Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/72

BUR, 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." Mr. Morley, in his Essay on the life of Burke, thus writes of his attitude regarding France: "We may be sure that the motives which were at the bottom of his envenomed war against the Revolution, were different from the motives of the men who chose him for their leader. We owe him this justice. He hated the tenor of affairs in France with a large and understanding hatred. He knew what it was he was attacking, and he knew distinctly both why he attacked it, and how his present views were no more than the fair corollaries of the views which he had maintained throughout a public life of five-and-twenty years. His clamorous admirers perceived little more than that the strongholds of privilege had gone down before the cry for liberty. . . Of Burke's writings, on the other hand, it may be truly said that the further we get away from the immediate passions of that time, the more surprisingly do we find how acute, and at the same time how broad and rational his insight was, though neither acute nor broad enough." In May 1794 Burke brought the proceedings against Warren Hastings to a close, by an address occupying nine days. Referring afterwards to these exertions on behalf of the people of India, Burke himself says: "If I were to call for a reward (which I have never done) it should be for those services in which, for fourteen years, without intermission, I showed the most industry, and had the least success — I mean in the affairs of India: they are those on which I value myself the most; most for the importance, most for the labours, most for the judgment, most for constancy and perseverance in the pursuit. Others may value them most for the intention. In that surely they are not mistaken." "The mind of Burke," says Earl Russell, "comprehended the vast extent of the question, and his genius animated the heavy mass of materials which his industry had enabled him to master. For years he persevered in his great task. Neither the dilatory plea of dissolution of Parliament, nor the appalling earthquake of the French Revolution (to none more appalling than to him) ever distracted his attention from his great Indian enterprise. The speeches delivered by him in Westminster Hall are great monuments of industry and eloquence ; they surpass in power those of Cicero when denouncing the crimes of Verres. Finally, though the impeachment ended in an acquittal, its results were memorable and beneficial. Never has the great object of punishment — the prevention of crime — been attained more completely than by this trial." Sir Joseph Napier adds: "Burke's was a noble proceeding, if we can appreciate the moral chivalry which sustained him to the close. For the best years of his mature life, with no interest but duty, with no reward but from his conscience, the unbought advocate of the friendless and the oppressed, he poured forth that mighty eloquence which will ever adorn our literature whilst goodness is honoured, and genius is admired." The labour had, however, worn him down, and the angry debates on the Regency Bill further helped to shake his constitution. The reply of the Prince of Wales to the communication from Pitt relative to the question, is said by Lord Stanhope to be one of the best state papers in the English language. "This masterly performance came from the pen of Burke, and it may well enhance our just admiration of his transcendant powers, when we find him, on so lofty an occasion, enabled to adopt a wholly different style — lay aside his glorious imagery, and rise clear from those gusts of violence in which he had so recently indulged." Mr. Burke was now anxious to retire from public life; and an arrangement having been made for his son to succeed him in the representation of Malton, he but remained in Parliament to conclude the prosecution of Hastings. The last day of his appearance in the House was the 20th June 1794, when the thanks of Parliament were voted to the managers of the impeachment for their faithful discharge of the trust reposed in them. An overwhelming affliction now awaited him — the death of his only son, Richard, on 2nd August, at the age of 35. He was a man of some promise, entirely over-estimated by Burke, who believed him to be possessed of greater abilities than his own. He had not shown much prudence or much ability in his management of the affairs of the Catholic Committee. Burke's heart was, however, entirely bound up in him, and from the bereavement he never recovered. "The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane 48