arity, which distinguishes him from every other writer, that he is almost equally instructive whether he is right or wrong as to the particular point in debate. He may fail to make out his case; opposing considerations may induce us to decide against him; and yet every argument he uses is full of instruction: it contains great truths, which, if they do not turn the scale here, may do it elsewhere; so that he whose mind is filled with the maxims of Burke has within him not only one of the finest incentives of genius, but a fountain of the richest thought, which may flow through a thousand channels in all the efforts of his own intellect, to whatever subject those efforts may be directed.

With these qualities and habits of mind, the oratory of Mr. Burke was of necessity didactic. His speeches were lectures, and, though often impassioned, enlivened at one time with wit, and rising at another into sublimity or pathos, they usually became wearisome to the House from their minuteness and subtlety, as

He went on refining,

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining.

We see, then, in the philosophical habits of his mind (ad、 mirable as the results were in most respects), why he spoke so often to empty benches, while Fox, by seizing on the strong points of the case, by throwing away intermediate thoughts, and striking at the heart of the subject, never failed to carry the House with him in breathless attention.

His method was admirable, in respect at least to his published speecher No man ever bestowed more care on the arrangement of his thoughts. The exceptions to this remark are apparent, not real. There is now and then a slight irregularity in his mode of transition, which seems purposely thrown in to avoid an air of sameness; and the subordinate heads sometimes spread out so widely, that their connection with the main topic is not always obvious. But there is reigning throughout the whole a massive unity of design like that of a great cathedral, whatever may be the intricacy of its details.

In his reasonings (for he was one of the greatest masters of reason in our language, though some have strangely thought him deficient in this respect) Mr. Burke did not usually adopt the outward forms of logic. He has left us, indeed, some beautiful specimens of dialectical ability, but his arguments, in most instances, consisted of the amplest enumeration and the clearest display of all the facts and principles, the analogies, relations, or tendencies which were applicable to the case, and were adapted to settle it on the immutable basis of the nature and constitution of things. Here again he appeared, of necessity, more as a teacher than a logician, and hence many were led to underrate his argumentative powers. The exuberance of his fancy was likewise prejudicial to him in this respect. Men are apt to doubt the solidity of a structure which is covered all over with flowers. As to this peculiarity of his eloquence, Mr. Fox truly said, "It injures his reputation; it casts a veil over his wisdom. Reduce his language, withdraw his images, and you will find that he is more wise than eloquent; you will have your full weight of metal, though you melt down the chasing."

In respect to Mr. Burke's imagery, however, it may be proper to remark that a large part of it is not liable to any censure of this kind; many of his figures are so finely wrought into the texture of his style, that we hardly think of them as figures at all. His great fault in other cases is that of giving them too bold a relief, or dwelling on them too long, so that the primary idea is lost sight of in the image. Sometimes the prurience of his fancy makes him low, and even filthy. He is like a man depicting the scenes of nature, who is not content to give us those features of the landscape that delight the eye, but fills out his canvas with objects which are coarse, disgusting, or noisome. Hence no writer in any language has such extremes of imagery as Mr. Burke, from his picture of the Queen of France, " 'glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy,” or of friendship, as "the soft green of the soul, on which the eye loves to repose, to Lord Chatham's administration "pigging together in the same truckle-bed," and Mr. Dundas with his East India bills, exposed like the imperial sow of augury, lying in the mud with

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the prodigies of her fertility about her, as evidences of her delicate amours."

His language, though copious, was not verbose. Every word had its peculiar force and application. His chief fault was that of overloading his sentences with secondary thoughts, which weakened the blow by dividing it. His style is, at times, more careless and inaccurate than might be expected in so great a writer. But his mind was on higher things. His idea of a truly fine sentence, as once stated to a friend, is worthy of being remembered. It consists, said he, in a union of thought, feeling, and imagery-of a striking truth and a corresponding sentiment, rendered doubly striking by the force and beauty of figurative language. There are more sentences of this kind in the pages of Mr. Burke than of any other writer.

In conclusion, we may say, without paradox, since oratory is only one branch of the quality we are now considering, that while Mr. Burke was inferior as an orator to Lord Chatham and Mr. Fox, he has been surpassed by no one in the richness and splendour of his eloquence; and that he has left us something greater and better than all eloquence in his countless ·lessons of moral and civil wisdom..

Payne, Burke's Select Works, I., xxxiv.-xxxv., xxxviii.,

xliv.-xlv.

He expressed his ideas with all the grandeur in which they were conceived; but the expression was always natural, and occasionally agreeably relieved by familiarity. It approaches to that manner of "good conversation" which he himself attributes, as a high excellence, to Cicero. Burke reprehended any attempt to separate the English which is written from the English which is spoken. Plautus and Terence, and the "beautiful fragments of Publius Syrus,” he considered to be models of good speaking and writing. He often casts to the winds all literary formality, and writes just as he may have spoken in public or private, freely and unrestrainedly. In this way Burke gave a lasting stimulus to English prose literature, as Wordsworth soon afterwards gave a stimulus to

poetry, by the introduction of a fresher and more natural diction. His writings have ever since been the model of all who wish to say anything forcibly, naturally, freely, and in a comparatively small space. The common-sense politician recognises him as his master, and modern satire is indebted to him for originating the Saturday Review style. He fell naturally into that manner which was best adapted to take and to keep hold of the practical English mind, and he brought that manner at once to its perfection.

In his manner of working Burke was unlike Sydney Smith, who composed slowly, and seldom corrected what he wrote. Charles Butler tells us that he never sent a manuscript to the press which he had not so often altered that every page was almost a blot, and never received from the press a first proof which he did not almost equally alter. Often the printers never attempted to correct his proofs, finding it less trouble to take the whole matter to pieces and begin afresh.

He was the only man of his day who had pursued the only and infallible path to becoming a real orator, that of writing much, and assiduously cultivating literary excellence. Bolingbroke, by universal consent the greatest orator of his time, had done the same thing: so had Chatham, in his early years, although scarcely anything of his labours saw the light. But most of Burke's contemporaries had attained their proficiency in public speaking by the common and less troublesome plan of trying to do it as often as opportunity offered, and hardening themselves against failure. In this way fluency and selfpossession are always to be gained, eloquence never. The former go to make up the practical debater and a few pointed remarks and striking images will be enough, with a clever man, to conceal want of art in combining his ideas, and incompetency to present them in their most effective form. The oratory of the younger Pitt, which is a good example of the speaking of a business-like, practical statesman, has much of this character. It is marked by a certain mechanical fluency, well adapted for bearing the speaker up while he is meditating what he shall say next, but accompanied by a baneful tautology and confusion of method. It is wanting in organic elasticity.

Wraxall, Historical and Posthumous Memoirs, Vol. XI., pp. 30-31, 35-36. nzy

Nature had bestowed on him a boundless imagination, aided by a memory of equal strength and tenacity. His fancy was so vivid that it seemed to light up by its own powers, and to burn without consuming the aliment on which it fed; sometimes bearing him away into ideal scenes created by his own exuberant mind, but from which he sooner or later returned to the subject of debate, descending from his most aerial flights by a gentle and imperceptible gradation till he again touched the ground. Learning waited on him like a handmaid, presenting to his choice all that antiquity had culled or invented most elucidatory of the topic under discussion. He always seemed to be oppressed under the load and variety of his intellectual treasures, of which he frequently scattered portions with a lavish hand to inattentive, impatient, ignorant, hungry, and sleepy auditors, undeserving of such presents. Nor did he desist, though warned by the clamorous vociferation of the House to restrain or to abbreviate his speeches. Every power of oratory was wielded by him in turn, for he could be, during the same evening, often within the space of a few minutes, pathetic and humorous, acrimonious and conciliating, now giving loose to his indignation or severity, and then, almost in the same breath, calling to his assistance wit and ridicule. It would be endless to cite instances of this versatility of disposition, and of the rapidity of his transitions "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," that I have myself witnessed.

His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any embarrassment; for his ideas outran his powers of utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless source. But his Irish accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the banks of the Shannon, diminished to the ear the enchanting effect of his eloquence on the mind. In brilliancy of wit Lord North alone could compete with Burke, for Sheridan had not then appeared. Burke extracted all his images from classic authorities; a fact of which he displayed a beautiful exemplification when he said of Wilkes, borne along in tri