when the same thing was moved in 1787 and 1789 (by Mr. Beaufoy), extremely unwilling to vote against it, yet not satisfied that he was right in voting for it, he had quitted the House without voting at all. At the present moment, he thought the repeal more particularly inexpedient-there was a wild spirit of innovation abroad, which required not indulgence but restraint-for the avowed leaders of the dissenters, alluding to Drs. Price, Priestley, Kippis, Towers, and others, had, in their speeches, writings, resolutions, and even catechisms and sermons, given countenance not merely to the worst portion of the political spirit of the day, but some of them had openly threatened a direct attack upon the church establishment.

'Such, he firmly believed, was not the intention of the respectable body with which those persons were connected; he had ever entertained for that body the highest respect and esteem, and among its members were some of his best friends; but while they permitted such persons to take the lead in their affairs, they became in the general opinion, and in fact, responsible in some degree for, and identified with, such sentiments. After all, as some test would probably be required by the country if these acts were repealed, he had brought the draught of one in his pocket: the present he had always thought a bad and insufficient test for the end it was meant to accomplish; it was a great abuse of the sacramental rite-a rite infinitely too sacred and too solemn to be prostituted, as it often was, for very trivial purposes.' Whatever was the cause-whether from the effect of this speech, which embraced many details of the hostile spirit of dissenters to the church, or the exertions of Mr. Pitt, or the general alarm in the country, this question, that in the preceding session received a faint negative from no more than 20, was now smothered by a majority of 189.

In the general abuse, which, whether right or wrong and at all hazards, the favourers of French politics thought it their duty soon afterwards to pour upon Mr. Burke, many pages were written to prove him guilty of gross inconsistency in thus opposing a measure which he had formerly supported with all his powers. It is likewise remarkable, that nearly as many pages were employed to defend him from this charge on the ground that the dissenters of 1790 being busy meddling politicians, whose aim was the possession of political power rather than religious freedom, he was justified in denying to them what he had wished to concede to the conscientious body who solicited his support in

1772.

This attack, like many others made upon him, arose from misinformation; and the defence, therefore, though well-meant, was unnecessary. He did not advocate the repeal of the test act in 1772, for the simple reason that no such repeal was proposed. The facts of the matter were these:-At the period in question

the dissenting ministers applied for an enlargement of the toleration act, or for a repeal of the clause which required subscription to the articles as a condition of enjoying the benefits of that act. This claim and this alone-he supported; as he continued to do in 1773, and again in 1779, when it was conceded; but at neither of these periods was there an application made for the repeal of the test act.

The other chief measures in which he took part, were in voting an increase of income to the Speaker of the House of Commons, paying, in the course of his speech several compliments to Mr. Addington, who then filled the chair, for his "impartiality, attention, and diligence, which had not only answered the expectations of his own friends, but satisfied the House in general;" on the claim of the Duke of Athol for certain rights in the Isle of Man, which he stigmatized as a job, and which, from the sense of the House appearing against it, was put off; on the quarrel with Spain respecting Nootka Sound, his opinion being strongly in favour of accommodation, for that "as we never ought to go to war for a profitable wrong, so we ought never to go to war for an unprofitable right; and therefore he hoped that the intended armament would be considered not as a measure calculated to terminate the war happily, but to enable Ministers to carry on the negociation vigorously;" on a censure passed on Major Scott for a libel on the House; and on two resolutions of the managers of the impeachment moved by himself, which were to persevere in the trial generally; while, for the sake of expedition in deciding it, they were to select only the more important charges for adjudication.

In addition to these exertions, he opposed a motion by Mr. Flood, for parliamentary reform, which produced a very candid confession from Mr. Fox, that though he thought such a measure advisable, the country at large did not seem to be of the same opinion. A jest of Burke on this question, widely disseminated in private society, threw much ridicule upon the enthusiasts in this cause. A new party of Reformers, he said, had arisen still more pure in their creed than the rest, who deemed annual parliaments not sufficiently frequent, and quoted, in support of their doctrine, the latter words of the Statute of Edward III., that "a parliament shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be." How to designate these gentlemen from their less orthodox associates he knew not, except indeed their tenets furnished the hint, and they be known as the Oftener-if-needbe's!

A proposition, through the medium of some common friends, was made to Mr. Burke about this period, by his former acquaintance Gerard Hamilton, to renew that intimacy which had so long suffered estrangement, but this offer he declined. He had told Mr. Flood at the time, there was " an eternal separation" between

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them, that "he would not keep a memorial of such a person about him," and possibly the recollection of some random sarcasms, which Hamilton, though he always did full justice to his uncommon powers, had occasionally let off against his party and himself, might have tended to make him keep his word. The reply made to the communication was, that without entertaining the slightest resentful or unfriendly feeling toward Mr. Hamilton, there were several circumstances in their connexion and separation, and long subsequent alienation, which would prevent his enjoying the same pleasure as formerly in his society, and therefore a renewal of intimacy might not be very satisfactory to either. It is said, that had Lord Temple ever become Minister, it was his intention to make Mr. Hamilton his Chancellor of the Exchequer and it must ever be considered an enigma, that any one looking forward to such a post, should not have made himself of more importance in Parliament than he did, by frequently speaking. No explanation has ever been given of his taciturnity, except the illiberal one be surmised, that he already enjoyed in a rich sinecure all the substantial return he could expect for much talking.

CHAPTER XI.

Publication of Reflections on the Revolution in France.-Testimonies in its favour. -Reply of Burke to the Universities of Dublin and Oxford, and to Mr. Cumberland. Thomas Paine.-Character of Henry IV. of France.-Letter to a Member of the National Assembly.-Rupture with Mr. Fox.-Jury Bill of 1791.--Parlia mentary business.-Anecdotes.

FROM the moment of the rupture with Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, perceiving that his opinions on the French Revolution were very generally misunderstood or misrepresented, and willing also to state them more fully and forcibly to the world than even parliamentary speaking would allow, as well as to enable the reflecting part of mankind to think more justly, as he believed, of the event itself, decided to call in the aid of the press.

This task was begun and carried on during the summer with his wonted ardour and disregard of labour, and, alluding to the anxious emotions to which it gave rise, he says, in a letter to Lord Charlemont, of the 25th May, "I have been at once much occupied and much agitated with my employment." The elements of the work, however, had been for some months floating in his mind, and in fact no inconsiderable portion of it, or at least matter nearly similar, were already in various forms committed to paper. These were collected, re-written, enlarged, amended, and re-modelled to the form in which he had determined to publish-that of a letter to the French gentleman who had before consulted him on the

subject. The whole was polished with extraordinary care, more than a dozen of proofs being worked off and destroyed according to Dodsley's account, before he could please himself; it was set off with every attraction of the highest style of eloquence of which the English language is susceptible, and the most vivid and striking imagery in the whole compass of English prose; it was impressed on the judgment by acute reasoning, by great penetration into the motives of human action, by maxims of the most sound and practical wisdom; by expositions of the impracticable nature of the new government, and the evil designs of its framers; nothing, indeed, which his genius, his knowledge, or his observation could supply, was omitted to give popularity to the "Reflections on the Revolution in France."

In the beginning of November, 1790, this celebrated work made its appearance, and a French translation, by his friend M. Dupont, an advocate formerly in Paris, quickly spread its reputation over all Europe. The publication proved one of the remarkable events of the year, perhaps of the century; for it may be doubted whether any previous political production ever excited so much attention, so much discussion, so much praise from one party, so much animadversion from another, but ultimately, among the great majority of persons, such general conviction of the correctness of his views, as to have fully succeeded in turning the stream of public opinion to the direction he wished, from the channel in which it had hitherto flowed. The circulation of the book corresponded with its fame; within the first year about 19,000 copies were sold in England, and about 13,000 in France; the whole number sold of English copies is estimated at more than 30,000-and this at a time when there was not a third of the demand for books of any kind that there is at present;-and some experienced booksellers have said that the sale was greater than any preceding book whatever of the same price. The interest which it excited did not cease with the moment, for it was sought after then and since by persons little prone to political discussion, for the wisdom of the lessons it taught; by many for its literary beauties; by many in order to retrace the outline of fearful and extraordinary events there in great measure foretold; and it will ever be a source of deep interest to the practical statesman, and of unfeigned admiration to the man of taste and genius.

A laboured analysis of this or any other of the more celebrated writings of this eloquent man, is not intended here, rather perhaps from want of inclination in the writer than from want of materials, which would add more certainly to the size of the present work than perhaps to the edification of the reader. In the instance before us it is particularly unnecessary. Almost every man who pretends to read at all, has read it. To him who has, such a disquisition would be at best meagre and unsatisfactory. To him who has not, it would impart no means of justly appreciating the

force and beauty of the original; for of Burke it has been said, as Johnson remarked of Shakspeare, that to attempt to recommend him by select extracts would be but to follow the example of the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. Many of the passages in it form matter of continual quotation for their eloquence; and few of its pages but contain something profound in remark, novel in thought, and ingenious and beautiful in illustration. The peroration, though in general but little noticed, is not the least striking passage; nor will the prophetic remark on the vicissitudes likely to be experienced in the forms of the new government, be lightly passed over by the reader.

"I have told you candidly," he says to his correspondent, "my sentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but must follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, through great varieties of untried being,' and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.

"I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenour of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavours which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression,* the hours he has employed on your affairs; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office: they come from one who desires honours, distinctions, and emoluments, but little; and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention though he will hazard an opinion: from one who wishes to preserve consistency; but who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise."+

The testimonies of approval which flowed in upon the writer from every quarter soon after the appearance of his book, evinced

* In allusion to the prosecution of Mr. Hastings.

To preserve the euphony of the last sentence, the completeness of the nautical metaphor, and to save the repetition of the word equipoise which exists in the same sentence, a sailor would have finished it thus," which may preserve it upon an even keel."