from all you say." Hearing the wind whistling through the trees, he was reminded of the words of Milton: "His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines, These lines he repeated twice: he had just strength to say them the second time, when, exhausted by the effort, he staggered across the room and fell in a state of insensibility into his father's arms; shortly after which he expired. The event took place on the 2nd of May, 1794. The grief of Burke was appalling; he would sit in that unnatural calmness of despair more terrific than the most stormy display of passion; then bursting into a frenzy, he would rush into the chamber where his son lay, and throwing himself on the body, call in accents of fearful anguish for "the hope of his age, the stay of his life, the only comfort of his declining and now joyless years." He was prevailed upon after the first day, though with some difficulty, to consent that he would see the corpse no more; a promise which he kept. The mother was equally distracted; to Mr. Burke's frequent efforts to get her away from the room, her only reply was, "No, Edmund, while he remains there, I will remain." At length, however, her husband prevailed. Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted an admirable portrait of young Burke. This, Burke ordered to be engraved, with the following inscription from Dryden's poem of Eleonora "As precious gums are not for common fire, Underneath these lines were the words, "O dolor atque decus." One would think that such a stroke as this should have utterly unfitted Burke for politics. The only wonder is that he ever recovered his elasticity of mind sufficiently to enter into that scene again. He found it, however, the only means left of weaning him from the perilous indulgence of solitary grief. In 1795 he wrote his letter on the Catholic Question, addressed to W. Smith, Esq., in reply to one from that correspondent. It contains an admirable discussion of all the chief topics connected with the subject. A letter on the same subject to Sir Hercules Langrishe (the second to that gentleman) soon followed. His sarcastic letter to William Elliot, Esq., in defence of his conduct against the attacks of the minority, was his next publication. Another paper, written about the same time, displayed his extensive knowledge of the minutest facts connected with the state of the country, and presented the most enlightened principles of political economy. This was his "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity," addressed to Mr. Pitt. In 1795, Burke received a pension from government. This grant, which he had neither directly nor indirectly solicited, originated, it is said, in the express wish of King George III. The manner in which the bounty came, formed, however, no object of consideration with his political opponents. They vehemently attacked his acceptance of a favour, which really had more of justice than benevolence in it. Worn out as he was in the service of the commonweal, no man in his days of sickness and sorrow had stronger claims upon the public. He had deserved that reward by a long series of acts that tended to the general good; by his personal disinterestedness on many occasions; by surrendering a large income, as his perquisites from the payoffice; by his economical Reform Bill, which for the twelve preceeding years had saved the country nearly £80,000 annually in hard money, as well as extinguished a source which might have been converted to undue parliamentary influence; by the reformation of the pay-office, in guarding against the serious deficits so frequently experienced there, and rendering available to the government about a million sterling, the frequent amount of the balance in hand; by a whole life, in fact, devoted to bettering the condition of the state, and increasing the resources and prosperity of the empire. Against the effusions of irritation, rather than of good sense, good feeling, or sound argument, that emanated from his adversaries, Mr. Burke had to place his own political course of unsullied purity, and the example of numerous other eminent men of all parties, Lord Chatham among the rest, who had not disdained a similar honourable recognition of their abilities and conduct. In answer to the Duke of Bedford, one of those who cast reflections upon him, he wrote his celebrated "Letter to a Noble Lord in Defence of his Pension." His ultimate publications were his "Letters on a Regicide Peace;" called forth by the disasters of the war, and intended to animate to renewed exertions the drooping spirit of the nation; and last of all came another "Letter on the affairs of Ireland." He was the first who, when others hardly gave the subject a thought, boldly and loudly addressed the parliament of England on the misrule and misery in Ireland, calling upon the commons to redress her grievances and to relieve her suffering people. His exertions in this cause he never relaxed. Ireland he brought forward at every opportunity; and in his expiring thoughts and language Ireland was present again. Grief and toil at length broke down energies which at one time equalled almost any measure of human endurance or exertion. As often happens when strength had been long overtasked, Burke sank almost at once into the last stage of corporal debility and prostration: his mind, however, shone out in all its lustre even to the last, unsmothered amidst the falling ruins of the body. Finding medical skill unavailing, he repaired in the spring of 1797 to Bath, for the benefit of the waters. He remained there four months, but without any material improvement of health. At length, despairing of a change for the better, he resolved on a removal to Beaconsfield. "It is so far at least" said he, "on my way to the tomb, and I may as well travel it alive as dead." He again thus expressed himself to Mrs. Leadbeater, "I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield tomorrow, to be nearer to a habitation more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping, that my better part may find a better mansion." To Beaconsfield, therefore, where he had enjoyed so many of the honours, the affections, and the comforts of life, he returned to die. Another month, and the event occurred. A presentiment almost of the moment of his final summons seemed to have prevailed with him; for he employed several of the previous hours in sending messages of tender remembrance to absent friends; in expressing his forgiveness of all who had in any manner injured or offended him, and in requesting the same from all whom his general or particular infirmities had offended. He recapitulated his motives of action in great public emergencies, and told his thoughts on the then alarming state of the country-"the ruling passion strong in death:"-he gave a few private directions connected with his approaching decease, and afterwards listened attentively to the perusal, by his own desire, of some serious papers of Addison on religious subjects, and on the immortality of the soul. These duties finished, his attendants, with Mr. Nagle of the War Office, a relation, were conveying him to his bed, when, indistinctly articulating a blessing on those around him, he sunk down, and after a momentary struggle expired, on the 9th July, 1797, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was interred on the 15th of the same month; a large concourse of men of high rank and official station attended the funeral; the pall had for supporters the Dukes of Portland and Devonshire, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Earl Fitzwilliam, the Earl of Inchequin, Sir G. Elliot and Mr. Windham. Mr. Fox had proposed in parliament, that he should be interred with public honours in Westminster Abbey: the tenor of Burke's will, however, rendered this impracticable. In accordance with his own direction, he was buried in Beaconsfield Church, |