and the still-vexed Bermoothes' of Shakspeare. The Latin cast of the phrase is noticeable. Cp. Ovid. Met. xi. 434: Nil illis vetitum est, incommendataque tellus Omnis, et omne fretum: coeli quoque nubila vexant.' no climate, &c. Virgil, Aen. i. 460: 'Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' 1. 7. hardy industry bold, adventurous. So Goldsmith; Bacon, that great and hardy genius.' Cp. p. 56, l. 16, ante, 'an hardy attempt.' Burke however often used the word in the modern sense=patient of hardship. . 1. 33. not as an odious, but as a feeble instrument. The inability of European governments even to put down the buccaneers was doubtless present to Burke: What armaments from England, Holland, and France have been sent in different times to America, whose remains returned without honour or advantage, is too clear, and perhaps too invidious a topic to be greatly insisted upon.' Account of America, vol. ii. p. 12. P. 177, 1. 6. does not remove the necessity of subduing again. So Milton: 'who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe.'-Par. Lost, i. 648. 1. 10. an armament is not a victory. Burke perhaps alludes to the Spanish Armada. 1. 13. Power and authority—can never be begged. Cp. First Letter on Regicide Peace: 'Power, and eminence, and consideration, are things not to be begged. They must be commanded; and they. who supplicate for mercy from others, can never hope for justice through themselves. What justice they are to obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his character; and that they ought well to know, before they implicitly confide.' 1. 26. I do not choose. . . the spirit that has made the country. Cp. First Letter on Regicide Peace; Nation is a moral essence, not a geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator.' P. 178, 1. 27. emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant. The American freeholders at present are nearly, in point of condition, what the English Yeomen were of old, when they rendered us formidable to all Europe, and our name celebrated throughout the world. The former, from many obvious circumstances. are more enthusiastical lovers of liberty, than even our Yeomen were.' Burke, Ann. Reg. 1775, p. 14. The New England colonies had their origin in the time of the great struggle against the Stuarts. 1. 33. Liberty inheres in some sensible object. The Whigs and the popular party indulged in so much vain talk about liberty that such observations were to the point. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.' Speech on arrival at Bristol, 1774. Every nation, &c. Burke adopts the well-known doctrine of Goldsmith's Traveller,' which belongs, however, rather to poetry than to political philosophy, though it is borrowed from Montesquieu. The Traveller' was published in 1764. 'From art more various are the blessings sent, And spurns the plan that aims at other ends; P. 179, l. 5. in the ancient commonwealths. Notably in Rome, an example always present to Burke's mind. Read Swift's Discourse on the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome, which, though opposing Burke's Whiggish doctrine of Party, furnished him with many hints. 1. 10. the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues. Pym, Hampden, Selden, St. John, &c. See Raleigh's 'Prerogative of Parliaments in England.' 1. 20. that in theory it ought to be so. It is rare with Burke to cite deductive arguments approvingly. Cp. note to p. 189, l. 10. P. 180, 1. 8. pleasing error. Virgil: Indiscreta suis, gratusque parentibus error.' The amabilis insania' of Horace, however, comes nearer in meaning. Cp. vol. ii. p. 42, 'the delusion of this amiable error.' 1. 10. some are merely popular = purely, entirely. The one sort we may for distinction safe call mixedly, and the other merely humane.' Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Book i. c. 10. New England was an aggregate of pure democracies, the foremost in spirit and popular organisation being Massachusett's Bay and Connecticut. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine, which was a part of Massachusetts, were the others. New York differed from New England chiefly from having been settled under large patents of land to individuals, instead of charters to towns. North of the Potomac were the two large proprietary governments, Pennsylvania with Delaware, under Thomas and Richard Penn, and Maryland, which belonged nominally to Lord Baltimore. There were five royal governments, the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and New Jersey. See Bancroft, vol. iv. chap. 6. It was not, however, in the democratic governments that the most violent resolutions were passed. See Ann. Reg. 1775, p. 6. 1. 18. Religion, always a principle of energy. The incidents of the AntiSlavery war show that this principle in the Americans is still in no way impaired. 1. 24. averseness from all, &c. The Addisonian' aversion' is more usual. From is the proper construction. Johnson considers to improper, and towards very improper. (Cp. note to p. 15, l. 18.) Swift uses aversion against.' P. 181, 1. 6. dissidence of dissent, &c. Cp. Hooker, Book iv. c. viii. There hath arisen a sect in England, which following still the self same rule of policy, seeketh to reform even the French reformation.' Cp. Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, They have apostatized from their apostasy.' 1. 34. as broad and general as the air. As broad and general as the casing air,' Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4. P. 182, 1. 10. Our Gothick ancestors. Incorrect, but commonly used, even by Hallam. Our ancestors were Low-Dutch. 1. II. such in our days were the Poles. Poland seems to be a country formed to give the most disadvantageous idea of liberty, by the extreme to which it is carried, and the injustice with which it is distributed,' &c. See the rest of this interesting description of the state of affairs in Poland, Ann. Reg. 1763. were the Poles-until 1772. 1. 17. In no country . . . is the law so general a study. American authors have not insisted on this as a cause, though the history of the Revolution is full of proofs of it. The Lawyers of this place (New York),' writes the Lieutenant-Governor, to Conway, in 1765, 'are the authors and conductors of the present sedition.' On the study of the law in the Italian Republics, see Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. ch. 9, part 2. On the lawyers in the French Assembly, cp. vol. ii. p. 49. 1. 19. numerous and powerful. In many of our settlements the lawyers have gathered to themselves the greatest part of the wealth of the country.' Europ. Settlements in America, vol. ii. p. 304., Burke censured as the cause of this, the burdening of the colonies with the mass of our common law, and the old statute law, and their adoption, with very little choice or discretion, of a great part of the new statute law. He thought all that load of matter, perhaps so useless at home, without doubt extremely prejudicial in the colonies. . . . These infant settlements surely demanded a more simple, clear, and determinate legislation, though it were somewhat of a homelier kind.' Ibid. 6 1. 27. printing them for their own use. Burke says nothing of the general influence of the printing-press, which was by this time actively at work in the Colonies. The press,' he writes, in the First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in reality has made every government, in its spirit, almost democratic.' 1. 28. Blackstone's Commentaries. Then a new and popular work. 1. 32. in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane. General Gage, in pursuance of the powers given him by the coercive statutes, had prohibited the calling of town meetings after August 1, 1774. A town meeting was, however, held, and asserted to be legal, not having been called, but adjourned over. By such means,' said Gage, you may keep your meeting alive these ten years.' He brought the subject before the new Council. It is a point of law,' said they, and should be referred to the Crown lawyers,' &c. Bancroft, vol. vii. ch. 8. Cp. Ann. Reg. 1775, p. 11. 1. 33. successful chicane. Cp. the protest against this and other French words in the Ann. Reg. 1758, p. 374. P. 183, 1. 4. my Hon. and Learned Friend on the floor. The AttorneyGeneral (Thurlow). 1. 10. Abeunt studia in mores. Ovid, Heroid. Ep. xv. 83. The quotation is evidently adopted from Bacon's Essay of Studies. 1. 17. snuff the approach of tyranny, &c. The metaphor is from hunting. The phrases are a reminiscence of Addison, the Campaign. (Cp. p. 85, 1. 27.) 'So the stanch hound the trembling deer pursues, And smells his footsteps in the tainted dews, But when the scent comes warm in every breeze, On his full stretch, and bears upon his prey.' 1. 24. Seas roll, and months pass. The student will note the striking effect of the zeugma. 1. 27. winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces, &c. 'Winged ministers of vengeance' is a compound of Milton's 'ministers of vengeance' (Par. Lost, i. 170), and 'winged messengers' (ib. iii. 229). Cp. ante, p. 176. Those who wield the thunder of the State.' The image is borrowed from Lord Chatham's Speech of January 22, 1770; 'They have disarmed the imperial bird, the ministrum fulminis alitem1. The army is the thunder of the Crown-the ministry have tied up the hand which should direct the bolt.' Burke happily transfers it to the navy. The student should compare the beautiful expansion and application of this image by Canning, introduced with exquisite propriety in the speech made within sight of Plymouth docks, 1823. 1. 29. a power steps in... So far shalt thou go and no farther.' The allusion is to the story of Canute and his courtiers, then recently popularized by Hume. P. 184, l. 1. In large bodies, &c. But cp. Letter to W. Elliott, Esq. These analogies between bodies natural and politic, though they may sometimes illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves.' The same observation occurs in the First Letter on a Regicide Peace. apparently made use of the latter passage in his account of Fallacies of Generalization.' Mill has 1. 2. The Turk, &c. Notice the foresight which these observations imply. 1. 10. in all his borders-watches times. These are well-known Scriptural expressions. See note to p. 32, 1. 10. Temporibus servire' is a common maxim of Cicero. Spain, in her provinces-i. e. in South America. The necessity of reform in the Spanish Colonial system was by this time obvious. In 1778 the monopoly of Cadiz was abolished, and a great stimulus was thus given to the Spanish Colony trade. 1. 12. this is the immutable condition, &c. Burke generalises from two bad instances, but the weakness of Spain and Turkey was then far less 1 Horace, Odes iv. I. apparent than now. The Czar is as well obeyed on the Pacific shore as on the Baltic, and English government is as strong on the Ganges as on the Thames. 1. 20. grown with the growth, &c. Cp. p. 118, 1. 34. 1. 27. causes which produce it—i. e. produce the excess, not the spirit. 1. 32. held in trust. Cp. note to p. 52, l. 27. P. 185, 1. 5. with all its imperfections on its head. Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5. P. 186, 1. 6. Obedience is what makes Government. Cp. note to p. 39, 1. 5. P. 187, 1. 20. Sir, if I were capable, &c. This perhaps indicates that the Speaker exhibited an appearance of weariness or inattention, on Burke's proposal to 'go patiently round and round the subject.' P. 188, 1. 3. It is radical in its principle. The objects which I proposed were radical, systematic economy,' &c. Letter to Mr. Harford, April 4, 1780. It was Burke who brought the term into parliamentary if not into general use-not Pitt, as commonly asserted: cp. Fischel, English Const., P. 551. 1. 22. The people would occupy without grants. See Bancroft, ch. xviii. and xxvii. 'But the prohibition only set apart the Great Valley as the sanctuary of the unhappy, the adventurous and the free; of those whom enterprise, or curiosity, or disgust at the forms of life in the old plantations, raised above royal edicts. . . . The boundless West became the poor man's City of Refuge,' &c. Vol. vi. p. 33, where see note. 1. 28. Already they have topped the Apalachian mountains-better known as the Alleghanies, the western frontier of the British settlements. The germ of the description which follows is in the Annual Register, vol. i. p. 2. Burke doubtless remembered with some vividness a passage on which he had bestowed much pains. 1. 30. an immense plain-a square of five hundred miles: the other boundaries being the Mississippi and the lakes. ་ 1. 34. Hordes of English Tartars. This idea seems to have been suggested by the history of the Buccaneers of St. Domingo, 'a considerable number of men transformed by necessity into downright savages,' an account of whom, from the pen of Burke, is to be found in the Annual Register for 1761. P. 189, 1. 7. Encrease and Multiply. Burke quotes from Milton, Par. Lost. x. 730. Authorised Version, Be fruitful and multiply;' Vulgate (used by Milton), Crescite et multiplicamini.' 1. 9. which God by an express Charter, &c. Cp. More's Utopia (Bp. Burnet's translation), Book ii: 'They account it a very just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part of the soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated; since every man has, by the law of nature, a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.' |