Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/162

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

ecessors in the office he held, including Fox's own father, the truly infamous first Lord Hol- land, had done — namely, by retaining for his own use the interest on all balances of the public money from time to time in his hands as pay- master of the forces. But Burke carried his passion for good government into actual prac- tise, and, cutting down the emoluments of his office to a salary (a high one, no doubt), effected a saving to the country of some 25,000J. a year, every farthing of which might have gone without remark into his own pocket.

Burke had no vices save of style and temper; nor was any of his expenditure a profligate squandering of money. It all went in giving employment or disseminating kindness. He sent the painter Barry to study art in Italy. He saved the poet Crabbe from starvation and de- spair, and thus secured to the country one who owns the unrivaled distinction of having been the favorite poet of the three greatest intellectual factors of the age (scientific men excepted) — Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Cardinal Newman.

Yet so distorted are men's views that the odious and antisocial excesses of Fox at the gambling-table are visited with a blame usually wreathed in smiles, whilst the financial irreg- ularities of a noble and pure-minded man are thought fit matter for the fiercest censure or the most lordly contempt.

Next to Burke's debts, some of his companions 138

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