Page:Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America.djvu/43

 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.