quent parliamentary and political career, or to enumerate all his various publications. His life is a history of those eventful times,--for in them he acted a part more conspicuous than any other man. His able and eloquent opposition to those infatuated measures of the ministry which led to and prolonged the contest between England and our own country-his advocacy of the freedom of the press-of an improved libel law-of Catholic emancipation-of economical reform-of the abolition of the slave-trade-his giant efforts in the impeachment of Warren Hastings-and his most eloquent and uncompromising hostility to the French Revolution, in his speeches in parliament and in his well-known "Reflections on the Revolution in France,”—all these will ever cause him to be viewed as one of the warmest and ablest friends of man.

In 1794, his son, who had just been elected to parliament, took ill and died; a blow so severe to the father, that he never recovered from it; and it doubtless hastened his own end, which took place on the 9th of July, 1797.

As an eloquent and philosophic political character, Burke stands alone.2 His intellect was at once exact, minute, and comprehensive, and his imagination rich and vigorous. As to his style, he is remarkable for the copiousness and freedom of his diction, the splendor and great variety of his imagery, his astonishing command of general truths, and the ease with which he seems to wield those fine weapons of language, which most writers are able to manage only by the most anxious care. The following remarks of an able critic3 are as beautiful as they are just:

"There can be no hesitation in according to Mr. Burke a station among the most extraordinary men that have ever appeared; and we think there is now but little diversity of opinion as to the kind of place which it is fit to assign him. He was a writer of the first class, and excelled in almost every kind of prose composition. Possessed of most extensive knowledge, and of the most various description; acquainted alike with what different classes of men knew, each in his own province, and with much that hardly any one ever thought of learning; he could either bring his masses of information to bear directly upon the subjects to which they severally belonged-or he could avail himself of them generally to strengthen his faculties and enlarge his views-or he could turn any portion of them to account for the purpose of illustrating his theme, or enriching his diction. Hence, when he is handling any one matter, we perceive that we are conversing with a reasoner or a teacher, to whom almost every other branch of knowledge is familiar: his

1 Those who are not well read in the history of those times can hardly have an idea of the deep, bitter, malignant hostility, which the early English abolitionists, Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others, had to encounter. Even Lord Chancellor Thurlow said, in his place in the Honse of Lords, on the 18th of June, 1788, that "it was unjust that this sudden fit of philanthropy, which was but a few · days old, should be allowed to disturb the public mind, and to become the occasion of bringing men to the metropolis, who were engaged in the trade, with tears in their eyes and horror in their countenances, to deprecate the ruin of their property, which they had embarked on the faith of parliament;" and the Earl of Westmoreland considered that "as much attention was due to our property and manufactures as to a false humanity."

The devotion of Burke to the best interests of man caused Abraham Shackleton to write of him thus: "The memory of Edmund Burke's philanthropic virtues will outlive the period when his shining political talents will cease to act. New fashions of political sentiment will exist: but Philanthropy-IMMORTALE MANET."

2 "The immortality of Burke," says Grattan, "is that which is common to Cicero or to Bacon,→→ that which can never be interrupted while there exists the beauty of order or the love of virtue, and which can fear no death except what, barbarity may impose on the globe."

* Read the article in vol. xlvi. of the Edinburgh Review: also, his Life by James Prior.

views range over all the cognate subjects; his reasonings are derived from principles applicable to other theories as well as the one in hand: arguments pour in from all sides, as well as those which start up under our feet, the natural growth of the path he is leading us over; while to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darker places, or serve for our recreation, illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters; and an imagination mar vellously quick to descry, unthought-of resemblances, points to our use the stores, which a lore yet more marvellous has gathered from all ages, and nations, and arts, and tongues. We are, in respect of the argument, reminded of Bacon's multifarious knowledge and the exuberance of his learned fancy; while the many-lettered diction recalls to mind the first of English poets, and his immortal verse, rich with the spoils of all sciences and all times.'

1 The following comparison between Burke and Johnson is taken from Cimberland's "Retrospection."

Nature gave to each

Powers that in some respects may be compared,

For both were Orators-and could we now
Canvass the social circles where they mix'd,
The palm for eloquence, by general vote,
Would rest with him whose thunder never shook
The senate or the bar. When Burke harangued
The nation's representatives, methought
The fine machinery that his fancy wrought,
Rich but fantastic, sometimes would obscure
That symmetry which ever should uphold
The dignity and order of debate.
'Gainst orator like this had Johnson rose,
So clear was his perception of the truth,
So grave his judgment, and so high the swell
Of his full period, I must think his speech
Had charm'd as many and enlighten'd more.
Johnson, if right I judge, in classic lore
Was more diffuse than deep; he did not dig
So many fathoms down as Bentley dug

In Grecian soil, but far enough to find

Truth ever at the bottom of his shaft.

Burke, borne by genius on a lighter wing,

Skimm'd o'er the flowery plains of Greece and Rome,

And, like the bee returning to its hive,

Brought nothing home but sweets: Johnson would dash

Through sophist or grammarian ankle-keep,

And rummage in their mud to trace a date,

Or hunt a dogma down, that gave offence

To his philosophy.—

Both had a taste

For contradiction, but in mode unlike:

Johnson at once would doggedly pronounce

Opinions false, and after prove them such.

Burke, not less critical, but more polite,

With ceaseless volubility of tongue

Play'd round and round his subject, till at length,

Content to find you willing to admire,

He ceased to urge, or win you to assent.

Splendor of style, fertility of thought,

And the bold use of metaphor in both,
Strike us with rival beauty: Burke display'd
A copious period, that with curious skill

TERROR A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear; for fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on any thing as trifling or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror; as serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. Even to things of great dimensions, if we annex any adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. An even plain of a vast extent of land, is certainly no mean idea: the prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean; but can it ever fill the mind with any thing so great as the ocean itself? This is owing to several causes, but it is owing to none more than to this, that the ocean is an object of no small

terror.

SYMPATHY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME.

It is by the passion of sympathy that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost any thing which men can do or suffer. For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in a good measure as he is affected; so that this passion may either partake of the nature of those which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure, and then,

And ornamental epithet drawn out,

Was, like the singer's cadence, sometimes apt,
Although melodious, to fatigue the ear:
Johnson, with terms unnaturalized and rude,
And Latinisms forced into his line,

Like raw, undrill'd recruits, would load his text
High sounding and uncouth: yet if you cull
His happier pages, you will find a style
Quintilian might have praised. Still I perceive

Nearer approach to purity in Burke,
Though not the full accession to that grace,

That chaste simplicity, which is the last
And best attainment author can possess.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was on the most intimate terms with both, thought that Dr. Johnson possessed a wonderful strength of mind, but that Mr. Burke had a more comprehensive capacity, a more exact judgment, and also that his knowledge was more extensive: with the most profound respect for the talents of both, he therefore decided that Mr. Burke was the superior character.

whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may be applicable here.

It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It is a common observation, that objects, which in the reality would shock, are, in tragical and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This, taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. This satisfaction has been commonly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in considering that so melancholy a story is no more than a fiction; and next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils we see represented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common, in inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings which merely arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and constitution of our minds, to certain conclusions of the reasoning faculty on the objects presented to us; for I have some reason to apprehend, that the influence of reason in producing our passions is nothing near so extensive as is commonly believed.

UNCERTAINTY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME.

A low, tremulous, intermitting sound is productive of the sublime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself must be determined by every man's own experience and reflection. I have always observed that night increases our terror, more perhaps than any thing else; it is our nature, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen; and hence it is that uncertainty is so terrible, that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mischief. Now some low, confused, uncertain sounds leave us in the same fearful anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or an uncertain light, does concerning the objects that surround us.

"A faint shadow of uncertain light,

Like as a lamp, whose life doth fade away;

Or as the moon, clothed with cloudy night,

Doth show to him who walks in fear and great affright."

But light now appearing, and now leaving us, and so off and on, is ever. inore terrible than total darkness; and sorts of uncertain sounds are, when the necessary dispositions concur, more alarming than a total silence.

DIFFICULTY ADVANTAGEOUS.

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the Supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.

REVOLUTIONS OF NATIONAL GRANDEUR.

I doubt whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying the operation of such causes; but they are infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community. It is often impossible in these political inquiries, to find any proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign, and their known operation. We are therefore obliged to deliver up that operation to mere chance, or, more piously, (perhaps more rationally,) to the occasional interposition and irresistible hand of the Great Disposer. We have seen states of considerable duration, which for ages have remained nearly as they have begun, and would hardly be said to ebb or flow. Some appear to have spent their vigor at their commencement. Some have blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. The meridian of others has been the most splendid. Others, and they are the greatest number, have fluctuated, and experienced at different periods of their existence a great variety of fortune. At the very moment when some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace and disaster, they have suddenly emerged. They have begun a new course, and opened a new reckoning; and even in the depths of their calamity, and on the very ruins of their country, have laid the foundations of a towering and durable greatness. All this has happened without any apparent previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on their distress. the death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a whole nation. A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn. have changed the face of fortune, and almost of nature.