negotiations with the French Government, his passionate excitement could scarcely be controlled. The Cassandra vein was once more opened, and in his "Letters on a Regicide Peace," published in the summer of 1796, he gave free course to his powers of prophecy and denunciation. Amid much exaggeration and much morbidity of sentiment, these "Letters" contain passages of the keenest philosophical insight; and no one will pretend that they present any indications of intellectual decay.

We shall quote two or three admirable reflections:

"The nature of courage is to be conversant with danger; but in the palpable night of their terrors, even under consternation, suppose, not that it is the danger which calls out the courage to resist it, but that it is the courage which produces the danger. They, therefore, seek for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a temporising meanness as the only source of safety."

"None can aspire to act greatly but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who make their arrangements in the first run of misadventures, and in a temper of mind the common guest of disappointment and dismay, set a seal on their calamities. So far as their power goes, they take a security against any favours which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of fortune."

"Never can a vehement and sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts of adversity. Even when men are willing, as sometimes they are, to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety for the gratification of their avarice, the passion which animates them to that sort of conflict, like all other short-sighted passions, must see its objects distinct and at hand. Speculative plunder, contingent spoil; future, long-adjourned, contingent booty; pillage which must enrich a late posterity, and which possibly may not reach

posterity at all:

mercenary war.

these for any length of time will not support a The people are in the right. The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity, the rest is crime.”

Meantime, the physical strength of Burke was rapidly declining, and he grew too feeble to enjoy his ordinary amount of daily exercise. Early in February, 1797, he repaired to Bath, to try the effect of the waters; but they could not counteract the decay incident upon a prolonged exertion of the intellect, and the pressure of an irreparable loss. He was confined to his bed or his couch almost the whole time he lingered at Bath. "Since I came hither," he wrote to a friend, "my sufferings have been greatly aggravated, and my little strength still further reduced, so that, though I am told the symptoms of my disorder begin to carry a more favourable aspect, I pass the far longer part of the twenty-four hours-indeed, almost the whole-either in my bed or lying upon the couch, from which I dictate this." He was fully aware of his imminent danger, and looked forward to the end with great courage and composure. On the 24th of May, at his own earnest request, he was carried back to Beaconsfield; and throughout he made careful preparation for the death that hovered near. Touching messages of remembrance were sent to his old friends, and kindly words of forgiveness to his old foes. Only to Fox would he not consent on being reconciled, though Fox anxiously desired that they might part in peace.

On the last day of his life (9th July, 1797) he occupied himself in giving directions for his funeral, and in listening to one of Addison's beautiful essays "On the Immortality of the Soul." When the reading was finished he complained of faintness, and asked to be conveyed to his bed. But his attendants and his kinsman, Mr. Nagle, had scarcely taken him in their arms before his breathing became difficult, and in a few minutes, low murmuring an inarticulate blessing, he expired. "His end," says Dr. Laurence, "was suited to the simple greatness of mind which he displayed through life-every way unaffected, without levity, without ostentation, full of natural grace and dignity." He was in his sixty-eighth year."

On the 15th he was buried in Beaconsfield Church, by the side of his well-beloved son and his brother Richard.

The private life and character of Burke were without spot or stain. He was deeply religious; not, perhaps, in the sense in which religion is understood by the bigots of the Calvinistic school or the Pharisees of any sect, but in the true spirit of the Church of England, with moderation and sobriety—a firm faith, a sincere practice, and a cheerful, vivid, and unpretending piety. Churchman as he was, towards both Romanists and Protestant Dissenters he displayed a sagacious charity and enlightened tolerance. No shadow of doubt or suspicion has rested upon his integrity; his moral character is as unsullied. as the shield of Bayard. For his cultivated taste and elevated nature the dice and the bottle, which misled so many of his contemporaries, had no attractions. But in truth he had no leisure for self-indulgence, no time to be idle. The hours not devoted to public affairs or social intercourse were occupied by literary labour, and

in the country by agricultural pursuits. He had a liberal hand and a warm heart. No worthy applicant ever told him a tale of distress and want unrelieved. The kindly, generous patronage he bestowed on James Barry, the artist who was scarcely less beholden to his sagacious advice than to his active benevolence-will always be remembered to his honour.

Burke excelled as a conversationalist.

Being always

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full of information, fluent in speech, prompt in reply, ingenious in the development of an argument, with considerable resources of humour and vivacity, he was one of the first of Talkers in an age of Great Talkers. "Burke," said Dr. Johnson, “is never what we call humdrum; never in a hurry to begin conversation, at a loss to carry it on, or eager to leave off." He was entirely free from a vice often found in great conversationalists: he never showed a desire to monopolise the talk. was able to listen, and delighted in drawing out the best powers and gifts of his friends. It is much to be wished that he had had a Boswell to perpetuate his sayings, for that they were wise and witty we have the testimony of his contemporaries. Hearing a "Life of Dr. Young," the author of the "Night Thoughts," described as a good imitation of Johnson, he exclaimed, "No, no; it is not a good imitation of Dr. Johnson. has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak without its strength; it has all the contortions of the Sibyl without the inspiration." In reference to Godwin's curious definition of gratitude in his "Political Justice" he remarked, "I should take care to spare him the commission of that vice, by never conferring upon him a favour.” His severe judgment upon Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was expressed in an epi

It

gram: "There is nothing exhibited in it which a correct man would wish to see, and nothing taught in it which any man would wish to learn.”

We have commented, in the earlier part of this essay, on Burke's versatility of genius and acquirements, a versatility which would surely have delighted Milton ! It is not enough to say of him that he was a great scholar, and an eminent politician, and a potent party leader; you must add that he was a successful conversationalist, a philosophic inquirer, a judicious critic, and an accomplished scholar. That his imagination sometimes overpowered his judgment is unfortunately true. In all that related to the French Revolution he was so fevered and overwrought that his usual clearness of discrimination and moderation of view utterly disappeared; yet he possessed a rare gift of political foresight. Whatever Burke did, he did thoroughly; he was never superficial ; he poured upon every subject he took up a flood of fresh light; and the profusion of his ideas was not less remarkable than the copiousness of his eloquence.

It may have been this very prodigality and exuberance of thought and suggestion that made him, as a practical statesman, inferior to Pitt and Fox. He forgot what was expedient while dwelling upon the ideal. In the full sweep and rush of his imagination, he advanced far beyond the goal at which intellects more prudent, and more attentive to the immediate necessities of present action, were content to halt their forces. This was the secret both of his success and failure in regard to the French Revolution. He never paused to contemplate its beneficial side-the good it had effected, and was designed to effect, in the release of Europe from its bondage to ancient prejudices and its dread of mediæval

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