of Englishmen. The honesty of his alarms at the danger of the contagion of French doctrines, and of jacobinical anarchy, has been, and will continue to be, questioned; but it can scarcely be disputed that, in pursuing his purpose of denouncing the influence of revolutionary France, he did profoundly examine the true principles of the British constitution, and explain its genuine excellence with a force of argument and a wealth of illustration of which our preceding political literature had exhibited no example. He made it an object of affection and of reverence on the higher grounds of reason and of philosophy; and by displaying in the strongest light the value of the possession, he rendered the possible loss of it a more active and more general cause of apprehension. It might ☐ be true, however paradoxical, that in exposing the crimes and the excesses of another nation in the pursuit of the very advantages which Englishmen actually enjoyed, he had conferred no benefit on Englishmen; but to have diffused a more perfect understanding of our own system, in its details as in its general principles, more enlarged yet more practical views of its real spiritabove all to have confirmed the national feeling of its superiority over specious theories and metaphysical dreams-this was a national service not limited to that crisis of revolutionary phrenzy, but splendid in the highest degree, and lasting as the existence of the English Constitution itself. Henceforth it was as easy to disprove the existence of that constitution, as its value; and in the merit of having rooted this principle of national faith and personal devotion more firmly in the hearts of his countrymen, Burke stands alone and far above all competition.

It is now a truism to assert, that to this unshaken attachment to her established institutions, rather than to the resources of finance, of armies and of navies, England was mainly indebted for her success, and therefore for her present station and her present security. This was the vital source of her triumph; that salient living principle of energy in the public mind of England, which, as Burke expressed it with his latest breath, left him no fears for the result. This alone can explain the constant and enduring spirit of the people throughout the alarms and privations of a contest, of which his prescience, and his alone, had not ill calculated the duration. Even among those who had direct influence on the management of the national resources, there were, we may believe, in the course of the long and dreary contest, moments enough of doubt, if not despondency. What then but this living and universal principle, this national instinct of elasticity, admitting no compromise and limited to no time, could have unfailingly encouraged the timid, confirmed the wavering, repressed the malevolent? To the constitution of England, of whose advantages he

VOL. XXXIV. NO. LXVI11.

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was in himself no mean illustration, Burke thus nobly and effectually discharged the debt of grateful genius.

But the beneficial influence of his writings is not confined to their political effect: they inculcate a tone of manly morality, as distant from any rigid and puritanical austerity, as it is from the heartless levity, the profligate selfishness of the revolutionary school. No professed writer on ethics has supplied rules of conduct or principles of action, better adapted to the various conditions and exigencies of life. Their uniform tendency is to inspire the active and social spirit becoming the citizens of a free nation; to connect more closely the interests of the individual with those of his country, to render the motives to integrity and patriotism as attractive as they are powerful. His maxims have all the force without the pomp of Johnson. An intimate experience of the true springs of human actions gives to them the truth and the animation of real life. Let them be compared with the political Essays of Lord Bolingbroke, who, forgotten as a philosopher, still maintains his station as a model of political writing. Burke commenced his literary career by proving that he could expose and refute Bolingbroke's flimsy doctrines, while he could surpass the beauty of his composition; and he concluded it by a vindication of civil society, which has most powerfully contributed to set at rest the questions agitated by an unsound and a mischievous philosophy.

The principal and the most popular censures of Burke's writings, whether in point of literary taste, or of political doctrine, may be comprised in the word exaggeration. We cannot refrain from suggesting some few reflections on this criticism. That they are guilty of an occasional diffuseness, manifestly not the result of any barrenness or any languor of ideas, but of an intense anxiety to impress his own opinions on the reason and the passions of mankind, we most willingly admit. It would also be absurd to deny, that his metaphors are sometimes harsh and strained to a degree not entirely excused by their forcible illustration of his meaning; or that his propositions themselves are sometimes carried to a faulty extreme in taste and in reasoning. But does all this, in truth, amount to more than a superfluous proof, that in ardour of temperament, the heartfelt and zealous attachment to a favourite cause may overcome the severer rules of the judgment? No author has explained more clearly or more rationally than Burke himself, the principles of taste which he may too frequently be accused of violating. Nay, if we examine what are more strictly his literary works the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautifulthe Vindication of Natural Society-the Introduction to the History of England-or even his earlier political writings, we shall admit them to be free from these defects in sentiment and in composition. They have less of rhetorical amplification, are more simple in the language, more temperate in description and in statement, though not less powerful in argument, than his later productions. What then is the cause of this difference, which it were idle to attribute to chance, or to any depravation of taste? Assuming the honesty of his motives, and without this concession it is useless to reason on the subject, we must be sensible that it was the main object of Burke to excite the fears, and to stimulate the energies of that class in society, whom the security of possession and the habit of inaction render the least susceptible of such impressions. No calm and languid description, no reasoning 'coldly correct,' could effect this purpose-could convince them either of his sincerity and zeal, or of their own danger. It is unnatural as well as unwise to employ the same language and the same tone of feeling in order to rescue a person from some great and imminent peril, which would be adequate to a situation of common and triflingrisk. But over and above this reason in the very nature of the particular case, it is vain to expect that an author or an orator in attacking any system, to the vices and the dangers of which he is acutely sensible, should not often in appearance, and at times in reality, be guilty of some exaggeration. We may observe, that individuals whose sincerity and whose taste are equally remote from suspicion, fall continually into this practice, and scarcely admit that it requires any defence. The language of an opposition in parliament, whatever may be their tenets, must be more deeply coloured, more impassioned and bordering on the extreme, than that of government, or, in other words, of the defensive party :Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.' Nor should it be forgotten that, in the system of principles which Burke laboured to expose and to defeat, all was exaggeration. The principles of freedom, the doctrines of metaphysics-the jealousy of property, of rank, of priestly influence, were all carried to the most extravagant degree. We are not contending that this justified the employment of the same weapons by the adversary of the whole system; but it would obviously have been unwise if not impossible to attempt such a contest with nothing more than the moderate resources of opposition to definite evil.

To assert in general terms that these writings, aided by the personal example of the man, constituted a most effectual defence of the religion, the civil institutions, and the very frame of society in England, conveys no distinct notion of Burke's peculiar merit. Many statesmen and many writers may justly share with him in such glory. The greatest service which he effected for England and for the world was, in our opinion, the exposure and the refutation of

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that mock morality, which, assuming to be a fit substitute for religion itself, directly tended to overturn all morals, and every mode of faith. This was a disorder, perfectly distinct from the political evils of the French revolution, and of which no precautions of law or of arms could prevent the contagion. A very superficial observer may perceive some remains of it in our own times. Rejecting the plain and manly distinctions between right and wrong, it inverts the natural course of human feelings. All the objects of philanthropy become valuable in the proportion of their distance. The plainest interests of our country are to be risked for some presumed advantage to other nations; and if that advantage should happen to take the shape of a revolution, no enterprize can be rash, no risks are unreasonable. But let it be admitted that the object of pursuit is in itself an indisputable good; this peculiar morality rejects all discretion in the employment of means to attain it, and considers moderation and caution as treason to the cause. The very worst principles of the Jesuits are thus revived by those whose old stock of merit is founded on their resistance to Jesuitry: -though among these heirs sometimes, by a curious perversion, it is not that the end sanctifies the means-but that the means appear to increase in value, as they increase the hazard of missing the attainment of the end itself. No restraints of truth, no calculation of consequences, are to be admitted. Neither the unalterable nature of things, neither justice nor humanity are permitted to obstruct for an instant the favourite purpose. Such is the sickly but still mischievous offspring of the spurious virtue, which Burke encountered with all the force of his learning, his wit, and his philosophy; which in private as in public would exalt sentiment above reason; and delights to sacrifice all existing interests, all actual and palpable good to the success of a general principle.

It was a special merit of Burke's, in the cause which he had undertaken, to quit the defensive topics, the ordinary resource of that cause, and to attack with vigorous spirit and with equal dexterity the strongest bulwarks of his adversaries. In the moment of most critical suspense he, like some bold captain setting his life upon a cast, cheered his adherents by the proof, that the defence of society, property, religion did not of necessity exclude the alacrity and the confidence, which were then employed in assailing them. By enlisting all the powers of imagination and of ridicule in the cause of rational freedom and of social order, he achieved the same service for the political feelings of his countrymen, which Addison had achieved for the improvement of their manners. The topics of his eloquence and the very principles which he defended are displeasing to a large

:

large class of mankind, as trite and dull in themselves, as leading to no distinction and capable of no novelty. To support established institutions and existing systems; to defend these on the ground not of their own perfection, but because, with all their admitted imperfections, they are preferable to the proposed reforms, is' obviously not a task so easy or so captivating as the opposite course of attack: for on this side of the question, over and above the want of enterprize, the common effect of possession, there prevails widely, even among the most purehearted men, the fear of the clamorous imputation of self-interest, a corrupt attachment to abuses, at the best a stupid passion for antiquity. The defence therefore requires not only greater discretion, but often greater courage, than the attack; and that courage could not at any period of history be more necessary or more severely tried, than at the crisis, when fashion, and interest, and power, combined to recommend experiments in society and in government; when it seemed natural to confound, in one common censure, institutions evidently vicious and inadequate to the advance of nations in knowledge and civilization, with those which, though ancient, and not faultless, contain in themselves the principle of their own improvement. It was at such a moment that the various, yet correct information, the prophetic acumen, the fervid eloquence of Burke cast a new dignity and an unknown grace of brilliancy on his cause. He rendered it as attractive to the aristocracies of intellect and refinement, as in the nature of things it must ever be to those of blood and wealth; and, when we consider that the philosophers had then become the political rulers of France, and were labouring, not without abundant symptoms of suc to secure the same power over all the nations of Europe-it is not easy to calculate the value of such an advocate. Let us suppose, for a moment, that Burke had given the sanction of his great name to the doctrines of the French revolution at their first eruption; that, in alliance with Thomas Paine and Brissot, he had devoted the resources of his mighty genius to overturn the ranks of society, and to secure the admission and the success of the jacobinical principles in England. Perhaps it was the infirmity of his mind to carry all his opinions to their utmost extreme. With this disposition, with his commanding influence in his own party, and in the nation, can we venture to limit the effect of such an example? Can we be rash in the assertion, that the mind, so singularly powerful in defending and preserving the free institutions of England, would have been most formidably-if not equally-efficient in the work of ruin? We are by no means anxious to enlarge on the hypothetical case, and we desire to draw from it only this inference: that in adjusting our praise and our gratitude to the real merits, the recorded

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