bosom, like some mighty river, those obstructions which a less powerful stream is content to evade by artifice. Occasionally we find a striking antithesis. When speaking of the two Indian princesses, female victims of cupidity, how tersely he indicates the motives of their oppressors in the sentence"They were accused of treason, they were convicted of wealth." His power over adjectives was very great. Witness his description of Charles Townshend, whose one desire was to please all parties, as a candidate for contradictory honours. In metaphor he was supreme, and drew largely from those stores with which a close contact with man and nature had endowed his capacious intellect.

That may be said of him which was inscribed upon the tomb of one of his famous contemporaries by a common friend, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit, or rather, illuminavit. Differ as we may upon his merits as a thinker, or his methods as a statesman, we can all, at any rate, unite in a tribute to his terrible devotion, his unflinching patriotism, the bright light with which his inflexible industry suffused all the objects of research.

Burke once referred to that venerable rust which rather adorns and preserves than destroys the metal. He was speaking of a preamble with whose wording he was loth to tamper. No speck of rust ever stained for a moment the brightness of his own blade. When, shortly after the death of his son, he descended to the tomb in, as he pathetically put it, an inverted order, he left the record of a robust life-energy consumed in the service of his country.