Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/159

 BIRRELL

So accustomed are we to regard Burke's pam- phlets as specimens of our noblest literature, and to see them printed in comfortable volumes, that we are apt to forget that in their origin they were but the children of the pavement, the publications of the hour.

I have now rather more than kept my word so far as Burke's preparliamentary life is con- cerned, and will proceed to mention some of the circumstances that may serve to account for the fact, that when the Rockingham party came into power for the second time in 1782, Burke, who was their life and soul, was only rewarded with a minor office. 1

First, then, it must be recorded sorrowfully of Burke that he was always desperately in debt, and in this country no politician under the rank of a baronet can ever safely be in debt. Burke's finances are, and always have been marvels and mysteries; but one thing must be said of them — that the malignity of his enemies, both Tory enemies and Radical enemies, has never succeeded in formulating any charge of dishonesty against him that has not been at once completely pulverized, and shown on the facts to be impossible.

Burke's purchase of the estate at Beacons- field in 1768, only two years after he entered Parliament, consisting as it did of a good house and 1,600 acres of land, has puzzled a great

1 Burke In this ministry was paymaster-general and privy coun- cillor.

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