Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Edmund Burke
to withdraw the means of wholesale bribery, which offices at the disposal of the king created. He did not believe that a more effective means than this lay in the proposed plan for a redistribution of seats in the House of Commons. In one place, he declared it might be well to lessen the number of voters, in order to add to their weight and independence; at another, he asks that the people be stimulated to a more careful scrutiny of the conduct of their representatives; and on every occasion he demands that the legislators give their support to those measures only which have for their object the good of the whole people.
It is obvious, however, that Burke's policy had grievous faults. His reverence for the past, and his respect for existing institutions as the heritage of the past, made him timid and overcautious in dealing with abuses. Although he stood with Pitt in defending the American colonies, he had no confidence in the thoroughgoing reforms which the great Commoner proposed. When the Stamp Act was repealed, Pitt would have gone even further. He would have acknowledged the absolute injustice of taxation without representation. Burke held tenaciously to the opposing theory, and warmly supported the Declaratory Act, which "asserted the supreme authority of Parliament over the colonies, in all cases whatsoever." His support of the bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, as well as his plea for reconciliation, ten years later, were not prompted by a firm belief in the injustice of England's course. He expressly states, in both cases that to enforce measures so repugnant to the Americans, would be detrimental to the home government. It would result in confusion and disorder, and would bring, perhaps, in the end, open rebellion. All of his speeches on American affairs show his willingness to "barter and compromise" in order to avoid this, but nowhere is there a hint of fundamental error in the Constitution. This was sacred to him, and he resented to the last any proposition looking to an organic change in its structure. "The lines of morality," he declared, "are not like ideal lines of mathematics. They are broad and deep, as well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are made, not by the process of logic, but the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only first in rank of all the virtues, political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all."
The chief characteristics, then, of Burke's political philosophy are opposed to much that is fundamental in modern systems. His doctrine is better than that of George III, because it is more generous, and affords opportunity for superficial readjustment and adaptation. It is this last, or rather the proof it gives of his insight, that has secured Burke so high a place among English statesmen.
A GROUP OF WRITERS COMING IMMEDIATELY BEFORE BURKE
Addison. . . . 1672-1719
Steele . . . . 1672-1729
Defoe. . . . . 1661-1731
Swift. . . . . 1667-1745
Pope . . . . . 1688-1744
Richardson . . 1689-1761
A GROUP OF WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH BURKE
Johnson . . . . 1709-1784
Goldsmith . . . 1728-1774
Fielding. . . . 1707-1754
Sterne. . . . . 1713-1768
Smollett. . . . 1721-1771
Gray. . . . . . 1716-1771
Boswell . . . . 1740-1795
BURKE IN LITERATURE
It has become almost trite to speak of the breadth of Burke's sympathies. We should examine the statement, however, and understand its significance and see its justice. While he must always be regarded first as a statesman of one of the highest types, he had other interests than those directly suggested by his office, and in one of these, at least, he affords an interesting and profitable study.
To the student of literature Burke's name must always suggest that of Johnson and Goldsmith. It was eight years after Burke's first appearance as an author, that the famous Literary Club was formed. At first it was the intention to limit the club to a membership of nine, and for a time this was adhered to. The original members were Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Hawkins. Garrick, Pox, and Boswell came in later. Macaulay declares that the influence of the club was so great that its verdict made and unmade reputations; but the thing most interesting to us does not lie in the consideration of such literary dictatorship. To Boswell we owe a biography of Johnson which has immortalized its subject, and shed lustre upon all associated with him. The literary history of the last third of the eighteenth century, with Johnson as a central figure, is told nowhere else with such accuracy, or with better effect.
Although a Tory, Johnson was a great one, and his lasting friendship for Burke is an enduring evidence of his generosity and great-mindedness. For twenty years, and longer, they were eminent men in opposing parties, yet their mutual respect and admiration continued to the last. To Burke, Johnson was a writer of "eminent literary merit" and entitled to a pension "solely on that account." To Johnson, Burke was the greatest man of his age, wrong politically, to be sure, yet the only one "whose common conversation corresponded to the general fame which he had in the world"—the only one "who was ready, whatever subject was chosen, to meet you on your own ground." Here and there in the Life are allusions to Burke, and admirable estimates of his many-sided character.
Coming directly to an estimate of Burke from the purely literary point of view, it must be borne in mind that the greater part of his writings was prepared for an audience. Like Macaulay, his prevailing style suggests the speaker, and his methods throughout are suited to declamation and oratory. He lacks the ease and delicacy that we are accustomed to look for in the best prose writers, and occasionally one feels the justice of Johnson's stricture, that "he sometimes talked partly from ostentation", or of Hazlitt's criticism that he seemed to be "perpetually calling the speaker out to dance a minuet with him before he begins."
There may be passages here and there that warrant such censure. Burke is certainly ornate, and at times he is extremely self-conscious, but the dominant quality of his style, and the one which forever contradicts the idea of mere showiness, is passion. In his method of approaching a subject, he may be, and perhaps is, rather tedious, but when once he has come to the matter really in hand, he is no longer the rhetorician, dealing in fine phrases, but the great seer, clothing his thoughts in words suitable and becoming. The most magnificent passages in his writings—the Conciliation is rich in them—owe their charm and effectiveness to this emotional capacity. They were evidently written in moments of absolute abandonment to feeling—in moments when he was absorbed in the contemplation of some great truth, made luminous by his own unrivalled powers.
Closely allied to this intensity of passion, is a splendid imaginative quality. Few writers of English prose have such command of figurative expression. It must be said, however, that Burke was not entirely free from the faults which generally accompany an excessive use of figures. Like other great masters of a decorative style, he frequently becomes pompous and grandiloquent. His thought, too, is obscured, where we would expect great clearness of statement, accompanied by a dignified simplicity; and occasionally we feel that he forgets his subject in an anxious effort to make an impression. Though there are passages in his writings that justify such observations, they are few in number, when compared with those which are really masterpieces of their kind.
Some great crisis, or threatening state of affairs, seems to furnish the necessary condition for the exercise of a great mind, and Burke is never so effective as when thoroughly aroused. His imagination needed the chastening which only a great moment or critical situation could give. Two of his greatest speeches—Conciliation, and Impeachment of Warren Hastings—were delivered under the restraining effect of such circumstances, and in each the figurative expression is subdued and not less beautiful in itself than, appropriate for the occasion.
Finally, it must be observed that no other writer of English prose has a better command of words. His ideas, as multifarious as they are, always find fitting expression. He does not grope for a term; it stands ready for his thought, and one feels that he had opportunity for choice. It is the exuberance of his fancy, already mentioned, coupled with this richness of vocabulary, that helped to make Burke a tiresome speaker. His mind was too comprehensive to allow any phase of his subject to pass without illumination. He followed where his subject