Chapter VII (7)

[826] In his _Thoughts on French Affairs_, written in 1791, he says, 'At
no period in the history of England have so few peers been taken
out of trade, or from families newly created by commerce.'
_Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 566. Indeed, according to Sir
Nathaniel Wraxall (_Posthumous Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 66, 67,
Lond. 1836), the only instance when George III. broke this rule
was when Smith the banker was made Lord Carrington. Wraxall is an
indifferent authority, and there may be other cases; but they
were certainly very few, and I cannot call any to mind.

It would be endless to collect all the symptoms which mark the political degeneracy of England during this period; a degeneracy the more striking, because it was opposed to the spirit of the time, and because it took place in spite of a great progress, both social and intellectual. How that progress eventually stopped the political reaction, and even forced it to retrace its own steps, will appear in another part of this work; but there is one circumstance which I cannot refrain from noticing at some length, since it affords a most interesting illustration of the tendency of public affairs, while at the same time it exhibits the character of one of the greatest men, and, Bacon alone excepted, the greatest thinker, who has ever devoted himself to the practice of English politics.

The slightest sketch of the reign of George III. would indeed be miserably imperfect if it were to omit the name of Edmund Burke. The studies of this extraordinary man not only covered the whole field of political inquiry,[827] but extended to an immense variety of subjects, which, though apparently unconnected with politics, do in reality bear upon them as important adjuncts; since, to a philosophic mind, every branch of knowledge lights up even those that seem most remote from it. The eulogy passed upon him by one who was no mean judge of men,[828] might be justified, and more than justified, by passages from his works, as well as by the opinions of the most eminent of his contemporaries.[829] Thus it is, that while his insight into the philosophy of jurisprudence has gained the applause of lawyers,[830] his acquaintance with the whole range and theory of the fine arts has won the admiration of artists;[831] a striking combination of two pursuits, often, though erroneously, held to be incompatible with each other. At the same time, and notwithstanding the occupations of political life, we know on good authority, that he had paid great attention to the history and filiation of languages;[832] a vast subject, which within the last thirty years has become an important resource for the study of the human mind, but the very idea of which had, in its large sense, only begun to dawn upon a few solitary thinkers. And, what is even more remarkable, when Adam Smith came to London full of those discoveries which have immortalized his name, he found to his amazement that Burke had anticipated conclusions the maturing of which cost Smith himself many years of anxious and unremitting labour.[833]

[827] Nicholls, who knew him, says, 'The political knowledge of Mr.
Burke might be considered almost as an encyclopædia; every man
who approached him received instruction from his stores.'
_Nicholls's Recollections_, vol. i. p. 20.

[828] 'The excursions of his genius are immense. His imperial fancy has
laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from
every scene of the creation, and every walk of art.' _Works of
Robert Hall_, London, 1846, p. 196. So, too, Wilberforce says of
him, 'He had come late into Parliament, and had had time to lay
in vast stores of knowledge. The field from which he drew his
illustrations was magnificent. Like the fabled object of the
fairy's favours, whenever he opened his mouth pearls and diamonds
dropped from him.' _Life of Wilberforce_, vol. i. p. 159.

[829] Lord Thurlow is said to have declared, what I suppose is now the
general opinion of competent judges, that the fame of Burke would
survive that of Pitt and Fox. _Butler's Reminiscences_, vol. i.
p. 169. But the noblest eulogy on Burke was pronounced by a man
far greater than Thurlow. In 1790, Fox stated in the House of
Commons, 'that if he were to put all the political information
which he had learnt from books, all which he had gained from
science, and all which any knowledge of the world and its affairs
had taught him, into one scale, and the improvement which he had
derived from his right hon. friend's instruction and conversation
were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to
which to give the preference.' _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxviii. p. 363.

[830] Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chief-Justices_, vol. ii. p. 443)
says, 'Burke, a philosophic statesman, deeply imbued with the
scientific principles of jurisprudence.' See also, on his
knowledge of law, _Butler's Reminiscences_, vol. i. p. 131; and
_Bisset's Life of Burke_, vol. i. p. 230.

[831] Barry, in his celebrated Letter to the Dilettanti Society, regrets
that Burke should have been diverted from the study of the fine
arts into the pursuit of politics, because he had one of those
'minds of an admirable expansion and catholicity, so as to
embrace the whole concerns of art, ancient as well as modern,
domestic as well as foreign.' _Barry's Works_, vol. ii. p. 538,
4to, 1809. In the _Annual Register_ for 1798, p. 329, 2nd edit.,
it is stated that Sir Joshua Reynolds 'deemed Burke the best
judge of pictures that he ever knew.' See further _Works of Sir
J. Reynolds_, Lond. 1846, vol. i. p. 185; and _Bisset's Life of
Burke_, vol. ii. p. 257. A somewhat curious conversation between
Burke and Reynolds, on a point of art, is preserved in
_Holcroft's Memoirs_, vol. ii. pp. 276, 277.

[832] See a letter from Winstanley, the Camden Professor of Ancient
History, in _Bisset's Life of Burke_, vol. ii. pp. 390, 391, and
in _Prior's Life of Burke_, p. 427. Winstanley writes, 'It would
have been exceedingly difficult to have met with a person who
knew more of the philosophy, the history, and filiation of
languages, or of the principles of etymological deduction, than
Mr. Burke.'

[833] Adam Smith told Burke, 'after they had conversed on subjects of
political economy, that he was the only man who, without
communication, thought on these topics exactly as he did.'
_Bisset's Life of Burke_, vol. ii. p. 429; and see _Prior's Life
of Burke_, p. 58; and on his knowledge of political economy,
_Brougham's Sketches of Statesmen_, vol. i. p. 205.

To these great inquiries, which touch the basis of social philosophy, Burke added a considerable acquaintance with physical science, and even with the practice and routine of mechanical trades. All this was so digested and worked into his mind, that it was ready on every occasion; not, like the knowledge of ordinary politicians, broken and wasted in fragments, but blended into a complete whole, fused by a genius that gave life even to the dullest pursuits. This, indeed, was the characteristic of Burke, that in his hands nothing was barren. Such was the strength and exuberance of his intellect, that it bore fruit in all directions, and could confer dignity upon the meanest subjects, by showing their connexion with general principles and the part they have to play in the great scheme of human affairs.

But what has always appeared to me still more remarkable in the character of Burke, is the singular sobriety with which he employed his extraordinary acquirements. During the best part of his life, his political principles, so far from being speculative, were altogether practical. This is particularly striking, because he had every temptation to adopt an opposite course. He possessed materials for generalization far more ample than any politician of his time, and he had a mind eminently prone to take large views. On many occasions, and indeed whenever an opportunity occurred, he showed his capacity as an original and speculative thinker. But the moment he set foot on political ground, he changed his method. In questions connected with the accumulation and distribution of wealth he saw that it was possible, by proceeding from a few simple principles, to construct a deductive science available for the commercial and financial interests of the country. Further than this he refused to advance, because he knew that, with this single exception, every department of politics was purely empirical, and was likely long to remain so. Hence it was, that he recognized in all its bearings that great doctrine, which even in our own days is too often forgotten, that the aim of the legislator should be, not truth, but expediency. Looking at the actual state of knowledge, he was forced to admit, that all political principles have been raised by hasty induction from limited facts; and that, therefore, it is the part of a wise man, when he adds to the facts, to revise the induction, and, instead of sacrificing practice to principles, modify the principles that he may change the practice. Or, to put this in another way, he lays it down that political principles are at the best but the product of human reason; while political practice has to do with human nature and human passions, of which reason forms but a part;[834] and that, on this account, the proper business of a statesman is, to contrive the means by which certain ends may be effected, leaving it to the general voice of the country to determine what those ends shall be, and shaping his own conduct, not according to his own principles, but according to the wishes of the people for whom he legislates, and whom he is bound to obey.[835]

[834] 'Politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to
human nature; of which the reason is but a part, and by no means
the greatest part.' _Observations on a late State of the Nation_,
in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 113. Hence the distinction he had
constantly in view between the generalizations of philosophy,
which ought to be impregnable, and those of politics, which must
be fluctuating; and hence in his noble work, _Thoughts on the
Cause of the present Discontents_, he says (vol. i. p. 136), 'No
lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a
matter incapable of exact definition.' See also p. 151, on which
he grounds his defence of the spirit of party; it being evident
that if truth were the prime object of the political art, the
idea of party, as such, would be indefensible. Compare with this
the difference between 'la vérité en soi' and 'la vérité
sociale,' as expounded by M. Rey in his _Science Sociale_, vol.
ii. p. 322, Paris, 1842.

[835] In 1780 he plainly told the House of Commons that 'the people are
the masters. They have only to express their wants at large and
in gross. We are the expert artists; we are the skilful workmen,
to shape their desires into perfect form, and to fit the utensil
to the use. They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms of the
complaint; but we know the exact seat of the disease, and how to
apply the remedy according to the rules of art. How shocking
would it be to see us pervert our skill into a sinister and
servile dexterity, for the purpose of evading our duty, and
_defrauding our employers, who are our natural lords_, of the
object of their just expectations!' _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p.
254. In 1777, in his _Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol_
(_Works_, vol. i. p. 216), 'In effect, to follow, not to force,
the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical
dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the
community,--is the true end of legislature.' In his _Letter on
the Duration of Parliament_ (vol. ii. p. 430), 'It would be
dreadful, indeed, if there was any power in the nation capable of
resisting its unanimous desire, or even the desire of any very
great and decided majority of the people. The people may be
deceived in their choice of an object. _But I can scarcely
conceive any choice they can make to be so very mischievous, as
the existence of any human force capable of resisting it._' So,
too, he says (vol. i. pp. 125, 214), that when government and the
people differ, government is generally in the wrong: compare pp.
217, 218, 276, vol. ii. p. 440. And to give only one more
instance, but a very decisive one, he, in 1772, when speaking on
a Bill respecting the Importation and Exportation of Corn, said,
'On this occasion I give way to the present Bill, not because I
approve of the measure in itself, but because I think it prudent
to yield to the spirit of the times. _The people will have it so;
and it is not for their representatives to say nay._ I cannot,
however, help entering my protest against the general principles
of policy on which it is supported, because I think them
extremely dangerous.' _Parl. Hist._ vol. xvii. p. 480.

It is these views, and the extraordinary ability with which they were advocated, which make the appearance of Burke a memorable epoch in our political history.[836] We had, no doubt, other statesmen before him, who denied the validity of general principles in politics; but their denial was only the happy guess of ignorance, and they rejected theories which they had never taken the pains to study. Burke rejected them because he knew them. It was his rare merit that, notwithstanding every inducement to rely upon his own generalizations, he resisted the temptation; that, though rich in all the varieties of political knowledge, he made his opinions subservient to the march of events; that he recognized as the object of government, not the preservation of particular institutions, nor the propagation of particular tenets, but the happiness of the people at large; and, above all, that he insisted upon an obedience to the popular wishes, which no statesman before him had paid, and which too many statesmen since him have forgotten. Our country, indeed, is still full of those vulgar politicians, against whom Burke raised his voice; feeble and shallow men, who, having spent their little force in resisting the progress of reform, find themselves at length, compelled to yield; and then, so soon as they have exhausted the artifices of their petty schemes, and, by their tardy and ungraceful concessions, have sown the seed of future disaffection, they turn upon the age by which they have been baffled; they mourn over the degeneracy of mankind; they lament the decay of public spirit; and they weep for the fate of a people, who have been so regardless of the wisdom of their ancestors, as to tamper with a constitution already hoary with the prescription of centuries.

[836] The effect which Burke's profound views produced in the House of
Commons, where, however, few men were able to understand them in
their full extent, is described by Dr. Hay, who was present at
one of his great speeches; which, he says, 'seemed a kind of new
political philosophy.' _Burke's Correspond._ vol. i. p. 103.
Compare a letter from Lee, written in the same year, 1766, in
_Forster's Life of Goldsmith_, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39; and in
_Bunbury's Correspond. of Hanmer_, p. 458.

Those who have studied the reign of George III. will easily understand the immense advantage of having a man like Burke to oppose these miserable delusions; delusions which have been fatal to many countries, and have more than once almost ruined our own.[837] They will also understand that, in the opinion of the king, this great statesman was, at best, but an eloquent declaimer, to be classed in the same category with Fox and Chatham; all three ingenious men, but unsafe, unsteady, quite unfit for weighty concerns, and by no means calculated for so exalted an honour as admission into the royal councils. In point of fact, during the thirty years Burke was engaged in public life, he never once held an office in the cabinet;[838] and the only occasions on which he occupied even a subordinate post, were in those very short intervals when the fluctuations of politics compelled the appointment of a liberal ministry.

Indeed the part taken by Burke in public affairs must have been very galling to a king who thought everything good that was old, and everything right that was established.[839] For, so far was this remarkable man in advance of his contemporaries, that there are few of the great measures of the present generation which he did not anticipate, and zealously defend. Not only did he attack the absurd laws against forestalling and regrating,[840] but, by advocating the freedom of trade, he struck at the root of all similar prohibitions.[841] He supported those just claims of the Catholics,[842] which, during his lifetime, were obstinately refused; but which were conceded, many years after his death, as the only means of preserving the integrity of the empire. He supported the petition of the Dissenters, that they might be relieved from the restrictions to which, for the benefit of the Church of England, they were subjected.[843] Into other departments of politics he carried the same spirit. He opposed the cruel laws against insolvents,[844] by which, in the time of George III., our statute-book was still defaced; and he vainly attempted to soften the penal code,[845] the increasing severity of which was one of the worst features of that bad reign.[846] He wished to abolish the old plan of enlisting soldiers for life;[847] a barbarous and impolitic practice, as the English legislature began to perceive several years later.[848] He attacked the slave-trade;[849] which, being an ancient usage, the king wished to preserve, as part of the British constitution.[850] He refuted,[851] but, owing to the prejudices of the age, was unable to subvert, the dangerous power exercised by the judges, who, in criminal prosecutions for libel, confined the jury to the mere question of publication; thus taking the real issue into their own hands, and making themselves the arbiters of the fate of those who were so unfortunate as to be placed at their bar.[852] And, what many will think not the least of his merits, he was the first in that long line of financial reformers to whom we are deeply indebted.[853] Notwithstanding the difficulties thrown in his way, he carried through Parliament a series of bills, by which several useless places were entirely abolished, and, in the single office of paymaster-general, a saving effected to the country of 25,000_l._ a year.[854]

[837] Burke was never weary of attacking the common argument, that,
because a country has long flourished under some particular
custom, therefore the custom must be good. See an admirable
instance of this in his speech on the power of the
attorney-general to file informations _ex officio_; where he
likens such reasoners to the father of Scriblerus, who 'venerated
the rust and canker which exalted a brazen pot-lid into the
shield of a hero.' He adds: 'But, sir, we are told that the time
during which this power existed, is the time during which
monarchy most flourished: and what, then, can no two things
subsist together but as cause and effect? May not a man have
enjoyed better health during the time that he walked with an
oaken stick, than afterwards, when he changed it for a cane,
without supposing, like the Druids, that there are occult virtues
in oak, and that the stick and the health were cause and effect?'
_Parl. Hist._ vol. xvi. pp. 1190, 1191.

[838] This, as Mr. Cooke truly says, is an instance of aristocratic
prejudice; but it is certain that a hint from George III. would
have remedied the shameful neglect. _Cooke's Hist. of Party_,
vol. iii. p. 277, 278.

[839] It is easy to imagine how George III. must have been offended by
such sentiments as these: 'I am not of the opinion of those
gentlemen who are against disturbing the public repose; I like a
clamour whenever there is an abuse. The fire-bell at midnight
disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you from being burnt in your
bed. The hue and cry alarms the county, but preserves all the
property of the province.' Burke's speech on Prosecutions for
Libels, in 1771, in _Parl. Hist._ vol. xvii. p. 54.

[840] He moved their repeal. _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxvi. p. 1169. Even Lord
Chatham issued, in 1766, a proclamation against forestallers and
regraters, very much to the admiration of Lord Mahon, who says,
'Lord Chatham acted with characteristic energy.' _Mahon's Hist.
of England_, vol. v. p. 166. More than thirty years later, and
after Burke's death, Lord Kenyon, then chief-justice, eulogised
these preposterous laws. _Holland's Mem. of the Whig Party_, vol.
i. p. 167. Compare _Adolphus's Hist. of George III._ vol. vii. p.
406; and _Cockburn's Memorials of his Time_, Edinb. 1856, p. 73.

[841] 'That liberality in the commercial system, which, I trust, will
one day be adopted.' _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 223. And, in his
letter to Burgh (_Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 409), 'But that to which I
attached myself the most particularly, was to fix the principle
of a free trade in all the ports of these islands, as founded in
justice, and beneficial to the whole; but principally to this,
the seat of the supreme power.'

[842] _Prior's Life of Burke_, p. 467; _Burke's Works_, vol. i. pp.
263-271, 537-561, vol. ii. pp. 431-447. He refutes (vol. i. p.
548) the notion that the coronation oath was intended to bind the
crown in its legislative capacity. Compare _Mem. of Mackintosh_,
vol. i. pp. 170, 171, with _Butler's Reminiscences_, vol. i. p.
134.

[843] _Parl. Hist._ vol. xvii. pp. 435, 436, vol. xx. p. 306. See also
_Burke's Correspondence_, vol. ii. pp. 17, 18; and _Prior's Life
of Burke_, p. 143.

[844] _Burke's Works_, vol. i. pp. 261, 262, part of his speech at
Bristol.

[845] _Prior's Life of Burke_, p. 317. See also his admirable remarks,
in _Works_, vol. ii. p. 417; and his speech, in _Parl. Hist._
vol. xxviii. p. 146.

[846] On this increasing cruelty of the English laws, compare _Parr's
Works_, vol. iv. pp. 150, 259, with _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxii. p.
271, vol. xxiv. p. 1222, vol. xxvi. p. 1057, vol. xxviii. p. 143;
and, in regard to the execution of them, see _Life of Romilly, by
Himself_, vol. i. p. 65; and _Alison's Hist. of Europe_, vol. ix.
p. 620.

[847] In one short speech (_Parl. Hist._ vol. xx. pp. 150, 151), he has
almost exhausted the arguments against enlistment for life.

[848] In 1806, that is nine years after the death of Burke, parliament
first authorized enlistment for a term of years. See an account
of the debates in _Alison's Hist. of Europe_, vol. vii. pp.
380-391. Compare _Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth
Century_, vol. v. p. 475; and _Holland's Mem. of the Whig Party_,
vol. ii. p. 116.

[849] _Prior's Life of Burke_, p. 316; _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxvii. p. 502,
vol. xxviii. pp. 69, 96; and _Life of Wilberforce_, vol. i. pp.
152, 171, contain evidence of his animosity against the
slave-trade, and a more than sufficient answer to the
ill-natured, and, what is worse, the ignorant, remark about
Burke, in the _Duke of Buckingham's Mem. of George III._ vol. i.
p. 350.

[850] On the respect which George III. felt for the slave-trade, see
note 259 to this chapter. I might also have quoted the testimony
of Lord Brougham: 'The court was decidedly against abolition.
George III. always regarded the question with abhorrence, as
savouring of innovation.' _Brougham's Statesmen_, vol. ii. p.
104. Compare _Combe's North America_, vol. i. p. 332.

[851] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. pp. 490-496; _Parl. Hist._ vol. xvii.
pp. 44-55, a very able speech, delivered in 1771. Compare a
letter to Dowdeswell, in _Burke's Correspond._ vol. i. pp. 251,
252.

[852] The arguments of Burke anticipated, by more than twenty years,
Fox's celebrated Libel Bill, which was not passed till 1792;
although, in 1752, juries had begun, in spite of the judges, to
return general verdicts on the merits. See _Campbell's
Chancellors_, vol. v. pp. 238, 243, 341-345, vol. vi. p. 210; and
_Meyer_, _Institutions Judiciaires_, vol. ii. pp. 204, 205,
Paris, 1823.

[853] Mr. Farr, in his valuable essay on the statistics of the civil
service (in _Journal of Statist. Soc._ vol. xii. pp. 103-125),
calls Burke 'one of the first and ablest financial reformers in
parliament,' p. 104. The truth, however, is, that he was not only
one of the first, but the first. He was the first man who laid
before parliament a general and systematic scheme for diminishing
the expenses of government; and his preliminary speech on that
occasion is one of the finest of all his compositions.

[854] _Prior's Life of Burke_, pp. 206, 234. See also, on the
retrenchments he effected, _Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue_,
vol. ii. pp. 84, 85; _Burke's Correspond._ vol. iii. p. 14; and
_Bisset's Life of Burke_, vol. ii. pp. 57-60.

These things alone are sufficient to explain the animosity of a prince whose boast it was, that he would bequeath the government to his successor in the same state as that in which he had received it. There was, however, another circumstance by which the royal feelings were still further wounded. The determination of the king to oppress the Americans was so notorious that, when the war actually broke out, it was called the 'king's war,' and those who opposed it were regarded as the personal enemies of their sovereign.[855] In this, however, as in all other questions, the conduct of Burke was governed, not by traditions and principles, such as George III. cherished, but by large views of general expediency. Burke, in forming his opinions respecting this disgraceful contest, refused to be guided by arguments respecting the right of either party.[856] He would not enter into any discussion as to whether a mother country has the right to tax her colonies, or whether the colonies have a right to tax themselves. Such points he left to be mooted by those politicians who, pretending to be guided by principles, are, in reality, subjugated by prejudice.[857] For his own part he was content to compare the cost with the gain. It was enough for Burke that, considering the power of our American colonies, considering their distance from us, and considering the probability of their being aided by France, it was not advisable to exercise the power; and it was, therefore, idle to talk of the right. Hence he opposed the taxation of America, not because it was unprecedented, but because it was inexpedient. As a natural consequence he likewise opposed the Boston-Port Bill, and that shameful bill, to forbid all intercourse with America, which was not inaptly called the starvation plan; violent measures, by which the king hoped to curb the colonies, and break the spirit of those noble men, whom he hated even more than he feared.[858]

[855] In 1788, Lord Rockingham said, in the House of Lords, 'Instead of
calling the war, the war of parliament, or of the people, it was
called the king's war, his majesty's favourite war.' _Parl.
Hist._ vol. xix. p. 857. Compare _Cooke's Hist. of Party_, vol.
iii. p. 235, with the pungent remarks in _Walpole's George III._
vol. iv. p. 114. Nicholls (_Recollections_, vol. i. p. 35) says:
'The war was considered as the war of the king personally. Those
who supported it were called the king's friends; while those who
wished the country to pause, and reconsider the propriety of
persevering in the contest, were branded as disloyal.'

[856] 'I am not here going into the distinction of rights, nor
attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these
metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them.' Speech
on American taxation in 1774, in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 173.
In 1775 (vol. i. p. 192): 'But my consideration is narrow,
confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question.' At
p. 183: we should act in regard to America, not 'according to
abstract ideas of right, by no means according to mere general
theories of government; the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling.' In one of his
earliest political pamphlets, written in 1769, he says, that the
arguments of the opponents of America 'are conclusive; conclusive
as to right; but the very reverse as to policy and practice,'
vol. i. p. 112. Compare a letter, written in 1775, in _Burke's
Correspond._ vol. ii. p. 12.

[857] In 1766, George III. writes to Lord Rockingham (_Albemarle's
Rockingham_, vol. i. pp. 271, 272): 'Talbot is as right as I can
desire, in the Stamp Act; strong for our declaring our right, but
willing to repeal!' In other words, willing to offend the
Americans, by a speculative assertion of an abstract right, but
careful to forego the advantage which that right might produce.

[858] The intense hatred with which George III. regarded the Americans,
was so natural to such a mind as his, that one can hardly blame
his constant exhibition of it during the time that the struggle
was actually impending. But what is truly disgraceful is, that,
after the war was over, he displayed this rancour on an occasion
when, of all others, he was bound to suppress it. In 1786,
Jefferson and Adams were in England officially, and, as a matter
of courtesy to the king, made their appearance at court. So
regardless, however, was George III. of the common decencies of
his station, that he treated these eminent men with marked
incivility, although they were then paying their respects to him
in his own palace. See _Tucker's Life of Jefferson_, vol. i. p.
220; and _Mem. and Corresp. of Jefferson_, vol. i. p. 54.

It is certainly no faint characteristic of those times, that a man like Burke, who dedicated to politics abilities equal to far nobler things, should, during thirty years, have received from his prince neither favour nor reward. But George III. was a king whose delight it was to raise the humble and exalt the meek. His reign, indeed, was the golden age of successful mediocrity; an age in which little men were favoured, and great men depressed; when Addington was cherished as a statesman, and Beattie pensioned as a philosopher; and when, in all the walks of public life, the first conditions of promotion were, to fawn upon ancient prejudices, and support established abuses.

This neglect of the most eminent of English politicians is highly instructive; but the circumstances which followed, though extremely painful, have a still deeper interest, and are well worth the attention of those whose habits of mind lead them to study the intellectual peculiarities of great men.

For, at this distance of time, when his nearest relations are no more, it would be affectation to deny that Burke, during the last few years of his life, fell into a state of complete hallucination. When the French Revolution broke out, his mind, already fainting under the weight of incessant labour, could not support the contemplation of an event so unprecedented, so appalling, and threatening results of such frightful magnitude. And, when the crimes of that great revolution, instead of diminishing, continued to increase, then it was that the feelings of Burke finally mastered his reason; the balance tottered; the proportions of that gigantic intellect were disturbed. From this moment, his sympathy with present suffering was so intense, that he lost all memory of the tyranny by which the sufferings were provoked. His mind, once so steady, so little swayed by prejudice and passion, reeled under the pressure of events which turned the brains of thousands.[859] And whoever will compare the spirit of his latest works with the dates of their publication, will see how this melancholy change was aggravated by that bitter bereavement, from which he never rallied, and which alone was sufficient to prostrate the understanding of one in whom the severity of the reason was so tempered, so nicely poised, by the warmth of the affections. Never, indeed, can there be forgotten those touching, those exquisite allusions to the death of that only son, who was the joy of his soul, and the pride of his heart, and to whom he fondly hoped to bequeath the inheritance of his imperishable name. Never can we forget that image of desolation under which the noble old man figured his immeasurable grief 'I live in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded me, have gone before me. They who should have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors.... The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honours; I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth.'[860]

[859] All great revolutions have a direct tendency to increase insanity,
as long as they last, and probably for some time afterwards: but
in this, as in other respects, the French revolution stands alone
in the number of its victims. On the horrible, but curious
subject of madness caused by the excitement of the events which
occurred in France late in the eighteenth century, compare
_Prichard on Insanity in relation to Jurisprudence_, 1842, p. 90;
his _Treatise on Insanity_, 1835, pp. 161, 183, 230, 339;
_Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. pp. 43, 53, 54, 66, 211,
447, vol. ii. pp. 193, 726; _Feuchtersleben's Medical
Psychology_, p. 254; _Georget, De la Folie_, p. 156; _Pinel,
Traité sur l'Aliénation Mentale_, pp. 30, 108, 109, 177, 178,
185, 207, 215, 257, 349, 392, 457, 481; _Alison's Hist. of
Europe_, vol. iii. p. 112.

[860] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 268.

It would, perhaps, be displaying a morbid curiosity, to attempt to raise the veil, and trace the decay of so mighty a mind.[861] Indeed, in all such cases, most of the evidence perishes; for those who have the best opportunities of witnessing the infirmities of a great man, are not those who most love to relate them. But it is certain, that the change was first clearly seen immediately after the breaking out of the French Revolution; that it was aggravated by the death of his son; and that it became progressively worse till death closed the scene.[862] In his _Reflections on the French Revolution_; in his _Remarks on the Policy of the Allies_: in his _Letter to Elliot_; in his _Letter to a Noble Lord_; and in his _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, we may note the consecutive steps of an increasing, and at length an uncontrollable, violence. To the single principle of hatred of the French Revolution, he sacrificed his oldest associations and his dearest friends. Fox, as is well known, always looked up to Burke as to a master, from whose lips he had gathered the lessons of political wisdom.[863] Burke, on his side, fully recognized the vast abilities of his friend, and loved him for that affectionate disposition, and for those winning manners, which, it has often been said, none who saw them could ever resist. But now, without the slightest pretence of a personal quarrel, this long intimacy[864] was rudely severed. Because Fox would not abandon that love of popular liberty which they had long cherished in common, Burke, publicly, and in his place in parliament, declared that their friendship was at an end; for that he would never more hold communion with a man who lent his support to the French people.[865] At the same time, and indeed the very evening on which this occurred, Burke, who had hitherto been remarkable for the courtesy of his manners,[866] deliberately insulted another of his friends, who was taking him home in his carriage; and, in a state of frantic excitement, insisted on being immediately set down, in the middle of the night, in a pouring rain, because he could not, he said, remain seated by 'a friend to the revolutionary doctrines of the French.'[867]

[861] The earliest unmistakable instances of those violent outbreaks
which showed the presence of disease, were in the debates on the
regency bill, in February 1789, when Sir Richard Hill, with
brutal candour, hinted at Burke's madness, even in his presence.
_Parl. Hist._ vol. xxvii. p. 1249. Compare a letter from Sir
William Young, in _Buckingham's Mem. of George III._ 1853, vol.
ii. p. 73; 'Burke finished his wild speech in a manner next to
madness.' This was in December 1788; and, from that time until
his death, it became every year more evident that his intellect
was disordered. See a melancholy description of him in a letter,
written by Dr. Currie in 1792 (_Life of Currie_, vol. ii. p.
150); and, above all, see his own incoherent letter, in 1796, in
his _Correspond. with Laurence_, p. 67.

[862] His son died in August 1794 (_Burke's Correspond._ vol. iv. p.
224); and his most violent works were written between that period
and his own death, in July 1797.

[863] 'This disciple, as he was proud to acknowledge himself.'
_Brougham's Statesmen_, vol. i. p. 218. In 1791, Fox said, that
Burke 'had taught him everything he knew in politics.' _Parl.
Hist._ vol. xxix. p. 379. See also _Adolphus's Hist. of George
III._ vol. iv. pp. 472, 610; and a letter from Fox to Parr, in
_Parr's Works_, vol. vii. p. 287.

[864] It had begun in 1766, when Fox was only seventeen. _Russell's Mem.
of Fox_, vol. i. p. 26.

[865] On this painful rupture, compare with the _Parliamentary History,
Holland's Mem. of the Whig Party_, vol. i. pp. 10, 11; _Prior's
Life of Burke_, pp. 375-379; _Tomline's Life of Pitt_, vol. ii.
pp. 385-395. The complete change in Burke's feelings towards his
old friend also appears in a very intemperate letter, written to
Dr. Laurence in 1797. _Burke's Correspond. with Laurence_, p.
152. Compare _Parr's Works_, vol. iv. pp. 67-80, 84-90, 109.

[866] Which used to be contrasted with the bluntness of Johnson; these
eminent men being the two best talkers of their time. See
_Bisset's Life of Burke_, vol. i. p. 127.

[867] _Rogers's Introduction to Burke's Works_, p. xliv.; _Prior's Life
of Burke_, p. 384.

Nor is it true, as some have supposed, that this mania of hostility was solely directed against the criminal part of the French people. It would be difficult, in that or in any other age, to find two men of more active, or indeed enthusiastic benevolence, than Condorcet and La Fayette. Besides this, Condorcet was one of the most profound thinkers of his time, and will be remembered as long as genius is honoured among us.[868] La Fayette was no doubt inferior to Condorcet in point of ability; but he was the intimate friend of Washington, on whose conduct he modelled his own,[869] and by whose side he had fought for the liberties of America: his integrity was, and still is, unsullied: and his character had a chivalrous and noble turn, which Burke, in his better days, would have been the first to admire.[870] Both, however, were natives of that hated country whose liberties they vainly attempted to achieve. On this account, Burke declared Condorcet to be guilty of 'impious sophistry;'[871] to be a 'fanatic atheist, and furious democratic republican;'[872] and to be capable of 'the lowest, as well as the highest and most determined villainies.'[873] As to La Fayette, when an attempt was made to mitigate the cruel treatment he was receiving from the Prussian government, Burke not only opposed the motion made for that purpose in the House of Commons, but took the opportunity of grossly insulting the unfortunate captive, who was then languishing in a dungeon.[874] So dead had he become on this subject, even to the common instincts of our nature, that, in his place in parliament, he could find no better way of speaking of this injured and high-souled man, than by calling him a ruffian: 'I would not,' says Burke,--'I would not debase my humanity by supporting an application in behalf of such a horrid ruffian.'[875]

[868] There is an interesting account of the melancholy death of this
remarkable man in _Lamartine_, _Hist. des Girondins_, vol. viii.
pp. 76-80; and a contemporary relation in _Musset-Pathay_, _Vie
de Rousseau_, vol. ii. pp. 42-47.

[869] This is the honourable testimony of a political opponent; who
says, that after the dissolution of the Assembly 'La Fayette se
conforma à a conduite de Washington, qu'il avait pris pour
modèle.' _Cassagnac_, _Révolution Française_, vol. iii. pp. 370,
371. Compare the grudging admission of his enemy Bouillé, _Mém.
de Bouillé_, vol. i. p. 125; and for proofs of the affectionate
intimacy between Washington and La Fayette, see _Mém. de
Lafayette_, vol. i. pp. 16, 21, 29, 44, 55, 83, 92, 111, 165,
197, 204, 395, vol. ii. p. 123.

[870] The Duke of Bedford, no bad judge of character, said in 1794, that
La Fayette's 'whole life was an illustration of truth,
disinterestedness, and honour.' _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxxi. p. 664.
So, too, the continuator of Sismondi (_Hist. des Français_, vol.
xxx. p. 355), 'La Fayette, le chevalier de la liberté
d'Amérique;' and Lamartine (_Hist. des Girondins_, vol. iii. p.
200), 'Martyr de la liberté après en avoir été le héros.' Ségur,
who was intimately acquainted with him, gives some account of his
noble character, as it appeared when he was a boy of nineteen.
_Mém. de Ségur_, vol. i. pp. 106, 107. Forty years later, Lady
Morgan met him in France; and what she relates shows how little
he had changed, and how simple his tastes and the habits of his
mind still were. _Morgan's France_, vol. ii. pp. 285-312. Other
notices, from personal knowledge, will be found in _Life of
Roscoe_, vol. ii. p. 178; and in _Trotter's Mem. of Fox_, pp. 319
seq.

[871] 'The impious sophistry of Condorcet.' _Letter to a Noble Lord_, in
_Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 273.

[872] _Thoughts on French Affairs_ in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 574.

[873] 'Condorcet (though no marquis, as he styled himself before the
Revolution) is a man of another sort of birth, fashion, and
occupation from Brissot; but in every principle and every
disposition, to the lowest as well as the highest and most
determined villainies, fully his equal.' _Thoughts on French
Affairs_, in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 579.

[874] 'Groaning under the most oppressive cruelty in the dungeons of
Magdeburg.' _Belsham's Hist. of Great Brit._ vol. ix. p. 151. See
the afflicting details of his sufferings, in _Mém. de Lafayette_,
vol. i. p. 479, vol. ii. pp. 75, 77, 78, 80, 91, 92; and on the
noble equanimity with which he bore them, see _De Staël_, _Rév.
Françoise_, Paris, 1820, vol. ii. p. 103.

[875] It is hardly credible that such language should have been applied
to a man like La Fayette; but I have copied it from the
_Parliamentary History_, vol. xxxi. p. 51, and from _Adolphus_,
vol. v. p. 593. The only difference is, that in Adolphus the
expression is 'I would not debase my humanity;' but in the _Parl.
Hist._, 'I would not debauch my humanity.' But both authorities
are agreed as to the term 'horrid ruffian' being used by Burke.
Compare _Burke's Correspondence with Laurence_, pp. 91, 99.

As to France itself, it is 'Cannibal Castle;'[876] it is 'the republic of assassins;'[877] it is 'a hell;'[878] its government is composed of 'the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, most knavish, of chicaners;'[879] its National Assembly are 'miscreants;'[880] its people are 'an allied army of Amazonian and male cannibal Parisians;'[881] they are 'a nation of murderers;'[882] they are 'the basest of mankind;'[883] they are 'murderous atheists;'[884] they are 'a gang of robbers;'[885] they are 'the prostitute outcasts of mankind;'[886] they are 'a desperate gang of plunderers, murderers, tyrants, and atheists.'[887] To make the slightest concessions to such a country in order to preserve peace, is offering victims 'on the altars of blasphemed regicide;'[888] even to enter into negotiations is '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.'[889] When our ambassador was actually in Paris, he 'had the honour of passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a regicide pettifogger;'[890] and we were taunted with having sent a 'peer of the realm to the scum of the earth.'[891] 'France has no longer a place in Europe; it is expunged from the map; its very name should be forgotten.[892] Why, then, need men travel in it? Why need our children learn its language? and why are we to endanger the morals of our ambassadors? who can hardly fail to return from such a land with their principles corrupted, and with a wish to conspire against their own country.'[893]

[876] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 319. In every instance I quote the
precise words employed by Burke.

[877] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 279.

[878] Burke's speech, in _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxxi. p. 379.

[879] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 335.

[880] _Burke's Corresp._ vol. iii. p. 140.

[881] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 322.

[882] _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxx. p. 115.

[883] _Ibid._ p. 112.

[884] _Ibid._ p. 188.

[885] _Ibid._ p. 435.

[886] _Ibid._ p. 646; the concluding sentence of one of Burke's speeches
in 1793.

[887] _Ibid._ vol. xxxi. p. 426.

[888] _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 320.

[889] _Ibid._ p. 286.

[890] _Ibid._ p. 322.

[891] _Ibid._ p. 318.

[892] _Parl. Hist._ vol. xxviii. p. 353, vol. xxx. p. 390; _Adolphus_,
vol. iv. p. 467.

[893] In the _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, published the year before he
died, he says, 'These ambassadors may easily return 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.' _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 282.
He adds in the same work, p. 381, 'Is it for this benefit we open
"the usual relations of peace and amity?" Is it for this our
youth of both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it for
this that with expense and pains we form their lisping infant
accents to the language of France?... Let it be remembered,
that no young man 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 this
travel, whilst children are poisoned at these 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.'

This is sad, indeed, from such a man as Burke once was; but what remains, shows still more clearly how the associations and composition of his mind had been altered. He who, with humanity not less than with wisdom, had strenuously laboured to prevent the American war, devoted the last few years of his life to kindle a new war, compared to which that with America was a light and trivial episode. In his calmer moments, no one would have more willingly recognized that the opinions prevalent in any country are the inevitable results of the circumstances in which that country had been placed. But now he sought to alter those opinions by force. From the beginning of the French Revolution, he insisted upon the right, and indeed upon the necessity, of compelling France to change her principles;[894] and, at a later period, he blamed the allied sovereigns for not dictating to a great people the government they ought to adopt.[895] Such was the havoc circumstances had made in his well-ordered intellect, that to this one principle he sacrificed every consideration of justice, of mercy, and of expediency. As if war, even in its mildest form, were not sufficiently hateful, he sought to give to it that character of a crusade[896] which increasing knowledge had long since banished: and loudly proclaiming that the contest was religious rather than temporal, he revived old prejudices in order to cause fresh crimes.[897] He also declared that the war should be carried on for revenge as well as for defence, and that we must never lay down our arms until we had utterly destroyed the men by whom the Revolution was brought about.[898] And, as if these things were not enough, he insisted that this, the most awful of all wars, being begun, was not to be hurried over; although it was to be carried on for revenge as well as for religion, and the resources of civilized men were to be quickened by the ferocious passions of crusaders, still it was not to be soon ended; it was to be durable; it must have permanence; it must, says Burke, in the spirit of a burning hatred, be protracted in a long war: 'I speak it emphatically, and with a desire that it should be marked, in a _long_ war.'[899]

[894] In _Observations on the Conduct of the Minority_, 1793, he says,
that during four years he had wished for 'a general war against
jacobins and jacobinism.' _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 611.

[895] For, in the first place, 'the united sovereigns very much injured
their cause by admitting that they had nothing to do with the
interior arrangements of France.' _Heads for Consideration on the
Present State of Affairs_, written in November 1792, in _Burke's
Works_, vol. i. p. 583. And that he knew that this was not merely
a question of destroying a faction, appears from the observable
circumstance, that even in January 1791 he wrote to Trevor
respecting war, 'France is weak indeed, divided and deranged; but
God knows, when the things came to be tried, whether the invaders
would not find that their enterprise _was not to support a party,
but to conquer a kingdom_.' _Burke's Correspond._ vol. iii. p.
184.

[896] As Lord J. Russell truly calls it, _Mem. of Fox_, vol. iii. p. 34.
See also _Schlosser's Eighteenth Century_, vol. ii. p. 93, vol.
v. p. 109, vol. vi. p. 291; _Nicholls's Recollections_, vol. i.
p. 300; _Parr's Works_, vol. iii. p. 242.

[897] 'We cannot, if we would, delude ourselves about the true state of
this dreadful contest. _It is a religious war._' _Remarks on the
Policy of the Allies_, in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 600.

[898] See the long list of proscriptions in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p.
604. And the principle of revenge is again advocated in a letter
written in 1793, in _Burke's Correspond._ vol. iv. p. 183. And in
1794, he told the House of Commons that 'the war must no longer
be confined to the vain attempt of raising a barrier to the
lawless and savage power of France; but must be directed to the
only rational end it can pursue; namely, the entire destruction
of the desperate horde which gave it birth.' _Parl. Hist._ vol.
xxxi. p. 427.

[899] _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, in _Burke's Works_, vol. ii. p.
291. In this horrible sentence, perhaps the most horrible ever
penned by an English politician, the italics are not my own; they
are in the text.

It was to be a war to force a great people to change their government. It was to be a war carried on for the purpose of punishment. It was also to be a religious war. Finally, it was to be a long war. Was there ever any other man who wished to afflict the human race with such extensive, searching, and protracted calamities? Such cruel, such reckless, and yet such deliberate opinions, if they issued from a sane mind, would immortalize even the most obscure statesman, because they would load his name with imperishable infamy. For where can we find, even among the most ignorant or most sanguinary politicians, sentiments like these? Yet they proceed from one who, a very few years before, was the most eminent political philosopher England has ever possessed. To us it is only given to mourn over so noble a wreck. More than this no one should do. We may contemplate with reverence the mighty ruin; but the mysteries of its decay let no man presume to invade, unless, to use the language of the greatest of our masters, he can tell how to minister to a diseased mind, pluck the sorrows which are rooted in the memory, and raze out the troubles that are written in the brain.