imagination, the actual presence of the proper stimulus can alone rouse the passions to their full energy. To an imagination so vivid as that of Burke, those objects are, as it were, ever present. They leave the soul no time for repose.

The knowledge of Burke was almost boundless; probably as various, as extensive, and as accurate, as was ever obtained by the mind of one man. The well-known declaration of Johnson on this subject, may justly be considered unexaggerated, since he was not only a most competent judge, but by no means in the habit of indulging in a lavish admiration of any man. "Enter upon what subject you will," said he, " and Burke is ready to meet you." It has been already remarked that all Burke's early years were unremittingly devoted to the acquisition of knowledge. He had time to traverse the whole circle of literature and science, before he was necessitated to fix on any particular department for the exhibition of his own powers. Not that, during any part of his life, he relaxed his industry, for he pursued knowledge with the same insatiable avidity at threescore as at twenty. He was indeed one of the few men whose industry was equal to his genius, and he furnishes a memorable example of what both united can accomplish.

If any man could have dispensed with that vulgar virtue, (as it is too often considered,) -industry, it was Burke. But he knew its value too well. "I have no time," he was in the habit of saying, " to be idle;" and he used to boast that he had none of that mastervice, sloth, in his composition."

His powers of acquisition must have been enormous; and they were kept in perpetual exercise. His faculty of attention was strong, and his memory tenacious to a very extraordinary degree.

His voracious appetite for knowledge led him to cultivate, with almost equal assiduity, every species of it. He had none of that aristocratical scorn, (if we may so speak,) which genius often displays for all but the sublime or the beautiful-for every thing which cannot boast affinity to elegant literature or the more dignified branches of science; a feeling which resembles nothing so much as the contempt with which aristocracy of rank will sometimes look down on the vulgarities of trade or handicraft. Burke had no sympathy with such folly. In the true love of intellectual improvement, he would spread his sail to any wind, and fearlessly embark for any destination, which promised to reward by discovery the spirit of enterprise; unconcerned where that spirit led him, whether to the cold and frozen regions of philosophical speculation, or the more genial climes of poetry and eloquence. The fine arts, and the principles of philosophical criticism in which they are all founded, elegant and classical literature, in the widest acceptation of these words,-political science, in all its branches and minutest details,-agriculture, to all these the wondrous flexibility and versatility of his powers appeared to adapt themselves with almost equal facility.

This avidity for every species of knowledge was well conjoined with a mind of such versatile character. There are few men who could have turned themselves to such variety of pursuits. To him, the vast and minute, the great and the little, seemed equally easy. Like the spirits of Milton, his intellect could dilate so as to fill the circumference of the amplest science, or contract, when necessary, within the narrow compass of the most insignificant subject of investigation. These peculiarities of mind were never more conspicuously displayed than in his labours on the American and Indian questions. Not confining himself to those great general principles, on which a splendid eloquence best loves to expend itself, he could descend with equal ease into the most intricate labyrinth of details. The most minute provisions of a comprehensive act of legislation-the most wearisome drudgeries of parliamentary committees-the dryest and most tedious investigations, necessary for drawing up elaborate reports,-to all this his patience and his industry were fully equal. Some of the public documents he drew up, are generally allowed to be perfect models of that species of composition.

Burke was amongst the few whose conversational powers were fully equal to those he displayed in public speaking and composition. It is in general the lot of humanity to shine only in one department. He irradiated every sphere in which he moved. What he was in public, he was in private; like the star which now precedes and now follows the sun, he was equally brilliant whether he

Flamed in the forehead of the morning sky,

or led on with a milder lustre the modest hosts of evening.

He talked, said Johnson on one occasion, when speaking of the copiousness of his eloquence, because his mind was full. "He pours forth his eloquence," said the same great critic, on another occasion," like a perpetual stream."

It has often been disputed whether or not Burke possessed wit. In the mean time, it has not been sufficiently considered what is to be understood by that ambiguous term. There are, it is well known, few words in our language which are used with greater latitude, or which comprehend under them so many specific varieties. This is sufficiently shown in the celebrated description of Barrow, who, despairing of being able to confine within the limits of strict logical definition such a Proteus-like and multiform thing, contented himself with specifying its shapes and appearances.

Now, if by wit be meant the broad humour which enters so largely into the composition of farce and drollery; or if it be intended to imply an aptitude for punning; or, in a word, if by wit be meant any of its lighter and more playful species, then it can hardly be doubted, that in these Burke did not excel; at least, whatever powers of this kind he might possess, they were in no sort of proportion to his other intellectual endowments. It is true that Burke was fond of punning; his success, however, was not equal to his ardour in the pursuit. Again, if by wit be meant that caustic and subtle irony, which is the more powerful from the calmness of the style and stings the deeper from the collected manner of him who utters it, neither did Burke possess much of this. But if by wit be meant any of its forms compatible with fierce invective, his speeches abound with innumerable instances of the highest merit. Such descriptions as that of the notorious Paul Benfield will immediately occur to the mind of every reader. If his sarcasm were somewhat more compressed, it would often be equal to any in Junius. But compression was not Burke's forte; his wit partook of that diffuseness which so generally distinguishes his style. But wit suffers more from such diffuseness than almost any other form of thought.

After all, perhaps Burke's inferiority even in the lighter kinds of wit is to be attributed rather to circumstances than to any natural deficiency, for he often displayed the keenest relish of the ludicrous. But the fact was, his pursuits throughout life were of a uniformly grave and severe character--calculated to excite the intensest feelings-and leaving but little time or inclination for the cultivation of what was to minister merely to amusement. In those forms of wit, however, which are compatible with the habitudes of thought and feeling which the nature of his pursuits engendered, he was by no means deficient.

The style of Burke reflects the character of his intellect. It possesses all the compass, copiousness, flexibility, and various beauty of the mind of which it is the instrument. It may be safely said that there never was a man under whose hands language was more plastic and ductile. No matter what his subject—no matter what the modification of thought which demands expression-he has always at command language at once the most appropriate and the most beautiful. As to the materials of his style, his vocabulary was as extensive as his knowledge,-and that was boundless. It consisted of the accumulated spoils of many languages and of all ages. Not only so, the technicalities and appropriated phraseology of almost all sciences and arts, professions and modes of life, were familiar to him, and were ready to express in the most emphatic and energetic manner the exhaustless metaphors which his imagination supplied from those sources. What is not a little re

markable, he could employ with equal power all the elements of our copious language, combining the eloquence and richness of a classical diction with all the nerve and energy of our Saxon vernacular. For lofty or dignified sentiment, he has at command all the magnificence of the former; while to give point and energy to sarcasm, and ridicule, and invective, he can employ the full powers of the latter. In this, he remarkably resembled Milton; and in this combination of excellences, scarcely any other authors have even approached them. Thus copious is his diction; his method of employing it is altogether inimitable; the architecture is as beautiful as the materials are rare and costly. The structure of his style is full of grace, ease, and nature, and, in innumerable passages, "as musical as is Apollo's lyre." A perfect master of all the arts of rhetoric, he employs them without the slightest appearance of affectation.

His style is equal to all the exigencies of thought, and transforms itself with every change of sentiment and emotion. It now puts on the decent simplicity, the unadorned grace suited to artless narration or didactive severity, and now arrays itself in all the pomp and gorgeousness of expression, to do justice to some splendid illustration or some sublime and elevated sentiment. At one time, it flows on in gentle murmurs through scenes of exquisite and tranquil beauty, like the stream of summer; at another, rolls on with the majestic flood of a full and mighty river, or pours out in foam and cataract its terrible tumult of waters. As to the oratorical excellences of style, there cannot be a doubt that he is less distinguished for energy than for elegance. Not that he is not often energetic in the highest degree; but this does not form his principal characteristic. Energy depends principally on two things; the force of single terms, and compactness and brevity of expression. Now though Burke, as already intimated, had unbounded power over every species of words, it was not so easy for him to confine himself to the fewest possible number. Thus his style is always full and copious, and in many places even diffuse. This may be accounted for by two causes: first, the rapidity with which he often wrote, and which alone enabled him to write so frequently, and so much; secondly, the exuberant fulness of his own mind, which is perpetually escaping from that narrow channel, in which nevertheless the compressed stream would have rushed with the greatest impetuosity. He could not bear such restraints; he burst asunder the embankments of a concise and energetic style; the bed of the river enlarged itself to the volume of the waters.

There are two faults of style with which Burke has been sometimes charged; innovations in language, and occasional coarseness and vulgarity of expression. These improprieties, however, are comparatively rare, and may well be pardoned in one who wrote so much, and who in general wrote so surpassingly well. They are sufficiently excused by the necessary haste with which he was often obliged to write; he was rarely permitted time for careful elaboration.

As to the alleged instances of vulgar and coarse expression, it is not to be forgotten that they occur principally in his speeches, where strong impression is the great object. Now it is a sound maxim of the rhetorical art, that a considerable accession of energy is cheaply purchased by a slight sacrifice of elegance. Where this is the case, the offence against taste is venial; not that it is asserted that all Burke's offences of this kind are so, for it cannot be denied that he occasionally makes a considerable sacrifice of elegance for a very inconsiderable accession of energy.

The very vulgarities of Burke are those of a superior mind, a mind of the highest originality and invention; while they are often so closely connected with touches of surpassing beauty, as to make it doubtful whether such deformities, after all, are not worth preserving for the excellences which are found in their neighbourhood.

Having attempted this brief analysis of Burke's intellectual character, it will be proper to look at it in the principal aspects in which it actually exhibited itself in public life; in other words, to contemplate him as a statesman and an orator.

It has been already remarked, that the original structure of his mind was in many respects peculiarly adapted to the pursuit of political science. His comprehensiveness and range of thought; his amazing facility of acquisition; his untiring patience of research; his equally astonishing rapidity of comparison, selection, combination, which enabled him, in an incredibly short time, to extricate the great facts and leading principles decisive of an important question from the complicated knot of detail with which they were involved; -all these admirably fitted him for political speculation; and had the excessive activity of his imagination always permitted a calm exercise of his judgment, he would probably have been the most sagacious politician the world has ever seen; as it is, he is entitled to rank amongst the very foremost of them.

As the degree of political sagacity he possessed has often been warmly debated, no apology is necessary for entering on the subject at some length. While some have extravagantly invested him with a degree of foresight which the complexity of human affairs denies to mortal intellect, and have spoken as though he did not proceed on the calculations of a fallible and erring wisdom, but read immediately from the inspired scroll of a sort of political apocalypse, others have as absurdly denied to him any more than the sagacity of an ordinary judgment, and that judgment, too, often overborne by the activity of his imagination and the violence of his passions. Both these opinions are equally remote from the truth. That Burke's views were often erroneous, his predictions hasty and contradicted by the event, sufficiently appears from many parts of his speeches and writings. He who could declare in 1790 that France must" now be considered expunged out of the system of Europe," and who therefore argued that it was useless for England to maintain a large force in opposition, and all this only two years before that power made such extensive and alarming conquests as to induce him to declare that nothing less than the confederacy of all Europe could check the progress of her formidable ambition, undoubtedly shows that, whatever his general sagacity, he is not exempt from the infirmities and the rashness which must always characterize human judgment. It is observable, however, that these infirmities of judgment usually show themselves in subordinate points only, or in an extravagant and exaggerated representation of what was substantially important truth; his general estimate of vast and complicated questions was worthy of the reach and comprehensiveness of his intellect. On the other hand, to represent his sagacity as only on a level with that of ordinary men, is nearly as ridiculous as to invest him with the spirit of prophecy. The whole tenor of his writings bears testimony to the general profundity and accuracy of his speculations. That these qualities distinguish in the highest degree his earlier political writings, those who are the foremost in impeaching his judgment are not slow to admit. Let any impartial man calmly survey the whole of Burke's political history, and he cannot fail to admit his extraordinary sagacity; let him compare his opinions on the subject of the American war, uttered many years before the termination of the struggle, with the events; let him compare his opinions on the Roman Catholic affairs, with what expediency, as well as justice, has since declared to be enlightened policy; let him compare his sentiments on all the subjects connected with our commercial policy and economical science generally, respecting which the nation was at that period so profoundly ignorant, with the gradual progress of opinion since; or even that which offended his early admirers most-his speculations respecting the character and tendencies of the French Revolution, with the whole subsequent history of that Revolution: let any man do this, and it appears to us impossible not to admit, whatever deductions may be made for subordinate errors or occasional exaggerations, that in the greater number of cases, and those too the most important, he saw much farther and more accurately than any politician of his time. It is no slight confirmation of this, that almost all the politicians of his time concurred in this opinion.

It has been affirmed in a very splendid critique on the character and genius of Burke in

serted some years ago in the Edinburgh Review,* that the admission that the perspicacity of Burke is apt to be disturbed by the violence of his passions," operates a release from the whole debt of deference and respect." The passage is as follows: "It is said that the sagacity and penetration which we are bid to reverence, were never at fault, unless on points where strong feelings interfered. The proposition must be admitted, and without any qualification. But it leads not to an abatement merely-it operates a release of the whole debt of deference and respect. For one clever man's opinion is just as good as another's, if both are equally uninfluenced by passions and feelings of every kind." We are here told, if there be any meaning in language, that except so far as prejudice or passion clouds the judgment, the speculative powers of all intellects are equal; or, if the reader please, (for it will not mend the matter,) in all clever men. We say this will not mend the matter, since, by clever men, the critic can hardly mean, all men as clever (we detest the word as applied to Burke, but it is not of our choosing) as Burke; for then this proposition would descend from a most startling paradox into the most insignificant of truisms. It would only mean, that where prejudice and passion do not interfere, the opinions of a man as clever as Burke are worth just as much as those of Burke. In other words, that the opinions of Burke are worth as much as those of Burke ; a proposition not likely to be denied. To say any thing to the purpose, therefore, the critic must mean, that where passion and prejudice do not interfere, the opinions of men of varying intellectual endowments will be equally valuable; in other words, that the talents for pure speculation are in all mankind equal. Taken in the former sense, the proposition is nugatory; in the latter it is absurd, and contrary to fact.

Happily, however, the reviewer corrects his own fallacy within a few pages, and unconsciously does homage to Burke's prodigious superiority to other "clever" men in political speculation. Speaking of the correctness of his views on all subjects connected with political economy, the reviewer observes," he always, from a very early period, and before sound principles were disseminated on questions of political economy, held the most enlightened opinions on all subjects of mercantile policy. Here his mind seemed warped by no bias, and his profound understanding and habits of observation led him right." To apply, then, the reviewer's former reasoning,-would the opinions of any "clever man" on these most difficult of all subjects, be equally valuable with those of Mr. Burke-especially at the period in which he lived? If not, we may estimate the degree of his superiority to the generality of men, in comprehensiveness and accuracy of judgment, by how much his views were more correct than theirs. Now it is needless to say, that, with the exception of Adam Smith, he was by far the most enlightened economist of his day.

But, in fact, when we estimate the abstract talents for speculation which a man may possess, we never dream of depreciating them because they may be sometimes rendered practically useless by the ascendancy of the passions. One faculty may be overborne by another; but this does not render that faculty abstractedly the less in power. Now in estimating the character and extent of Burke's genius, (the professed object of the reviewer,) this abstract greatness is all that we have to look at. We should not deny the existence of splendid powers, because we may deplore their occasional perversion, or affirm that a man might as well be without them, because they were sometimes practically useless. Ertraordinary sagacity is still more than ordinary sagacity, though, when obscured by passion, it may be of no more than ordinary value.

It would be unpardonable not to say a few words on the subject of Burke's alleged inconsistencies. His conduct at the period of the French Revolution subjected him to a charge of a total political apostacy. This charge, so far as affects Burke's integrity, will hereafter come under consideration. We are here concerned with it merely as a change of political opinion, supposed to be sincere, but alleged to indicate a mind in its dotage, a