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NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
MANCHESTER, MASS., FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1909. 
ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
There have been greater English 
statesmen and greater English orators 
than Edmund Burke, but there are few 
greater names in the history of English 
political literature. He was a_ philoso- 
phical student and interpreter, and at the 
same time a forceful expounder of polit- 
ical principles. Burke’s father was a 
Protestant, his mother a Catholic, and 
the teacher who had the most formatiye 
influence upon him a Quaker; for the 
latter he ever cherished the deepest re- 
spect. He did not distinguish himself at 
the university, indeed he never gained 
the highest rank in scholarship; he had 
the usual knowledge of the classics, his 
favorite reading being Cicero’s Orations; 
he was familiar with Spenserand Milton, 
to a less degree with Shakespeare; but in 
one sense he made all knowledge his 
province. 
After his graduation, Burke studied 
law and letters; his taste for legislation 
and national affairs did much to shape 
his life career. There was a slow prep- 
aration for future greatness; he did not 
rise by any sudden bound to the height 
of his fame, but while others slept he 
was toiling upward in the night. He 
wrote on the Drama, on Natural Society, 
on the Sublime and Beautiful; he became 
warmly engaged in national and conti- 
nental affairs, and slowly rose to a prom- 
inent position in public life; he collected 
books, lived in a grand way, was a com- 
manding figure in Johnson’s ‘‘Club,’’ 
and leader of the Opposition in the 
House of Commons. 
Burke’s literary taste, together with his 
intensity, truth, and logical reasoning, 
made him one of the most effective 
speakers in Parliament, in an age of 
great orators, the age of Windham and 
Sheridan, of Fox and Chatham. Buthe 
was nota mere debater or orator; he 
was aman of philosophical thought, a 
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man of varied learning, of wide sympa- 
thies, of judicial temper, and of unfailing 
candor. Johnson, who hated the 
Whigs with a perfect hatred, could for- 
give Burke’s politics for the sake of his 
magnificent gifts. ‘* Burke, Sir, is such 
a man that if you met him for the first 
time in the street, where you were 
stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and 
he stepped aside to take shelter but for 
five minutes, he’d talk to you in such a 
manner that when you parted you would 
say, “This is an extraordinary man,’ ”’ 
Burke’s public life extended from 
1766 to 1794, when he bade farewell to 
its toils and triumphs. It was a dis- 
tinguished career, marked by incessant 
activity and brilliant success. Among 
his great efforts in oratory, those which 
have contributed most to his fame are 
his Speech on Conciliation, a plea for 
just treatment of the American colonies, 
and his great speech on the indictment of 
Warren Hastings, so vividly described 
by Macaulay, and ranking among the 
master-pieces of modern oratory. 
Had Burke’s views on American in- 
dependence, views characterized by hu- 
manity and statesmanship, found favor 
with the king and ministry, lovers of 
England would have something to look 
back upon with pride instead of regret; 
rising to the height of his great argument, 
the speech is an impassioned and logical 
appeal for freedom and justice, worthy 
of the best days of Greek and Roman 
eloquence. It is this command of style 
in the larger sense, in the ability to ex- 
press noble and lofty thoughts in words 
equally noble and lofty, that makes 
Burke greater even than Pitt. 
The most brilliant effort of Burke’s . 
life was the conduct of the impeach- 
ment of Hastings, the great governor- 
general of India, “‘for high crimes and 
misdemeanours, ’’ a trial extending over 
years and exciting the profoundest inter- 
est; in the conclusion it furnished in a 
magnificent arena, the great hall of 
William Rufus, and before an assemb- 
lage such as the world has seldom wit- 
nessed, the court, the houses of Parlia- 
ment, the great and learned and fashion- 
able circles of English society, opportu- 
nity such as occurs rarely in a century 
for the most splendid oratory that the 
English language has ever produced. 
Burke, as manager, made his great 
speech, the echoes of which still resound 
in history, which ranks him with the 
ancient orators who ‘‘shook the arsenal 
and fulmined over Greece,’’ or wielded 
the sceptre of the Roman senate and 
forum. For fourteen’years, without in- 
termission, Burke could claim to have 
given his imperial powers to the cause 
of England’s great Indian empire, its 
freedom from official misrule, from dis- 
order, injustice and cruelty. His pas- 
sionate imagination was stirred to its pro- 
foundest depths, and his sense of justice 
raised to a fiery intensity. Hastings was 
acquitted through his wealth and influ- 
ence, but public opinion declared that the 
impeachment was just. The great trial 
dragged on until many of the original 
actors were past activity or were lai¢ in 
Manchester has new Chief of Police. 
At their weekly meeting Wednesday 
evening the Board of Selectmen of Man- 
chester received the resignation of Chief 
of Police Samuel S. Peabody to take 
effect May 15. The resignation was 
accepted and William H. Sullivan was 
appointed Chief to assume his duties on 
May 15, —a week from tomorrow. 
Chief Peabody has served the town for 
six years in this capacity, his term being 
crowned by faithful and honest work. 
The department has been increased 
two regular officers since he was first 
appointed in 1903 to succeed T. O. D. 
Urquhart, now of Arlington. 
Mr. Sullivan, the new chief, isa young 
man, well known and respected by the 
citizens of the town. He is 35 years of 
age, and was born in Boston. He has 
lived all his life in Natick and Wellesley, 
in both of which places he is highly re- 
spected. He was for seven years a 
‘member of the board’ of registrars of 
voters in Natick. He came to Man- 
chester a year ago to take charge of J. 
A. Culbert’s store on Beach street. 
His many friends in Manchester and 
in Natick and Wellesley wish him every 
success in his new position, and we _ be- 
speak the good-will of the citizens gen- 
erally for his work here. 
The Manchester department now 
numbers besides the chief, one day 
officer and four regular night officers the 
year round, besides several specials on 
duty in the summer. 
The salary of the Chief of Police is 
now $1100, and of the other officers 
about $1000. 
the grave, and it ceased almost to be of 
living interest. 
Burke died at last full of honors and 
renown, amidst the throes succeeding 
the French revolution, his last words 
being written with his old fire and energy 
and political clear-sightedness, warning 
England against a coalition with France, 
then about surrendering to Napoleonic 
absolutism. Like Bayard and Sidney, 
Burke was a man of truly knightly spirit, 
without fear and without reproach, 
‘Who never spoke the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor paltered with eternal God for power.”’ 
A grander monument than any that 
Westminister Abbey can furnish is the 
record of his stainless honor, his efforts 
for the freedom of the press, for Catho- 
lic emancipation, for abolition of the 
slave-trade, his transcendent service to 
freedom and truth. 
