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Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke.

E >> Edmund Burke >> Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke.



This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher asschers@dingoblue.net.au
from the book made available by Dr Mike Alder.





SELECTIONS FROM THE SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF EDMUND BURKE.




INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

...

"Id dico, eum qui sit orator, virum bonum esse oportere. In omnibus quae
dicit tanta auctoritas inest, ut dissentire pudeat; nec advocati
studium, sed testis aut judicis afferat fidem."--Quintilianus.

"Democracy is the most monstrous of all governments, because it is
impossible at once to act and control; and, consequently, the Sovereign
Power is then left without any restraint whatever. That form of
government is the best which places the efficient direction in the hands
of the aristocracy, subjecting them in its exercise to the control of
the people at large."--Sir James Mackintosh.

...

The intellectual homage of more than half a century has assigned to
Edmund Burke a lofty pre-eminence in the aristocracy of mind, and we may
justly assume succeeding ages will confirm the judgment which the Past
has thus pronounced. His biographical history is so popularly known,
that it is almost superfluous to record it in this brief introduction.
It may, however, be summed up in a few sentences. He was born at Dublin
in 1730. His father was an attorney in extensive practice, and his
mother's maiden name was Nogle, whose family was respectable, and
resided near Castletown, Roche, where Burke himself received five years
of boyish education under the guidance of a rustic schoolmaster. He was
entered at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1746, but only remained there
until 1749. In 1753 he became a member of the Middle Temple, and
maintained himself chiefly by literary toil. Bristol did itself the
honour to elect him for her representative in 1774, and after years of
splendid usefulness and mental triumph, as an orator, statesman, and
patriot, he retired to his favourite retreat, Beaconsfield, in
Buckinghamshire, where he died on July 9th, 1797. He was buried here;
and the pilgrim who visits the grave of this illustrious man, when he
gazes on the simple tomb which marks the earthly resting?place of
himself, brother, son, and widow, may feelingly recall his own pathetic
wish uttered some forty years before, in London:--"I would rather sleep
in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb
of the Capulets. I should like, however, that my dust should mingle with
kindred dust. The good old expression, 'family burying?ground,' has
something pleasing in it, at least to me." Alluding to his approaching
dissolution, he thus speaks, in a letter addressed to a relative of his
earliest schoolmaster:--"I have been at Bath these four months for no
purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield
to-morrow, to be nearer a habitation more permanent, humbly and
fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion." It is a
source of deep thankfulness for those who reverence the genius and
eloquence of this great man, to state, that Burke's religion was that of
the Cross, and to find him speaking of the "Intercession" of our
Redeeming Lord, as "what he had long sought with unfeigned anxiety, and
to which he looked with trembling hope." The commencing paragraph in his
Will also authenticates the genuine character of his personal
Christianity. "According to the ancient, good, and laudable custom, of
which my heart and understanding recognise the propriety, I BEQUEATH MY
SOUL TO GOD, HOPING FOR HIS MERCY ONLY THROUGH THE MERITS OF OUR LORD
AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. My body I desire to be buried in the church of
Beaconsfield, near to the bodies of my dearest brother, and my dearest
son, in all humility praying, that as we have lived in perfect unity
together, we may together have part in the resurrection of the just."
(In the "Epistolary Correspondence of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and
Dr. French Laurence" (Rivingtons, London, 1827), are several touching
allusions to that master?grief which threw a mournful shadow over the
closing period of Burke's life. In one letter the anxious father says,
"The fever continues much as it was. He sleeps in a very uneasy way from
time to time?-but his strength decays visibly, and his voice is, in a
manner, gone. But God is all?sufficient?-and surely His goodness and his
mother's prayers may do much" (page 30). Again, in another communication
addressed to his revered correspondent, we find a beautiful allusion to
his departed son, which involves his belief in that most soothing
doctrine of the Church,--a recognition of souls in the kingdom of the
Beatified. "Here I am in the last retreat of hunted infirmity; I am
indeed 'aux abois.' But, as through the whole of a various and long life
I have been more indebted than thankful to Providence, so I am now
singularly so, in being dismissed, as hitherto I appear to be, so gently
from life, AND SENT TO FOLLOW THOSE WHO IN COURSE OUGHT TO HAVE FOLLOWED
ME, WHOM, I TRUST, I SHALL YET, IN SOME INCONCEIVABLE MANNER, SEE AND
KNOW; AND BY WHOM I SHALL BE SEEN AND KNOWN" (pages 53, 54).

In reference to the intellectual grandeur, the eloquent genius, and
prophetic wisdom of Burke, which have caused his writings to become
oracles for future statesmen to consult, it is quite unnecessary for
contemporary criticism to speak. By the concurring judgment, both of
political friends and foes, as well as by the highest arbiters of taste
throughout the civilized world, Burke has been pronounced, not only
"primus inter pares," but "facile omnium princeps." At the termination
of these introductory remarks, the reader will be presented with
critical portraitures of Burke from the writings and speeches of men,
who, while opposed to him in their principles of legislative policy,
with all the chivalry and candour of genius paid a noble homage to the
vastness and variety of his unrivalled powers. Meanwhile, it may not be
presumptuous for a writer, on an occasion like the present, to
contemplate this great man under certain aspects, which, perhaps, are
not sufficiently regarded in their DISTINCTIVE bearings on the worth and
wisdom of his character and writings. We say "distinctive," because the
eloquence of Burke, beyond that of all other orators and statesmen which
Great Britain has produced, is featured with expressions, and
characterised by qualities, as peculiar as they are immortal. So far as
invention, imagination, moral fervour, and metaphorical richness of
illustration, combined with that intense "pathos and ethos," which the
Roman critic describes ("Huc igitur incumbat orator: hoc opus ejus, hic
labor est; sine quo caetera nuda, jejuna, infirma, ingrata sunt: adeo
velut spiritus operis hujus atque animus est IN AFFECTIBUS. Horum autem,
sicut antiquitus traditum accepimus, duae sunt species: alteram Graeci
pathos vocant, quem nos vertentes recte ac proprie AFFECTUM dicimus;
alteram ethos, cujus nomine (ut ego quidem sentio) caret sermo Romanus,
mores appellantur."--Quintilian, "Instit. Orat." lib. vi. cap. 2.) as
essential to the true orator, are concerned, the author of "Reflections
on the French Revolution," and "Letters on a Regicide Peace," is justly
admired and appreciated. Moreover, if what we understand by the
"sublime" in eloquence has ever been embodied, the speeches and writings
of Burke appear to have been drawn from those five sources ("pegai") to
which Longinus alludes. In the 8th chapter of his fragment "On the
Sublime," he observes, that if we assume an ability for speaking well,
as a common basis, there are five copious fountains from whence
sublimity in eloquence may be said to flow; viz.

1. Boldness and grandeur of thought.

2. The pathetic, or the power of exciting the passions into an
enthusiastic reach and noble degree.

3. A skilful application of figures, both from sentiment and language.

4. A graceful, finished, and ornate style, embellished by tropes and
metaphors.

5. Lastly, as that which completes all the rest,--the structure of
periods, in dignity and grandeur.

These five sources of the sublime, the same philosophical critic
distinguishes into two classes; the first two he asserts to be gifts of
nature, and the remaining three are considered to depend, in a great
measure, upon literature and art. Again, if we may linger for a moment
in the attractive region of classical authorship, how justly applicable
are the words of Cicero in his "De Oratore," to the vastness and variety
of Burke's attainments! "Ac mea quidem sententia, nemo poterit esse omni
laude cumulatus orator, nisi erit OMNIUM RERUM MAGNARUM ATQUE ARTIUM
SCIENTIAM CONSECUTUS."--Cic. "De Orat." lib. i. cap. 6. Equally
descriptive of Burke's power in raising the dormant sensibilities of our
moral nature by his intuitive perception of what that nature really and
fundamentally is, are the following expressions of the same great
authority:--"Quis enim nescit, maximam vim existere oratoris, in hominum
mentibus vel ad iram aut ad odium, aut dolorem incitandis, vel, ab
hisce, iisdem permonitionibus, ad lenitatem misericordiamque revocandis?
Quare, NISI QUI NATURAS HOMINUM, VIMQUE OMNEM HUMANITATIS, CAUSASQUE EAS
QUIBUS MENTES AUT EXCITANTUR, AUT REFLECTUNTUR, PENITUS PERSPEXERIT,
DICENDO, QUOD VOLET, PERFICERE NON POTERIT."--Cic. "De Orat." lib. i.
cap. 12.

But to return. If a critical analysis of Burke, as an exhibition of
genius, be attempted, his characteristic endowments may, probably, be
not incorrectly represented by the following succinct statement.

1. Endless variety in connection with exhaustless vigour of mind.

2. A lofty power of generalisation, both in speculative views and in his
argumentative process.

3. Vivid intensity of conception, which caused abstractions to stand out
with almost living force and visible feature, in his impassioned
moments.

4. An imagination of oriental luxuriance, whose incessant play in
tropes, metaphors, and analogies, frequently causes his speeches to
gleam on the intellectual eye, as Aeschylus says the ocean does, when
the Sun irradiates its bosom with the "anerithmon gelasma" of countless
beams. 5. His positive acquirements in all the varied realms of art,
science, and literature, endowed him with such vast funds of knowledge
(In the wealth of his multitudinous acquirements, Burke seems to realise
Cicero's ideal of what a perfect orator should know:--"Equidem omnia,
quae pertinent ad usum civium, morem hominum, quae versantur in
consuetudine vitae, in ratione reipublicae, in hac societate civili, in
sensu hominum communi, in natura, in moribus, co hendenda esse oratori
puto."--Cicero "De Orat." lib. ii. cap. 16.), that Johnson declared of
Burke--"Enter upon what subject you will, and Burke is ready to meet
you."

6. In addition to these high gifts, may be added, an ability to wield
the weapons of sarcasm and irony, with a keenness of application and
effect rarely equalled. But, in all candour, it may be added, that just
as a profusion of figures and metaphors sometimes tempted this great
orator into incongruous images and coarse analogies, so his passion for
irony was occasionally too intense. Hence, there are occasions where his
pungency is embittered into acrimony, strength degenerates into
vulgarism, and the vehemence of satire is infuriated with the fierceness
of invective.

7. With regard to language and style, it may be truly said, they were
the absolute vassals of his Genius, and did homage to its command in
every possible mode by which it chose to employ them. Thus, in his
"Letters on a Regicide Peace," and above all, in "French Revolutions,"
the reader will find almost every conceivable manner of style and mode
of expression the English language can develop; and what is
more,--together with classical richness, there are also the pointed
seriousness and persuasive simplicity of our own vernacular Saxon, which
increase the attractions of Burke's style to a wonderful extent. But,
beyond controversy, among these great endowments, the imaginative
faculty is that which appears to be the most transcendent in the mental
constitution of Burke. And so truly is this the case, that both among
his contemporaries, as well as among his successors, this predominance
of imagination has caused his just claims as a philosophic thinker and
statesman to be partially overlooked. The union of ideal theory and
practical realisation, of imaginative creation with logical induction,
is indeed so rare, we cannot be surprised at the injustice which the
genius of Burke has had to endure in this respect. And yet, in the
nature of our faculties themselves, there exists no necessity why a
vivid power to conceive ideas, should NOT be combined with a dialectic
skill in expressing them. Degerando, an admirable French writer, in one
of his Treatises, has some profound observations on this subject; and
does not hesitate to define poetry itself as a species of "logique
cachee."

But when we assert that these excellencies, which have thus been
succinctly exhibited, characterise the mental constitution of Burke, we
do not mean that others have not, in their degree, possessed similar
endowments. Such an inference would be an absurd extravagance. But what
we mean to affirm is--the qualifications enumerated have never been
combined into co-operative harmony, and developed in proportionable
effect, as they appear in the speeches and writings of this wonderful
man. But after all, we have not reached what may be considered a
peerless excellence, the peculiar gift,--the one great and glorious
distinction, which separates Burke's oratory from that of all others,
and which has caused his speeches to be blended with political History,
and to incorporate themselves with the moral destiny of Europe,--namely,
HIS INTUITIVE PERCEPTION OF UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES. The truth of this
statement may be verified, by comparing the eloquence of Burke with
specimens of departed orators; or by a reference to existing standards
in the parliamentary debates. Compared, then, either with the speeches
of Chatham, Holland, Pitt, Fox, etc. etc., we perceive at once the grand
distinction to which we refer. These illustrious men were effective
debaters, and, in various senses, orators of surpassing excellency. But
how is it, that with all their allowed grandeur of intellect and
political eminence, they have ceased to operate upon the hearts and
minds of the present Age, either as teachers of political Truth, or
oracles of legislative Wisdom? Simply, BECAUSE they were too popular in
temporary effect, ever to become influential by permanent inspiration.
In their highest moods, and amid their noblest hours of triumph, they
were "of the earth earthy." Party; personality; crushing rejoinders, or
satirical attacks; a felicitous exposure of inconsistency, or a
triumphant self-vindication; brilliant repartees, and logical
gladiatorship,--such are among the prominent characteristics which
caused parliamentary debates in Burke's day to be so animating and
interesting to those who heard, or perused them, amid the excitements of
the hour. It is not to be denied that commanding eloquence, vast genius,
political ardour, intellectual enthusiasm, together with indignant
denunciation and argumentative subtlety, were thus summoned into
exercise by the perils of the Nation, and the contentions of Party.
Nevertheless, the local, the temporal, the conventional, and the
individual, in all which relates to the science of politics or the
tactics of partisanship,--are sufficient to excite and employ the
energies and qualities which made the general parliamentary debates of
Burke's period so captivating. But when we revert to his own speeches
and writings, we at once perceive WHY, as long as the mind can
comprehend what is true, the heart appreciate what is pure, or the
conscience authenticate the sanction of heaven and the distinctions
between right and wrong,--Edmund Burke will continue to be admired,
revered, and consulted, not only as the greatest of English orators, but
as the profoundest teacher of political Science. It was not that he
despised the arrangement of facts, or overlooked the minutiae of detail;
on the contrary, as may be proved by his speeches on "economical
reform," and Warren Hastings; in these respects his research was
boundless, and his industry inexhaustible. Moreover, he was quite alive
to the claims of a crisis, and with the coolness and calm of a practical
statesman, knew how to confront a sudden emergency, and to contend with
a gigantic difficulty. Yet all these qualifications recede before
Burke's amazing power of expanding particulars into universals, and of
associating the accidents of a transient discussion with the essential
properties of some permanent Law in policy, or abstract Truth in morals.
His genius looked through the local to the universal; in the temporal
perceived the eternal; and while facing the features of the Individual,
was enabled to contemplate the attributes of a Race. (Cicero, in many
respects a counterpart of Burke, both in statesmanship and oratory,
appears to recognise what is here expressed when he says:--"Plerique duo
genera ad dicendum dederunt; UNUM DE CERTA DEFINITAQUE CAUSA, quales
sunt quae in litibus, quae in deliberationibus versantur;--alterum, quod
appellant omnes fere scriptores, explicat nemo, INFINITAM GENERIS SINE
TEMPORE, ET SINE PERSONA quaestionem."--"De Orat." lib. ii. cap. 15.)
Hence his speeches are virtual prophecies; and his writings a storehouse
of pregnant axioms and predictive enunciations, as limitless in their
range as they are undying in duration. In one word, no speeches
delivered in the English Parliament, are so likely to be eternalized as
Burke's, because he has combined with his treatment of some especial
case or contingency before him, the assertion of immutable Principles,
which can be detached from what is local and national, and thus made to
stand forth alone in all the naked grandeur of their truth and their
tendency. Let us be permitted to investigate this topic a little
further. If, then, what Quintilian asserted of the Roman orator may be
applied to our own British Cicero,--"Ille se profecisse sciat, cui
Cicero valde placebit;" and if, moreover, this pre-eminence be chiefly
discovered in Burke's instinctive grasp of that moral essence which is
incorporated with all questions of political Science, and social
Ethics--from WHENCE came this diviner energy of his Genius? No believer
in Christian revelation will hesitate to appropriate, even to this
subject, the apostolic axiom, "EVERY good gift, and EVERY perfect gift
is from above." But while we subscribe with reverential sincerity to
this announcement, it is equally true, that the Infinite Inspirer of all
good adjusts His secret energies by certain laws, and condescends to
work by analogous means. Bearing this in mind, we venture to think
Burke's gift of almost prescient insight into the recesses of our common
nature, and his consummate faculty of instructing the Future through the
medium of the Present,--were partly derived from the elevation of his
sentiments, and the purity of his private life. (The action and reaction
maintained between our moral and intellectual elements is but remotely
discussed by Quintilian in his "Institutes." But still, in more than one
passage, he most impressively declares, that mental proficiency is
greatly retarded by perversity of heart and will. For instance, on one
occasion we find him speaking thus:--"Nihil enim est tam occupatum, tam
multiforme, tot ac tam variis affectibus concisum, atque laceratum, quam
mala ac improba mens. Quis inter haec, literis, aut ulli bonae arti,
locus? Non hercle magis quam frugibus, in terra sentibus ac rubis
occupata."--"Nothing is so flurried and agitated, so self?contradictory,
or so violently rent and shattered by conflicting passions, as a bad
heart. In the distractions which it produces, what room is there for the
cultivation of letters, or the pursuits of any honourable art?
Assuredly, no more than there is for the growth of corn in a field
overrun with thorns and brambles.") It would be unwise to draw invidious
comparisons, but no student of the period in which Burke was in
Parliament, can deny that, compared with SOME of his illustrious
contemporaries, he was indeed a model of what reason and conscience
alike approve in all the relative duties and personal conduct of a man,
when beheld in his domestic career. It is, indeed, a source of deep
thankfulness, the admirer of Burke's genius in public, has no reason to
blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to
his matchless oratory upon the arena of the House of Commons, we have
not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles
of private history. Our theory, then, is, that beyond what his
distinctive genius inspired, Burke's wondrous power of enunciating
everlasting principles and of associating the loftiest abstractions of
wisdom with the commonest themes of the hour,--was sustained and
strengthened by the purity of his heart, and the subjection of passion
to the law of conscience. And if the worshippers of mere intellect,
apart from, or as opposed to, moral elevation, are inclined to ridicule
this view of Burke's genius, we beg to remind them, that "One greater
than the Temple" of mortal Wisdom, and all the idols enshrined therein,
has asserted a positive connection to exist between mental insight and
moral purity. We allude to the Redeemer's words, when He declares,--"If
any man WILLS to do His will, he shall KNOW of the doctrine." HOW the
passions act upon our perceptions, and by what process the motions of
the Will elevate or depress the forces of the Intellect, is beyond our
metaphysics to analyse. But that there exists a real, active, and
influential connection between our moral and mental life, is undeniable:
and since Burke's power of seizing the essential Idea, or fundamental
Principle of every complex detail which came before him, was
pre-eminently his gift,--the intellectual insight such gift developed,
was not only an expression of senatorial wisdom, but also a witness for
the elevation of his moral character. We must now allude to the public
conduct of Burke, as a Statesman and Politician, and only regret the
limited range of a popular essay confines us to one view, namely, his
alleged inconsistency. There WAS a period when charges of apostasy were
brought against him with reckless audacity: but Time, the instructor of
ignorance, and the subduer of prejudice, is now beginning to place the
conduct of Burke in its true light. The facts of the case are briefly
these. Up to the period of 1791, Fox and Burke fought in the same rank
of opposition, and stood together upon a basis of complete identity in
principle and sentiment. But even before the celebrated disruption of
1791, the progress of Republicanism in America, and the approaching
separation of the colonies from their parent state, Burke's views of
political liberty had received extensive modifications; and the ardour
of his confidence in the so?called friends of freedom had been greatly
cooled. But in 1791, the disruption between Burke and Fox became open,
absolute, and final, when the latter statesman uttered, in the hearing
of his friend, this fearful eulogium on the French Revolution:--"The new
constitution of France is the most stupendous and glorious edifice of
liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in
any age or country!" (That ancient Sage unto whose political wisdom
frequent reference has been made in this essay, thus speaks on the
reverence due unto an existing government, even when contemplated from
its weakest side:--"Formidable as these arguments seem, they may be
opposed by others of not less weight; arguments which prove that even
the rust of government is to be respected, and that its fabric is never
to be touched but with a fearful and trembling hand. When the evil of
persevering in hereditary institutions is small, it ought always to be
endured, because the evil of departing from them is certainly very
great. Slight imperfections, therefore, whether in the laws themselves,
or in those who administer and execute the laws, ought always to be
overlooked, because they cannot be corrected without occasioning a much
greater mischief, and tending to weaken that reverence which the safety
of all governments requires that the citizens at large should entertain,
cultivate, and cherish for the hereditary institutions of their country.
The comparison drawn from the improvement of arts does not apply to the
amendment of laws. To change or improve an art, and to alter or amend a
law, are things as dissimilar in their operation as different in their
tendency; for laws operate as practical principles of moral action; and,
like all the rules of morality, derive their force and efficacy, as even
the name imports, from the customary repetition of habitual acts, and
the slow operation of time. Every alteration of the laws, therefore,
tends to subvert that authority on which the persuasive agency of all
laws is founded, and to abridge, weaken, and destroy the power of the
law itself."--Aristotle's "Politics.") The reply of Burke to this burst
of Jacobinism, with all its consequences in the political history of
Europe, is far too well known to be quoted here. But, since it was at
this point in the career of Burke the charge of apostasy was commenced,
and which has never quite died away, even in existing times, we may be
permitted, first, to cite a noble passage from Burke's self?vindication;
and secondly, to adduce a still more impressive evidence of his
political rectitude and wisdom, derived from the admission of those who
were once his uncompromising opponents. In relation to the attacks of
Fox upon his supposed inconsistency, Mr. Burke thus replies:--

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