316

FOX AND BURKE.

was in his best manner; entirely free from the vulgarity and rant which had latterly deformed his orations; noble, pathetic, eloquent, and full of grand ideas. It contained a dignified and not unjust rebuke of Fox's hasty panegyric on the French Guards who had proved false to their colours and their allegiance. It contained a declaration against despotism everywhere; against the despotism of an absolute monarch; but more especially against the despotism of a plundering, ferocious, tyrannical democracy--democracy without a single virtue of republicanism to redeem its crimes Pitt, who followed Burke, warmly expressed his admiration. "Former differences," he said, "could not preclude him expressing his strongest feelings of gratitude and reverence for the speaker of such sentiments; sentiments which would be received with the greatest esteem by his country, and would hand down. his name to posterity with respect and honour." Fox hastened to retract his former ill-advised language, and it was evident that he felt doubtful of the wisdom of the unbounded approbation he had bestowed on the French ideas of Liberty. It was evident also that he shrank from a quarrel with his old friend and colleague, by whom, he said, he had been instructed more than by all other men and books together; by whom he had been taught to love the constitution; and from whom he had acquired nearly all his political knowledge, all certainly, which was most essential, and which he most valued. Sheridan fanned into a flame the smouldering embers of dissatisfaction. Prompted partly by jealousy of Burke, partly by a ready sympathy with extreme opinions, he broke forth into extravagant praise of the French Revo

But

SEPARATION OF OLD FRIENDS.

317

lution and of the actors in it; while he charged Burke with deserting from the camp, with assaulting the principles of freedom itself; with defending a cruel tyranny; and with loving to obtrude himself as the libeller of liberty abroad. Burke then rose, and in a tone of lofty indignation remonstrated against language which ought to have been spared, were it only as a sacrifice to the ghost of departed friendship; though the language itself was not new to him, it was but a repetition of what might be perpetually heard at the reforming clubs and societies with which Sheridan had lately become entangled, and for whose plaudits he had chosen to sacrifice his friends, though he might in time find that the value of such praise was not worth the price at which it was purchased. Henceforward they were separated in politics for ever.

A reconciliation between the Whig chiefs was so important in the interests of the party that a meeting for this purpose was held at the house of the Duke of Portland; but the difference of feeling and sentiment was so great that no compromise could be effected. Fox adhered to the opinions he had already enunciated; Windham sided with Burke; and a schism took place which was not closed up for many years.

Burke did not confine himself to speeches in Parliament. His object was to arouse the country, and he betook himself, therefore, to the pen. With almost incredible industry he produced by the month of October his 'Reflections on the French Revolution;' a book of wonderful eloquence, vehement in appeal, luxuriant in imagery, often very beautiful and lofty in thought, but

318

INFLUENCE OF A MORBID IMAGINATION.

sometimes disfigured by a curious narrowness of view. Many passages of exquisite charm of style are still remembered; as, for instance :-"The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever." So, too, the fine allusion to Marie Antoinette, "And surely, never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in-glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy."

There can be no doubt that through all his speeches and writings on the French Revolution, Burke was influenced by a morbid imagination. He flung himself into the new crusade with an ardour which weakened his judgment. The heat of his passions blinded him to the impressions on his very senses. "He saw not," remarks Lord Brougham, "what all other men beheld, but what he wished to see, or what his prejudices and fancies suggested; and having once laid down a dogma, his mind. refused to acknowledge the most astounding contradictions that events could offer." Early in 1790, when she had large armies on foot, he pronounced France extinguished as regarded her external power. Even at the end of 1793 when a second attempt at foreign invasion had resulted in the absolute discomfiture of the invaders, and had aroused her whole people to threaten the liberties of Europe, he still saw in her situation nothing but "complete ruin, without the chance of resurrection was still sanguine enough to believe that when she recovered

BURKE'S DEFECTS AS A STATESMAN.

319

her nominal existence by a restoration of the monarchy, it would task all the efforts of her neighbours, by a sturdy guarantee, to keep her on her basis. It is, perhaps, less surprising that he should "confound all persons, as well as things, in his extravagant speculations" than that he should fall into so wild a delusion. "We are little astonished," says Lord Brougham, "at finding him repeatedly class the humane and chivalrous Lafayette with the monster Robespierre; but when we find him pursuing his theory, that all Atheists are Jacobins, so far as to charge Hume with being a heathen, and pressing the converse of the proposition so far as to insinuate that Priestley was an Atheist, we pause incredulous over the sad devastation which a disordered fancy can make in the finest understanding." Two great defects however, at all times, deformed Burke's character as a statesman; a want of moderation, and an incapacity for recognising the practical and expedient.

Mr. Buckle has collected a number of examples of the violence of language which Burke used at this period towards France and its people. France was "Cannibal Castle," "the republic of assassins," "a hell." Its government consisted of "the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, most knavish of chicaners." Its people were "a gang of robbers," "a desperate gang of plunderers, murderers, tyrants, and atheists," "the prostitute outcasts of mankind," "a nation of murderers." The amiable enthusiast, Lafayette, was "a horrid ruffian." Condorcet, whom Burke as a man of genius might have been expected to appreciate, was "a fanatic, atheist, and furi

320 BURKE'S EXTRAVAGANCE OF LANGUAGE.

ous democratic republican," "capable of the lowest, as well as the highest and most determined villanies." To enter into negotiations with France was "exposing our lazar sores at the door of every proud servitor of the French republic, where the court-dogs will not deign to lick them." He openly asserted that our ambassadors must necessarily be corrupted by the atmosphere of Paris. "They may easily return," he says, "as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal and faithful subjects; or with any true affection to their master, or true attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country? There is great danger that they who enter smiling into this Tryphonian cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators; and such will continue as long as they live." He denounced as a crime the learning of the French language, or travelling in France, and seems to have dreamed of cooping up his countrymen within the borders of their own island. "No young man,” he exclaimed, "can go to any part of Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and, whilst the less active part of the community will be debauched by their travel, whilst children are poisoned at their schools, our trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No factory will be settled in France that will not become a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of young men of that description will receive a taint in their religion, their morals, and their politics, which they will in a short time communicate to the whole kingdom." These quotations will show how completely Burke's intellectual balance had been shaken