His wife, who had remained in England, gave birth to a son shortly after her husband's death, the news of which nearly caused her own. There are letters of Edmund Burke extant describing at the time most feelingly these domestic afflictions, and showing how intense were the devotion and care of himself and his wife in endeavouring to soothe the sorrows and restore the health of their niece. The son and only child of Mrs. Colonel Haviland was the late Thomas Haviland Burke, Esq., of whom and whose family, as now representing the illustrious statesman, further mention will be made at the conclusion of this biography. Edmund Burke's only child Richard, as he approached manhood, became every day more and more the object of parental pride and affection. This son formed the chief and most cheering prospect of Burke's existence. He watched with intense anxiety over the youth's education and progress, and seemed to regard his own greatness as a mere prelude to the son's still higher advancement. He lived, to use his own words, in hope of a successionin hope of being the founder of a family. Richard Burke, the son, was educated at Westminster School, and at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was called to the bar by the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple in Michaelmas term 1780, and he continued for some years the practice of his profession. He was first on the Northern and afterwards on the Oxford circuit. Richard Burke was doatingly attached to his parents. Edmund Burke had friends among those of his own name, either distant kinsmen or nowise related, to whom he was warmly allied. He never lost an opportunity of serving them. One of these, Mr. William Burke, already alluded to, a person of considerable literary and political ability and repute, was Edmund's constant guest and companion. Mr. William Burke's career was active and varied. He was under-secretary of state in the office of the minister, General Conway; and he was elected, in 1768, M.P. for Bedwin. In July 1775 he left England to travel over DEATH OF GOLDSMITH HIS MONUMENT. 121 land to India with dispatches to Lord Pigot, whom he found dead when he arrived. On coming back, he was made agent to the Rajah of Tanjore; and in 1779 he went again to the East, as deputy-paymaster to the king's troops in India; he accompanied Lord Cornwallis there in his military progress, and enjoyed the close friendship of that gallant nobleman. Ill health compelled Mr. William Burke to finally return and settle in England in 1793. His declining years were spent mostly in the society of his beloved friends Mr. and Mrs. Burke. He survived the orator but a few months, and died in 1798. Goldsmith, in "Retaliation," thus writes of the three Burkes→→→ the brothers Edmund and Richard, and the friend William : "Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains; Our Dick, with his pepper, shall heighten the savour.” Another connexion, Mr. John Bourke or Burke (the name is pronounced the same, spelt either way), was the son of Edmund Bourke of Cornelaunagh, county Mayo, and grandson of Edmund Bourke of Urey, whose lineage is traceable to the noble house of Bourke, Earls of Ulster. Mr. John Bourke had commenced as a merchant in London. Not being successful, he went to India, where, owing to Edmund's introduction of him to his friend Sir Philip Francis, he ultimately prospered. This Mr. John Bourke had a nephew, Mr. Charles Palmer, who, by his genius and application, became, at twenty-seven years of age, one of the most eminent lawyers in Jamaica: he was father of Charles H. Palmer, M.P. for Surrey. Mr. John Bourke, as will be seen in the last chapter of this biography, was father-in-law of the present Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B. In 1774 Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke lost their friend Goldsmith, whom they both so loved and regarded. Poor Goldsmith lived and died in a state of continual poverty, occasioned by his own improvidence, and alleviated only by such cheerful help as friends like Burke and Johnson could bestow. He expired on the 4th of April, 1774, and was interred in the churchyard of the Temple. The Literary Club furnished the funds that procured the poet the monument executed by Nollekins, which stands to his memory in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. How Dr. Johnson wrote the Latin epitaph, and how the gentlemen of the club, who dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, sat in conclave upon it, are well known. They wished the inscription in English, and objected to some of its details; but the question was, who should have the courage to propose the alteration and emendation to the author. At last it was resolved that there could be no way so good as that of a Round Robin. The Robin was written within a circle formed by the names of Edmund Burke, Thomas Franklin, Anthony Chamier, G. Colman, Wm. Vaskell, Joshua Reynolds, William Forbes, T. Barnard, R. B. Sheridan, P. Metcalfe, E. Gibbon, Joseph Warton. Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Limerick, drew up an appeal to Johnson on the occasion, which, it was feared by the rest, the Doctor might think treated the subject with too much levity. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the Round Robin, and Sir William Forbes officiated as clerk and wrote it. It ran thus: "We, the circumscribers, having read with great pleasure an intended epitaph for the monument of Dr. Goldsmith, which, considered abstractedly, appears to be, for elegant composition and masterly style, in every respect worthy of the pen of its learned author, are yet of opinion that the character of the deceased as a writer, particularly as a poet, is perhaps not delineated with all the exactness which Dr. Johnson is capable of giving it. We therefore, with deference to his superior judgment, humbly request that he would at least take the trouble of revising it, and of making such additions and alterations as he shall think proper upon a further perusal. But if we might venture to express our wishes, they would lead us to request that he would write the epitaph in English rather than in Latin; as we think that the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be perpetuated 1 DR. JOHNSON AT BEACONSFIELD. 123 in the language to which his works are likely to be so lasting an ornament, which we also know to have been the opinion of the late Doctor himself." Sir Joshua Reynolds agreed to carry it to Dr. Johnson, who received it with great good humour, and desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen that he would alter the inscription in any manner they pleased as to the sense of it; but he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English epitaph; and observing the names of Dr. Warton and Edmund Burke among the circumscribers, said to Sir Joshua, "I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool; and I should have thought that 'Mund Burke would have had more sense." The epitaph, as first written by Johnson, is engraved on Goldsmith's monument without any change. During the recess, after the session, in the summer of 1774, Burke received at Beaconsfield a visit from his friend Dr. Johnson, who came in company with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. On viewing Burke's beautiful seat, he exclaimed, in the words of Virgil, "Non equidem invideo, miror magis." Although the two great men had frequent political arguments in town, here there was no altercation. The polite host refrained from subjects of contention. The guest laid, for the time, all state feeling and disrelish of the Whigs aside. Mr. and Mrs. Burke exerted themselves to their utmost to please their illustrious visitor and his favourite associates, and they were eminently successful. The sage expressed himself extremely gratified; he was in continuous good humour, and most conversational. Mrs. Thrale was charmed with Burke's politeness, and construed it all into an admiration of her own talents and acquirements: she declared him a delightful man, and the meeting a delightful party. Burke made his guests pleased with themselves, with each other, and consequently with their entertainer. Although his fulness could not avoid venting itself, yet did he manage his conversa tion so as not to mortify others by a sense of their inferiority, or overbear them with his powers. They felt they were won, and knew they were instructed by the discourse, without being drawn to a humiliating comparison with the speaker. He never brought his strength to a comparative trial unless provoked by an attack, nor, indeed, always then. Mrs. Thrale mentions a strange compliment paid by Johnson to Burke at parting. The general election terminated the visit, and called them all different ways. Mr. Burke having to set out for Malton to get elected, and to commence operations in favour of his party, Johnson taking him by the hand, said, his heart wavering between Toryism and friendship, "Farewell, my dear sir; and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you— which can possibly be wished you by an honest man. Burke's friend Abraham Shackleton found, as the orator rose in the world, that he experienced still greater attention from him. Shackleton continued Burke's frequent correspondent, and often also would be invited to Beaconsfield. Burke loved in his society to retrace the scenes of his juvenile days, and to talk of Ireland. Burke scarcely ever visited his native country without sojourning with Shackleton, or with another old class-fellow of Shackleton's academy, one Michael Smith, a country schoolmaster, who, Burke used to say, always valued him according to his abilities and personal character, and not according to his accidental situation. Mr. Smith was head of the grammar-school of Fenagh, in the county of Leitrim. Letters often passed, of a most familiar description, between him and his senator friend. In one of Shackleton's summer excursions to Beaconsfield, with his sister Mary Leadbeater, that talented lady wrote a poem descriptive of the mansion of Gregories and its owner. The following lines form part of it. "All hail, ye woods, in deepest gloom array'd! Admit a stranger through your reverend shade, |