Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;

Nor number nor example with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,

Though single.

Verses from Milton's Paradise Lost, b. v., placed by Sir Joshua Reynolds under a print of Burke's portrait published in 1791.

THE REGENCY QUESTION-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION-BURKE'S OPPOSITION TO IT: HIS CONDUCT RELATIVE TO FRANCE IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT-PUBLICATION OF HIS REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND OF HIS OTHER WORKS ON THE SAME SUBJECT-BURKE'S RETIREMENT FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

THE last chapter, which was devoted entirely to India and Warren Hastings, brought, as far as those subjects were concerned, Burke's biography down to 1795. It therefore becomes necessary to go a few years back, to record his course through other political events, one of which was the most important that occupied his public life.

In the autumn of 1788, the first decided attack of that melancholy malady to which George III. afterwards fell a victim was announced, and caused the celebrated regency question. In the lengthened debates that ensued, Burke, with his usual energy and eloquence, took a leading part; he supported Fox, Sheridan, and Lord North, agreeing with them that the Prince of Wales, under the unforeseen and calamitous circumstances of the case, had an indisputable claim to exercise unrestrictedly the executive power, in the name and on behalf of the sovereign, it being left to the two houses of parliament to pronounce the exact time when his royal highness should take possession of his authority. Pitt, on the other hand, insisted that the prince had no exclusive right, and that it belonged to the houses of Lords and Commons to make such provision as they thought proper to supply the temporary incapacity of the royal office. Hence the contest, in which Pitt had the power of the British parliament and the popular voice in England with him. The Irish parliament sided with his opponents. On the 30th December, 1788, Pitt addressed a letter to the Prince of Wales, submitting to him the plan of limited regency he proposed. The able answer of his royal highness to this communication is said to have been composed by Edmund Burke. Pitt, nothing daunted by that reply, carried through parliament five restrictive resolutions, and would have passed the Regency Bill, in the shape he wished, but for the opportune recovery of the king, which was announced in the House of Lords on the 10th March, 1789, and which put a stop at once to these unpleasant proceedings.

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The closing and most conspicuous scene of Mr. Burke's political career now approached the autumn of 1789 and the French Revolution; the period when, to use his own metaphorical language, his splendid orb went down, and left the western horizon in a blaze with his descending glory. The great convulsion in France had amazed and stupified mankind. An ancient and powerful nation rose suddenly from a state of oppression to one of the wildest freedom. In the countries that bordered on the scene, the multitude, who looked no deeper than the surface, applauded; many even among the wisest and the best yielded to the popular feeling. Charles James Fox, whose gallant, generous mind worshipped liberty in every shape and every clime, surrendered himself entirely to this apparent consecration of his idol. When the plot thickened, and horrors accumulated upon horrors, men still stood bewildered, and knew not what to do; but from the very first the prophetic eye of Edmund Burke went beyond ordinary mortal vision, penetrated the outward covering, and perceived the danger that lurked beneath. Irreligion, anarchy, cruelty, and mob-dominion; and beyond that again the dread fury of conquest and aggrandisement that had seized the French and threatened the slavery of Europe; he saw it all, and he addressed his country in a voice of thunder. The recollection of the loss of British America sanctified his warning; king and people dared no longer hesitate to hear him. Yet in the beginning there was no energy; and Pitt himself showed vacillation. Burke alone grew more animated as difficulties increased. Louder and louder did he proclaim, "Let there be no compact or alliance with revolutionary France! -war upon the regicide!" until his expiring voice had roused this monarchy, and the nations that depended upon it, to continue a contest which, as he foretold, happily ended in victory, security, and peace.

To blame Edmund Burke for what he did in an emergency so terrible has of late grown into a kind of fashion—temporary, no doubt, like other modes of the day. This complaining originates

with certain enthusiasts who broach themes of eternal tranquillity, and imagine they must be right because they are patiently suffered to thus preach to a victorious nation, now naturally willing to repose under its laurels. Strange, indeed, is it, that whenever any new-fangled doctrine starts into vogue, the first impediment it meets is Edmund Burke. The earliest task the supporter of a political paradox has on hand, is to attempt to efface the impression left by the wisdom of Burke's doctrine and example. The plan adopted in the present case is, to argue that Burke was wrong altogether; that he spoke and acted like a visionary, or wild incendiary—a dangerous lunatic,—who hurried his country into years of useless bloodshed and unnecessary, wasteful expense. The fallacy of this foul censure is apparent, and it would have readily been answered and set at rest, but for the very apathy caused by prosperity. The actual condition of the state—the conclusion to which Burke's advice has brought it—makes men forgetful; they do not want war now, and they allow his memory to be assaulted who secured them peace-the surest kind of peace, the pax in bello. Nothing can be more easy than to harangue against battles, and to calumniate their advocates, in 1854, at a time when England has reached a height of good fortune and glory hitherto unsurpassed-when the cup of fame o'erflows, and when heroes and the deeds of heroes are the fond and frequent toasts of festal meetings, where triumph after triumph fills up the boastful theme. Now every town, almost every great public place in the empire, with statue, monument, or memorial, tells of Trafalgar and Waterloo. The best soldier of our history a few months ago passed to his tomb with more than royal honours amid the proud regrets of millions, and in the face of Europe. It was not so in 1789. At that period this country had suffered humiliation from the disastrous termination of the American war, and had undoubtedly endured a serious check from France. England's haughty consciousness of invincibility had lost its force. The notion that the British people would not succumb- a notion the very sinew of their

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strength-no longer prevailed abroad. The peace of Versailles in 1783 had inflated France with inordinate self-esteem; her aspect and her tone had become threatening and aggressive. Even before the French Revolution, Burke saw and felt this; for in the debate in 1787 on the proposed commercial treaty with France, he called the attention of the house to the increased navy of that country, to the stupendous works erecting at Cherbourg and else where. France, he said, stretched her arms all round to grasp and to stifle us. The house heard Burke with satisfaction, and rejected the treaty. The fact was, the British people were living as if under a heavy interdict upon their reputation. An ardent and general wish lurked in the public mind to remove the weight. Edmund Burke was keenly alive to the national honour; he bore, to use his own expression, its stain like a wound. This feeling he shared with most of those who, in the course of our history, had to do with the greatness of the country, whether as monarchs, usurpers, warriors, or statesmen. He had it in common with Edward III. and his heroic son; with Henry V., and Bedford and Talbot; with the princes of the house of Tudor; and, in later times, with Cromwell and Blake,-with Marlborough and Chatham. "I would," Cromwell is reported to have said, "that England should be as her lion is to the beasts of the forest; so that when she roars, every other nation shall hold its breath." Mary I. heard that the French Duke of Guise had, by a sudden coup de main, tarnished her arms, and taken Calais from her. Her well-known expression on the occasion she would repeat even in her last hours: "Open my body when I am dead, and you will find the word 'Calais' engraven on my heart." "Shall this great kingdom," cried Chatham, his soul about to wing its flight under excess of indignation,-" shall this great kingdom fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? Surely this nation is no longer what it was. Shall a people that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so low?" Edmund Burke was of the same mettle; and he felt too that the people was not what it