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 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