: Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Burke Edmund - Essays; Speeches addresses etc.; Political science; Burke Edmund 1729-1797

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SELECTIONS FROM THE SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF EDMUND BURKE.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

"Id dico, eum qui sit orator, virum bonum esse oportere. In omnibus quae dicit tanta auctoritas inest, ut dissentire pudeat; nec advocati studium, sed testis aut judicis afferat fidem."--Quintilianus.

"Democracy is the most monstrous of all governments, because it is impossible at once to act and control; and, consequently, the Sovereign Power is then left without any restraint whatever. That form of government is the best which places the efficient direction in the hands of the aristocracy, subjecting them in its exercise to the control of the people at large."--Sir James Mackintosh.

The intellectual homage of more than half a century has assigned to Edmund Burke a lofty pre-eminence in the aristocracy of mind, and we may justly assume succeeding ages will confirm the judgment which the Past has thus pronounced. His biographical history is so popularly known, that it is almost superfluous to record it in this brief introduction. It may, however, be summed up in a few sentences. He was born at Dublin in 1730. His father was an attorney in extensive practice, and his mother's maiden name was Nogle, whose family was respectable, and resided near Castletown, Roche, where Burke himself received five years of boyish education under the guidance of a rustic schoolmaster. He was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1746, but only remained there until 1749. In 1753 he became a member of the Middle Temple, and maintained himself chiefly by literary toil. Bristol did itself the honour to elect him for her representative in 1774, and after years of splendid usefulness and mental triumph, as an orator, statesman, and patriot, he retired to his favourite retreat, Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, where he died on July 9th, 1797. He was buried here; and the pilgrim who visits the grave of this illustrious man, when he gazes on the simple tomb which marks the earthly resting place of himself, brother, son, and widow, may feelingly recall his own pathetic wish uttered some forty years before, in London:--"I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the Capulets. I should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust. The good old expression, 'family burying-ground,' has something pleasing in it, at least to me." Alluding to his approaching dissolution, he thus speaks, in a letter addressed to a relative of his earliest schoolmaster:--"I have been at Bath these four months for no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield to-morrow, to be nearer a habitation more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion." It is a source of deep thankfulness for those who reverence the genius and eloquence of this great man, to state, that Burke's religion was that of the Cross, and to find him speaking of the "Intercession" of our Redeeming Lord, as "what he had long sought with unfeigned anxiety, and to which he looked with trembling hope." The commencing paragraph in his Will also authenticates the genuine character of his personal Christianity. "According to the ancient, good, and laudable custom, of which my heart and understanding recognise the propriety, I BEQUEATH MY SOUL TO GOD, HOPING FOR HIS MERCY ONLY THROUGH THE MERITS OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. My body I desire to be buried in the church of Beaconsfield, near to the bodies of my dearest brother, and my dearest son, in all humility praying, that as we have lived in perfect unity together, we may together have part in the resurrection of the just." , are several touching allusions to that master-grief which threw a mournful shadow over the closing period of Burke's life. In one letter the anxious father says, "The fever continues much as it was. He sleeps in a very uneasy way from time to time?-but his strength decays visibly, and his voice is, in a manner, gone. But God is all-sufficient--and surely His goodness and his mother's prayers may do much" . Again, in another communication addressed to his revered correspondent, we find a beautiful allusion to his departed son, which involves his belief in that most soothing doctrine of the Church,--a recognition of souls in the kingdom of the Beatified. "Here I am in the last retreat of hunted infirmity; I am indeed 'aux abois.' But, as through the whole of a various and long life I have been more indebted than thankful to Providence, so I am now singularly so, in being dismissed, as hitherto I appear to be, so gently from life, AND SENT TO FOLLOW THOSE WHO IN COURSE OUGHT TO HAVE FOLLOWED ME, WHOM, I TRUST, I SHALL YET, IN SOME INCONCEIVABLE MANNER, SEE AND KNOW; AND BY WHOM I SHALL BE SEEN AND KNOWN" .

These five sources of the sublime, the same philosophical critic distinguishes into two classes; the first two he asserts to be gifts of nature, and the remaining three are considered to depend, in a great measure, upon literature and art. Again, if we may linger for a moment in the attractive region of classical authorship, how justly applicable are the words of Cicero in his "De Oratore," to the vastness and variety of Burke's attainments! "Ac mea quidem sententia, nemo poterit esse omni laude cumulatus orator, nisi erit OMNIUM RERUM MAGNARUM ATQUE ARTIUM SCIENTIAM CONSECUTUS."--Cic. "De Orat." lib. i. cap. 6. Equally descriptive of Burke's power in raising the dormant sensibilities of our moral nature by his intuitive perception of what that nature really and fundamentally is, are the following expressions of the same great authority:--"Quis enim nescit, maximam vim existere oratoris, in hominum mentibus vel ad iram aut ad odium, aut dolorem incitandis, vel, ab hisce, iisdem permonitionibus, ad lenitatem misericordiamque revocandis? Quare, NISI QUI NATURAS HOMINUM, VIMQUE OMNEM HUMANITATIS, CAUSASQUE EAS QUIBUS MENTES AUT EXCITANTUR, AUT REFLECTUNTUR, PENITUS PERSPEXERIT, DICENDO, QUOD VOLET, PERFICERE NON POTERIT."--Cic. "De Orat." lib. i. cap. 12.

But to return. If a critical analysis of Burke, as an exhibition of genius, be attempted, his characteristic endowments may, probably, be not incorrectly represented by the following succinct statement.

But when we assert that these excellencies, which have thus been succinctly exhibited, characterise the mental constitution of Burke, we do not mean that others have not, in their degree, possessed similar endowments. Such an inference would be an absurd extravagance. But what we mean to affirm is--the qualifications enumerated have never been combined into co-operative harmony, and developed in proportionable effect, as they appear in the speeches and writings of this wonderful man. But after all, we have not reached what may be considered a peerless excellence, the peculiar gift,--the one great and glorious distinction, which separates Burke's oratory from that of all others, and which has caused his speeches to be blended with political History, and to incorporate themselves with the moral destiny of Europe,--namely, HIS INTUITIVE PERCEPTION OF UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES. The truth of this statement may be verified, by comparing the eloquence of Burke with specimens of departed orators; or by a reference to existing standards in the parliamentary debates. Compared, then, either with the speeches of Chatham, Holland, Pitt, Fox, etc. etc., we perceive at once the grand distinction to which we refer. These illustrious men were effective debaters, and, in various senses, orators of surpassing excellency. But how is it, that with all their allowed grandeur of intellect and political eminence, they have ceased to operate upon the hearts and minds of the present Age, either as teachers of political Truth, or oracles of legislative Wisdom? Simply, BECAUSE they were too popular in temporary effect, ever to become influential by permanent inspiration. In their highest moods, and amid their noblest hours of triumph, they were "of the earth earthy." Party; personality; crushing rejoinders, or satirical attacks; a felicitous exposure of inconsistency, or a triumphant self-vindication; brilliant repartees, and logical gladiatorship,--such are among the prominent characteristics which caused parliamentary debates in Burke's day to be so animating and interesting to those who heard, or perused them, amid the excitements of the hour. It is not to be denied that commanding eloquence, vast genius, political ardour, intellectual enthusiasm, together with indignant denunciation and argumentative subtlety, were thus summoned into exercise by the perils of the Nation, and the contentions of Party. Nevertheless, the local, the temporal, the conventional, and the individual, in all which relates to the science of politics or the tactics of partisanship,--are sufficient to excite and employ the energies and qualities which made the general parliamentary debates of Burke's period so captivating. But when we revert to his own speeches and writings, we at once perceive WHY, as long as the mind can comprehend what is true, the heart appreciate what is pure, or the conscience authenticate the sanction of heaven and the distinctions between right and wrong,--Edmund Burke will continue to be admired, revered, and consulted, not only as the greatest of English orators, but as the profoundest teacher of political Science. It was not that he despised the arrangement of facts, or overlooked the minutiae of detail; on the contrary, as may be proved by his speeches on "economical reform," and Warren Hastings; in these respects his research was boundless, and his industry inexhaustible. Moreover, he was quite alive to the claims of a crisis, and with the coolness and calm of a practical statesman, knew how to confront a sudden emergency, and to contend with a gigantic difficulty. Yet all these qualifications recede before Burke's amazing power of expanding particulars into universals, and of associating the accidents of a transient discussion with the essential properties of some permanent Law in policy, or abstract Truth in morals. His genius looked through the local to the universal; in the temporal perceived the eternal; and while facing the features of the Individual, was enabled to contemplate the attributes of a Race. Hence his speeches are virtual prophecies; and his writings a storehouse of pregnant axioms and predictive enunciations, as limitless in their range as they are undying in duration. In one word, no speeches delivered in the English Parliament, are so likely to be eternalized as Burke's, because he has combined with his treatment of some especial case or contingency before him, the assertion of immutable Principles, which can be detached from what is local and national, and thus made to stand forth alone in all the naked grandeur of their truth and their tendency. Let us be permitted to investigate this topic a little further. If, then, what Quintilian asserted of the Roman orator may be applied to our own British Cicero,--"Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit;" and if, moreover, this pre-eminence be chiefly discovered in Burke's instinctive grasp of that moral essence which is incorporated with all questions of political Science, and social Ethics--from WHENCE came this diviner energy of his Genius? No believer in Christian revelation will hesitate to appropriate, even to this subject, the apostolic axiom, "EVERY good gift, and EVERY perfect gift is from above." But while we subscribe with reverential sincerity to this announcement, it is equally true, that the Infinite Inspirer of all good adjusts His secret energies by certain laws, and condescends to work by analogous means. Bearing this in mind, we venture to think Burke's gift of almost prescient insight into the recesses of our common nature, and his consummate faculty of instructing the Future through the medium of the Present,--were partly derived from the elevation of his sentiments, and the purity of his private life. It would be unwise to draw invidious comparisons, but no student of the period in which Burke was in Parliament, can deny that, compared with SOME of his illustrious contemporaries, he was indeed a model of what reason and conscience alike approve in all the relative duties and personal conduct of a man, when beheld in his domestic career. It is, indeed, a source of deep thankfulness, the admirer of Burke's genius in public, has no reason to blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to his matchless oratory upon the arena of the House of Commons, we have not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles of private history. Our theory, then, is, that beyond what his distinctive genius inspired, Burke's wondrous power of enunciating everlasting principles and of associating the loftiest abstractions of wisdom with the commonest themes of the hour,--was sustained and strengthened by the purity of his heart, and the subjection of passion to the law of conscience. And if the worshippers of mere intellect, apart from, or as opposed to, moral elevation, are inclined to ridicule this view of Burke's genius, we beg to remind them, that "One greater than the Temple" of mortal Wisdom, and all the idols enshrined therein, has asserted a positive connection to exist between mental insight and moral purity. We allude to the Redeemer's words, when He declares,--"If any man WILLS to do His will, he shall KNOW of the doctrine." HOW the passions act upon our perceptions, and by what process the motions of the Will elevate or depress the forces of the Intellect, is beyond our metaphysics to analyse. But that there exists a real, active, and influential connection between our moral and mental life, is undeniable: and since Burke's power of seizing the essential Idea, or fundamental Principle of every complex detail which came before him, was pre-eminently his gift,--the intellectual insight such gift developed, was not only an expression of senatorial wisdom, but also a witness for the elevation of his moral character. We must now allude to the public conduct of Burke, as a Statesman and Politician, and only regret the limited range of a popular essay confines us to one view, namely, his alleged inconsistency. There WAS a period when charges of apostasy were brought against him with reckless audacity: but Time, the instructor of ignorance, and the subduer of prejudice, is now beginning to place the conduct of Burke in its true light. The facts of the case are briefly these. Up to the period of 1791, Fox and Burke fought in the same rank of opposition, and stood together upon a basis of complete identity in principle and sentiment. But even before the celebrated disruption of 1791, the progress of Republicanism in America, and the approaching separation of the colonies from their parent state, Burke's views of political liberty had received extensive modifications; and the ardour of his confidence in the so-called friends of freedom had been greatly cooled. But in 1791, the disruption between Burke and Fox became open, absolute, and final, when the latter statesman uttered, in the hearing of his friend, this fearful eulogium on the French Revolution:--"The new constitution of France is the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any age or country!" The reply of Burke to this burst of Jacobinism, with all its consequences in the political history of Europe, is far too well known to be quoted here. But, since it was at this point in the career of Burke the charge of apostasy was commenced, and which has never quite died away, even in existing times, we may be permitted, first, to cite a noble passage from Burke's self-vindication; and secondly, to adduce a still more impressive evidence of his political rectitude and wisdom, derived from the admission of those who were once his uncompromising opponents. In relation to the attacks of Fox upon his supposed inconsistency, Mr. Burke thus replies:--

"I pass to the next head of charge,--Mr. Burke's inconsistency. It is certainly a great aggravation of his fault in embracing false opinions, that in doing so he is not supposed to fill up a void, but that he is guilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and laudable. This is the great gist of the charge against him. It is not so much that he is wrong in his book , as that he has therein belied his whole life. I believe, if he could venture to value himself upon anything, it is on the virtue of consistency that he would value himself the most. Strip him of this, and you leave him naked indeed.

"In the case of any man who had written something, and spoken a great deal, upon very multifarious matter, during upwards of twenty-five years' public service, and in as great a variety of important events as perhaps have ever happened in the same number of years, it would appear a little hard, in order to charge such a man with inconsistency, to see collected by his friend, a sort of digest of his sayings, even to such as were merely sportive and jocular. This digest, however, has been made, with equal pains and partiality, and without bringing out those passages of his writings which might tend to show with what restrictions any expressions, quoted from him, ought to have been understood. From a great statesman he did not quite expect this mode of inquisition. If it only appeared in the works of common pamphleteers, Mr. Burke might safely trust to his reputation. When thus urged, he ought, perhaps, to do a little more. It shall be as little as possible, for I hope not much is wanting. To be totally silent on his charges would not be respectful to Mr. Fox. Accusations sometimes derive a weight from the persons who make them, to which they are not entitled for their matter. "A man who, among various objects of his equal regard, is secure of some, and full of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to much greater lengths in his preference of the objects of his immediate solicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced often seems to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and disown, those that are out of danger. This is the voice of nature and truth, and not of inconsistency and false pretence. The danger of anything very dear to us removes, for the moment, every other affection from the mind. When Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his Hector, he repels with indignation, and drives from him with a thousand reproaches, his surviving sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him to offer their assistance. A good critic would say, that this is a master-stroke, and marks a deep understanding of nature in the father of poetry. He would despise a Zoilus, who would conclude from this passage that Homer meant to represent this man of affliction as hating, or being indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relics of his house, or that he preferred a dead carcass to his living children.

"Mr. Burke does not stand in need of an allowance of this kind, which, if he did, by candid critics ought to be granted to him. If the principles of a mixed constitution be admitted, he wants no more to justify to consistency everything he has said and done during the course of a political life just touching to its close. I believe that gentleman has kept himself more clear of running into the fashion of wild, visionary theories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than any man perhaps ever did in the same situation.

"He was the first man who, on the hustings, at a popular election, rejected the authority of instructions from constituents; or who, in any place, has argued so fully against it. Perhaps the discredit into which that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our constitution is since fallen, may be due, in a great degree, to his opposing himself to it in that manner, and on that occasion.

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