
bd. 
“No fooner had the arbitrary govern- 
ment of France received a death-wound, 
than the arittocracy of England began to 
tremble. Mr. BurkKE, the once-re- 
doubted champion of American freedom, 
was one of the firft to take the alarm, 
and carried his hatred againit the zewyor- 
der of ibings to a degree bordering on 
phrenzy. . He-foon after feceded, firft 
from his ancient friends, and then from 
parliament; but he continned to gratify 
his new adherents with political pam- 
phlets, which belied all the boafted prin- 
ciples he, had alcribed to the “ Old 
Whigs,” and. reecgnized nearly the 
whole of thofe tenets which had been 
Original Anccdotes.—Rt. Hon. Edmund Burkes 
confidered as execrable, in the compofi-, 
tions. of. Filmer and Sacheverel. In 
fhort,. che. foon difcovered, 
““tongue,”? upon occafion, like that of 
the .moft celebrated poet of modern 
Italy, . cody 
6¢ Was tun’d for flavifh pzeans at the throne 
OF tinfel pomp—— 2 


No “inftitution, however abfurd, but 
in him found an advocate, for he became 
the patron of 
‘‘Embrios and ideots, eremites and friars, 
© White, black, and grey, with all their trum- 
ery. 
~ Asan author, Mr.BurKE poffeffes con- 
fiderable claims t6 celebrity. The-“ Hifto- 
ry of the European Colomies in America,”” 
is chicfly-commendable for the ftyle and 
manner. 
from preceding authors, and the Abbé 
Rav¥Nat, in his’ turn, has tranflated 
“whole pages into his hiftory of the Eu- 
ropean fettlements in the Eaft and Weit- 
Indies: 
that his: 
The faéts are all borrowed - 
"Phe « Effay on the Sublime and Bean- 
tiful,’ is allowed to be a compofition of 
much taite. The idea, that terror con- 
ftitutes an ingredient in the fublime,.can- 
not be confidered as a novelty ; the prin- 
ciples of deauty have alfo been developed 
before, except in fo far as it is here 
combined with weakne/s and fragility. 
Of the Vindication of Natural Society, 
an eloquent compofition, afier the man- 
ner of Bolingbroke, and the firft pub- 
jifhed by Mr. Burke, the beft eulogium 
4s, that it, for a confiderable -time, de- 
ceived both the noble lord’s friends, and 
the public. 
In refpeé& to his political works, 
« The Letiers to the Sheriffs of Briftol’” 
—‘Confiderations on the Caufe of the 
prefent Difcontents’”—and ‘* Refleétions 
on the French Revolution,” are ufually 
deemed the principai. Te laft of thefe 
experienced a fale unknown, perhaps, 
in the annals of bookfelling; no lefs than: 
1$,000. copigs having been difpofed of, 
within a fhort period ;. but it called forth 
an aniwer, fo bold in its principles, and 
wonderful im its effeéts, that the civil 
arm was invoked to fupprefs it, without 
effect. 
Poffeffing a wonderful irritability of 
nerves, a warm, and alinoft difordered 
imagination, his rage agaimft regenerated 
France was here fublimed nearly to mad- 
nefs. Another Peter the Hermit, he 
preached up a crufade againft the mo- 
dern Saracens, and, like Peter too, his 
doétrines proved the deftruétion of his 
followers. Many paflages of his latter 
works appear to be fimple tranflations of 
of the .peetic horrors of a claffic pen : 
‘¢ Afpicimus populos quorum non-fufficit ira 
% Occidifle aliquem, fed pe€toray. brachia, vule 
“¢ tum, 
“ Crediderint genus effe cibi.”” 
As an orator, he was undoubtedly the _ 
moft eloquent man of his time. His 
manner was bold and commanding ; his 
periods flowing and majeftic; his lan- 
guage choice and harmonious; his ima- 
gery chafie and claffical. Notwithftand- 
ing fo many qualifications for a public 
{peaker, his friends had often to lament, 
towards the latter period of his life, that 
he was not liftened to with becoming at- 
tention *, 
His énemies, eager to detract from his 
merits, afteéted to conlider his language 
as tumid, and his eloquence was faid to 
be of that fpecies which the Greeks 
were accufiomed to term Afatic. It 
muft be admitted, however, that his ac- 
tion was at times violent, and his gefti- 
culations affeéted. The naked.dagger, 
inatched from his bofom during a me- 
moradle debate, too clofely refembled the 
figs of Africa, ftrewed by Cato im the 
Roman fenate, and approached fo nearly 
to the ¢heairical, that, during the Auguf- 
tan age, he would have acquired the fur- 
name beftowed on Hortenfius. 
In private life, the conduét of Mr. 
Burke was highly meritorious. A good 
hufband, an aife€tionate farther, an excel- 

\  * © De tribus illis luminibus Anglorum, qui- 
bus editio hecce dicatur, religioni nobis non 
habendum eft, perhonorificé et fentire, et fari. 
Horum in uno virorum infigne utriufque fortunze 
exemplum vidimus. Cujus enim dicentis ex ore 
fenatus. quondam - pendebat, illius. jam oratio, 
etfi nivibus hybernis fimillima fit, fibi tamen au- 
dientiam vix ullam facit. 
et atrocitas,” éc, Prar. Ap, BELLENB. 
? kent 
[July 
Indignitas rei hujufce - 
