querors and tyrants who have oppressed mankind." It is surprising that a man so well informed as BURKE, should have thought such scurrility necessary to his cause; but it is more surprising that he should venture to speak thus of Mr. Hastings, who was at least as well born and educated as himself, being a branch of an ancient stock, and brought up at Westminster school. Even had his origin been as low as his accuser represented it, the circumstance of his birth ought not to have been mentioned to his disparagement, and that too in the presence of many persons, among both the peers and the managers, who had no more right to boast of their lineage than Mr. Hastings. In the same bad taste Mr. BURKE compared the accused to the keeper of a pigstye, and in another part of his speech to the Devil. "Mr. Hastings," he said, "was worse than Satan, for the evil spirit showed the kingdoms of the world to the Great Author of our sacred religion, in order that he might enjoy them; but he, (turning to the prisoner at the bar) gave the provinces of Hindostan into the possession of men appointed by himself, for the purpose of destroying them."

Many other things in the same strain disgraced the speech and the orator, but in the conclusion BURKE rose to an elegance of language and dignity of spirit, worthy of his genius.

"My lords," said he, "the commons wait the issue of this cause with trembling solicitude. Twenty-two years have they been employed in it, seven of which have passed in this trial. They behold the dearest interests of their country deeply involved in it; they feel that the very existence of this constitution depends upon it. Your lordships' justice stands preeminent in the world, but it stands amidst a vast heap of ruins, which surround it in every corner of Europe. If you slacken justice, and thereby weaken the bonds of society, the well-tempered authority of this court, which I trust in God will continue to the end of time, must receive a fatal wound, that no balm can cure, that no time can restore.

"My lords, it is not the criminality of the prisoner, it is not the claims of the commons, to demand judgment to be passed upon him, it is not the honour and dignity of this court, and the welfare of millions of the human race, that alone

call upon you. When the devouring flames shall have destroyed this perishable globe, and it sinks into the abyss of Nature, from whence it was commanded into existence by the Great Author of it; then, my lords, when all nature, kings and judges themselves, must answer for their actions, there will be found what supersedes creation itself, namely, ETERNAL JUSTICE! It was the attribute of the great GOD OF NATURE before worlds were; it will reside with him when they perish; and the earthly portion of it committed to your care, is now solemnly deposited in your hands by the commons of England. I have done."

We must now turn to another prominent period in the political life of Mr. BURKE, but it is one which all his admirers and biographers hitherto have been desirous of throwing into shade, as though only the talents and virtues of a great man were to be noticed, and his failings were to be buried in oblivion. This would be to pervert the end of history, which is moral improvement, and no dependence could be placed on the delineation of any character, if the bright side of it alone were to be exhibited to public view. Such a course may be adopted properly enough, in regard to private persons, but the actions of statesmen are the materials of history; and, therefore, must be faithfully represented, to guard posterity from delusion.

At the latter end of the year 1788, the suspension of the royal functions rendered a meeting of parliament indispensable, to provide for the exigency of the case. Mr. Fox, the leader of the opposition, and the confidential friend of the prince of Wales, happened to be then in Italy, but a messenger being despatched to apprize him of the necessity of his presence, he hastened home without delay, and immediately began an active opposition to the minister. Mr. BURKE was equally zealous and enterprising on this occasion, but the conduct of the two leaders of the hostile ranks was so impetuous, that Mr. Pitt had soon an opportunity of throwing them into confusion, and of establishing an imperishable credit for himself, upon the very ground which they took to accomplish his overthrow. Mr. Fox claimed for the heir-apparent the indefeisible right of assuming the exercise of the regal authority, whenever there should be a suspension of moral power in the sove

reign to discharge the functions of his office. This was strange doctrine to come from a Whig, and, if admitted, would subvert at once the principles laid down at the Revolution, and those which settled the house of Brunswick on the throne. Yet preposterous as it was, Mr. BURKE defended it with his wonted energy, and assailed the minister in virulent language, for presuming to say, in opposition to it, that the prince of Wales had no more right to take upon himself the regency, without a previous call from parliament, than the humblest individual in the country. Had Mr. BURKE been satisfied with attacking the officers of the crown, some allowance might have been made for his intemperance; but when he ventured to speak of the afflicted monarch in the coarsest terms of disrespect, the members on both sides of the house of commons, who were accustomed to hear him with delight, felt a thrill of horror, and involuntarily uttered an expression of abhorrence. This, however, had not the salutary effect of restraining the passions of the orator within the bounds of moderation. On the contrary, he went on from day to day, as long as the question of the regency lasted, in the same imprudent manner, never mentioning the calamitous situation of the king, but with an air that carried the appearance of triumph, rather than of commiseration. At one time he spoke of the malady as a judgment, and said that "The Almighty had hurled the king from his throne;" with an allusion not very delicately expressed to the case of Nebuchadnezzar. This conduct gave universal offence, and while it lowered the orator in the public opinion, did injury to the party with whom he acted, and to the cause which he so imprudently advocated. At length Mr. Fox took the alarm, and would have retraced his steps, by qualifying the language that had been used, and reducing the high claims which had been set up by himself and his friends. But it was too late, for the minister finding his strength, and probably irritated at the coarse manner in which he had been treated, was determined to bring the question of right to an issue. The opposition then endeavoured to make it out that the case of the king was irremediable, and to support this conclusion, they adduced the authority of Dr. Warren, who was the only one of the court physicians, that

ventured to pronounce the malady hopeless. This judgment was opposed by Dr. Willis, whose whole practice having been directed to mental diseases, gave superior weight to his opinion. Mr. BURKE, however strenuously contended that Willis was no better than an empiric, and that Dr. Warren was an oracle, upon whose decision the fullest reliance ought to be placed. One important benefit that resulted from these contentions, was, the delay which they necessarily occasioned.

In the mean time the state of the royal patient began to amend, and while his condition was represented as hopeless, by the eager politicians, who were anticipating the attainment of power, under the benignant rays of the rising sun, the sudden intelligence burst upon them, that no regency would take place, for that the king was sufficiently recovered to discharge his public duties. Thus terminated the expectations, but not the labours, of Mr. BURKE ; for a new and wonderful scene was now opening upon the great theatre of the world, to call his genius into a wider sphere of action, and a nobler display of his powers, than any in which he had hitherto been engaged. At the time when the British nation, and its dependencies, exhibited the most glowing spirit of loyalty towards their sovereign, a spectacle of quite an opposite description was going on in France. The seeds of a Revolution had long been sown there, and now the sanguinary harvest began in the degradation of the mildest monarch that ever sat on a throne; whose only fault lay in yielding too flexibly to the ever varying and turbulent passions of a capricious people. Mr. BURKE, from his acquaintance with the French character in general, and his observations on the mischievous tendency of metaphysical principles, when applied to the science of government, could not avoid seeing the consequences of this fermentation on its first appearance. While, therefore, numbers in England and elsewhere were looking with surprise to the mutations which the professors of the new philosophy were, with surprising dexterity, bringing about from day to day, at Paris, the penetrating mind of our illustrious statesman was engaged in examining the secret springs and practical influence of these marvellous changes. Instead of being dazzled by these false lights, and misled

by them, as too many were, into a desire of following them, he stood with firmness on the solid ground of experimental truth, and pointed out the deceitfulness of that Serbonian bog, which was the object of general wonder. At a very early period of the Revolution he expressed his sentiments upon it, to several of his friends, abroad and at home. One of his correspondents in France having solicited his opinion more in detail, Mr. BURKE drew up a long letter in compliance with his desire; but finding that the subject continued to be pregnant with fresh matter every week, and that as he proceeded in watching the agitated elements, the more alarming the prospect became, he extended his observations, till that which was meant for an epistle became a volume. He now thought, and justly, that the influenza of revolutionary principles called for a powerful antidote, on which account, and neither with a view to profit nor popularity, he sent his "Reflections on the French Revolution," to the press. The effect produced was so electrical, that in a few months several thousand copies were sold; and though, as was to be expected, a host of antagonists rose up in arms against the author, all agreed in paying a tribute to his genius. Among the rest, Dr. Samuel Parr having had occasion in one of his fugitive tracts to notice this performance, expressed himself in this remarkable manner: "Upon the first perusal of Mr. BURKE's book, I felt, like many other men, its magic force, and, like many other men, I was at last delivered from the illusions which had 'cheated my reason,' and borne me onward from admiration to assent. But, though the dazzling spell be now dissolved, I still remember with pleasure the gay and celestial visions, when my mind in sweet madness was robbed of itself.' I still look back, with a mixture of pity and holy awe, to the wizard himself, who having lately broken his wand in a start of phrenzy, has shortened the term of his sorceries; and of drugs so potent to 'bathe the spirits in delight,' I must still acknowledge, that many were culled from the choicest and most virtuous plants of Paradise itself."

The phrenzy to which the philosophical divine here alluded, was the conduct of Mr. BURKE in the house of commons, where he seized every opportunity of

warning his countrymen against the dangerous influence of French principles. He first drew the attention of the senate to this great subject at the commencement of the session in 1790, when the army estimates came under consideration. On that occasion Mr. Fox, in opposing the military establishment as being too high, adverted to the state of France, and in terms of exultation eulogized the Revolution that had taken place. Mr. BURKE rose upon this, and though he considered the proposed establishment as unnecessarily high, because England had nothing to apprehend from the powers of Europe, one of the most formidable of them having been blotted out of the map, yet he could not avoid noticing and differing with the principles professed by his friend. So far from agreeing that the examples of France were objects for imitation, he reprobated them as extremely pernicious, and even more dangerous than all her hostility. In the reign of the fourteenth Louis, they set an example of splendid despotism; in that of the sixteenth Louis, they had set one infinitely more dangerous; they had shown the way to innovation and destructive speculation; they had set an example by the establishment of a bloody, ferocious, and tyrannical democracy; they had destroyed in the space of two months, more than ages would restore; they had madly pulled down their monarchy-destroyed their church-annihilated their lawsruined the discipline of their army-put an end to their commerce; and by the exertions of a desperate faction, established, in the place of order, anarchy and confusion. They had an army without a head, accountable to no one, making their own will the law, to which the national assembly were forced to submit;-and yet, this Revolution, this army, was to be compared to the British Revolution. "It was, however," said Mr. BURKE, "a false comparison; for the Revolution in England was against a king, who was taking the first steps to make himself absolute; the Revolution in France was against a king who was taking the first steps to make his people free. The Revolution in England was not carried on for the subversion of the Constitution, but for its preservation; all order, and all the ties of civil government were not destroyed, but strengthened;

and England held up her head prouder on that event, than she had ever done before. England by her Revolution maintained her natural aristocracy, as well as the aristocracy of the people; France in her Revolution had destroyed aristocracy, and involved herself in depth of ruin." Mr. BURKE further observed, "That he could not well tell what they had done; but they had by their Revolution destroyed every bond of social order and regular government. They had separated the people from their king-tenants from their landlords servants from their mastersand in a word, done a deed without a name."

Mr. Fox, in reply, endeavoured to soften down the warmth of his friend by a moderate explanation; but Sheridan appeared to take a delight in widening the breach, for he immediately condemned the speech of BURKE, as disgraceful to an Englishman, as supporting despotism, and as libelling those who were virtuously engaged in obtaining the rights of men.

It was impossible to sit silent under such an attack, and it was not in the nature of BURKE to bear a blow of this kind without a retort. He rose, and said, "That for some time he had apprehended that the affairs of France would be productive of a division among many in that house, who had frequently acted together; he had not, however, expected that upon a separation being about to take place between himself and that honourable gentleman whom he used to call his friend, that he would have treated him so harshly, so unjustly, and so unbecomingly, as he had done, in imputing to him a conduct, of which he had never been guilty. He was no supporter of despotism, but a firm defender of a well-mixed monarchy. He was no libeller of freemen, or any other class of men, but he reprobated, as he always would do, the conduct of ferocious, bloody, and desperate democracies." Mr. BURKE then proceeded to observe, "That there were persons in this country, who would be happy to promote innovation, and he cautioned the house against them. He entreated them to be on their guard, and to maintain as sacred the ground of the Constitution." Mr. BURKE concluded by declaring, that from henceforward he would never have any intercourse with Sheridan, but leave him to

enjoy his little popularity, and the mean applause of his clubs.

The schism now became more extended, and the opposition were divided into two parties, one headed by Fox, and the other by BURKE. In less than a month after the angry discussion here mentioned, the former brought forward a motion for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, which BURKE opposed, and in his speech again drew a fearful picture of the state of France, which country he still thought was the most miserable upon earth. In justification of the vote, which he meant to give on the present occasion, he said that some parties here had, like the French, got possession of the words NATIONAL RIGHTS, and on this they relied as their strongest hold. "But," said Mr. BURKE, "I have from my earliest years turned with aversion from all these chimerical and abstract rights, which have for some time past confounded human reason, and disturbed the imagination of statesmen. At the age of twenty, I thought that all abstract rights, natural rights, and such nonsense, were unfit for men to hear; and now, that my hair is silvered by age, I am more and more confirmed in my abhorrence and disgust of them. Natural rights are dangerous topics of discussion, for they supersede all social duties. They are paramount to the compact which introduced into the community new rights and other ideas. They bring us back to that stage of savage helplessness, when, whatever may be our rights, we enjoy them but precariously, depending on casual circumstances for the miserable indulgence of beastly appetite and ferocious passion. Society annihilates all those natural rights, and draws to its mass all the component parts of which these rights are made up. It takes in all the virtue of the good, and all the wisdom of the wise; it gives life, support, and action, to every faculty of the soul, and secures the possession of every comfort which these proud and boasting natural rights impotently hold out, but cannot ascertain. Society finds protection for all-it gives defence to the weak-employment to the industrious-consolation to the distressed; it nurses the infant, and it soothes the dying. In all the stages of the life of man, where either the instilment of principles or the consolations of hope are

wanting, society is ready; and to confer this succour, an established religion is a powerful and necessary instrument." Upon these solid principles, Mr. BURKE resisted the claims of the Dissenters in the present case, and defended the bulwarks which had been framed for the security of the national church. Though it was evident that the bond of union no longer subsisted between the two leaders of the opposition, the forms of courtesy were still kept up till the next session, when the bill for the government of Canada having brought the subject of the Revolution again into discussion, Mr. BURKE, in an elaborate speech, entered on the general principles of legislation, repeated what he had before observed on natural rights, and expressed his conviction, that there was a league formed in this country, the design of which was to subvert the Constitution.

Mr. Fox, after declaring his opinion, that the French Revolution was one of the most glorious events in the history of mankind, proceeded to denounce the doctrines of Mr. BURKE as inimical to liberty, and contrary to the sentiments formerly maintained by his right honourable friend. This charge of inconsistency, or rather of apostacy, provoked a reply, in the course of which, Mr. BURKE said," Mr. Fox has treated me with harshness and malignity; after harassing me with his light troops in the skirmishes of order, he has brought the heavy artillery of his own great abilities to destroy

me."

Mr. BURKE then went over the ground again, and maintained that the new French system was replete with anarchy, impiety, vice, and misery; that the principles which he now advanced were in perfect unison with the creed which he had always professed, and to which he would inflexibly adhere as long as he lived. "Hitherto," said he, "Mr. Fox and myself have often differed upon slight matters, without a loss of friendship on either side; but there is something in this cursed French Revolution that envenoms every thing." Mr. Fox upon this whispered, "There is no loss of friendship between us." But Mr. BURKE, instead of being softened by this conciliatory remark, exclaimed, "There is! I know the price of my conduct: our friendship is at an end!" This unexpected declaration had

such an effect upon the nerves of Mr. Fox, that he let drop some tears, while he endeavoured to appease the irritated mind of his old associate. But neither the concessions which he made, nor the interposing kindness of others, could bring about a reconciliation; and from that moment these two great men became almost as much strangers, as if there had never been the least intimacy between them.

Without going so far as to say, that the conduct of Mr. BURKE on this memoble occasion was free from blame, much must be allowed to the warmth of his feelings, and to much praise he is entitled, on the ground of general patriotism. He certainly had reason to complain, if not of Mr. Fox, yet of those with whom that gentleman maintained the most familiar intercourse. These subalterns were in the constant habit, through various channels, of impeaching Mr. BURKE before the bar of the public, and accusing him of a dereliction of principles; while Mr. Fox was panegyrised for his firmness, in adhering to the sound Whig doctrine of "The Rights of the People."

Upon this, Mr. BURKE drew up and published his "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," in which, after taking such a review of his political life as was necessary to his justification from the charge of apostacy, he entered into an historical discussion of the fundamental principles on which the English Revolution was established.

In the mean time his active mind was intent upon the proceedings going on in France, and every day brought a melancholy proof of the correctness of the opinion which at the beginning he had formed and expressed, of the awful change that had taken place. He was much affected by the condition of the French clergy, who were among the first sufferers by the Revolution. For those exiles of this venerable order, who sought and found an asylum in this country, Mr. BURKE exerted himself with benevolent alacrity; and while his calumniators were courting an alliance with the persecutors, he employed all the means that were in his power to relieve the afflicted.

This liberality procured him the thanks of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of France, conveyed to him by the archbishop of Aix; in return for which Mr. BURKE wrote to that prelate the following letter: