Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke
remotely discussed by Quintilian in his "Institutes." But still, in more than one passage, he most impressively declares, that mental proficiency is greatly retarded by perversity of heart and will. For instance, on one occasion we find him speaking thus:—"Nihil enim est tam occupatum, tam multiforme, tot ac tam variis affectibus concisum, atque laceratum, quam mala ac improba mens. Quis inter haec, literis, aut ulli bonae arti, locus? Non hercle magis quam frugibus, in terra sentibus ac rubis occupata."—"Nothing is so flurried and agitated, so self-contradictory, or so violently rent and shattered by conflicting passions, as a bad heart. In the distractions which it produces, what room is there for the cultivation of letters, or the pursuits of any honourable art? Assuredly, no more than there is for the growth of corn in a field overrun with thorns and brambles.") 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!" (That ancient Sage unto whose political wisdom frequent reference has been made in this essay, thus speaks on the reverence due unto an existing government, even when contemplated from its weakest side:—"Formidable as these arguments seem, they may be opposed by others of not less weight; arguments which prove that even the rust of government is to be respected, and that its fabric is never to be touched but with a fearful and trembling hand. When the evil of persevering in hereditary institutions is small, it ought always to be endured, because the evil of departing from them is certainly very great. Slight imperfections, therefore, whether in the laws themselves, or in those who administer and execute the laws, ought always to be overlooked, because they cannot be corrected without occasioning a much greater mischief, and tending to weaken that reverence which the safety of all governments requires that the citizens at large should entertain, cultivate, and cherish for the hereditary institutions of their country. The comparison drawn from the improvement of arts does not apply to the amendment of laws. To change or improve an art, and to alter or amend a law, are things as dissimilar in their operation as different in their tendency; for laws operate as practical principles of moral action; and, like all the rules of morality, derive their force and efficacy, as even the name imports, from the customary repetition of habitual acts, and the slow operation of time. Every alteration of the laws, therefore, tends to subvert that authority on which the persuasive agency of all laws is founded, and to abridge, weaken, and destroy the power of the law itself."—Aristotle's "Politics.") 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 (that however is alleged also), 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 (there is no better than Mr. Fox) 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