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 BURKE 239 excellent speech in the Irish House of Commons, and having procured for Burke a pension of 300l. a year on the Irish establishment, it was considered by many as a recompence for his assistance in their composition. This, however, we have reason to believe was not the case; the talents of Hamilton were very great, and fully adequate to the production of the speeches referred to; and his future silence in the senate may be easily accounted for by the indolence of that gentleman, whose ample fortune afforded uim the means of indulging in that dissipation to which he was so ardently attached. His biographer, how- ever, in negativing the above report, does not furnish us with any clue to guide us out of the labyrinth; and we are still at a loss to ascertain to what peculiar circumsances Burke was indebted for this liberal and seasonable supply That it was not altogether owing to an understood or avow- ed agreement, on the part of Burke, to support the measures of his friend by the powerful efforts of his genius, may be collected from the cireumstance of his never having been known as the author of any political publications on that side during the short period of his stay in Irelaud. He also retained the pension for some time after his return to England; and did not throw it up until he had declared himself an avowed adherent to the party in opposition to that in which Hamilton ranked. An anecdote which is recorded of the dissolution of their friendship, principally, we suppose, for the sake of the pun which it contains, is totally inconsistent with the facts related by Dr. Bissett. In a dispute which arose on some political question, Hamilton is reported to have told Burke, "that he took him from a garret" " Then, Sir, by your own confession, it was I that descended to know you," was the indignant reply. Bissett, however, states, that though no intimate connection subsisted between these gentlemen after Burke's return from Ireland, yet that their friendship was never entirely dissolved, a circumstance which must have been unavoidable, had the above report