Revolution had set upon the throne; they were both also stanch members of the established Church; yet they were not the sort of men to approve of dynasties changed by force, or the rights of kings invaded. They had elevated notions in matters of religion, and their spiritual creed had more in common with the highchurch notions of times previous, and the Puseyite doctrines of times subsequent to their own, than with the sober Whig theology of their day. Burke, at the actual period of the trials and executions that followed the battle of Culloden, does not hesitate, in a letter to Shackleton, to commiserate the cruel fate of many leaders of the insurrection. ""Tis indeed," he writes, " melancholy to consider the state of these unhappy gentlemen who engaged in this affair-(as for the rest, they lose but their lives)—who have thrown away their lives and fortunes, and destroyed their families for ever, in what I believe they thought a just cause. As regards Burke, too, it should be remembered his first teacher (and one whose instructions the child never forgets) was his mother, and she was a Catholic. This accounts for his strong advocacy through life of the cause of Catholic emancipation; just as his after education among the Society of Friends and his marriage with a Presbyterian lady, explain his friendliness towards the Dissenters. Though not the least a bigot, he was a high churchman; though true to the tenets of the Revolution, he was a royalist. Expressions now and then in unison with innate sentiments might (such as the above-cited passage in his letter to Shackleton) have innocently raised the suspicion that Burke secretly inclined to the Catholic church and the Chevalier; and the very fact of his being introduced to government by Mr. FitzHerbert, a Protestant closely related to a Catholic race, would naturally lead the Duke of Newcastle to believe that the public report was not without foundation. When Burke was once launched into political life, he showed himself, beyond being religious and loyal, neither of the Society of Jesus nor of the Jacobite faction; yet the imputation of his being a member of the former, at least, long adhered to him. GILRAY'S CARICATURE OF BURKE. 51 It was not until after the part he took against the French Revolution—until, rather oddly, the time he really did advocate the cause of a Catholic clergy and nobility, viz. those of France, that the caricaturists of his day ceased to represent him in the garb of an ecclesiastic of the Church of Rome, or that the populace withdrew from him the nickname of "Neddy St. Omers,” taken from the great Jesuit college, a place he had actually never seen. In one of his subsequent speeches in parliament, Burke thus feelingly alludes to his fortunate introduction to the Marquess of Rockingham: "In the year '65, being in a very private station, far enough from any line of business, and not having the honour of a seat in this house, it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to the then ministry, by the intervention of a common friend, to become connected with a very noble person; and at the head of the Treasury department. It was indeed in a situation of little rank and no consequence, suitable to the mediocrity of my talents and pre tensions, but a situation near enough to enable me to see, as well as others, what was going on; and I did see in that noble person (Lord Rockingham) such sound principles, such an enlargement of mind, such clear and sagacious sense, and such unshaken fortitude, as have bound me, as well as others much better than me, by an inviolable attachment to him from that time forward." BURKE IN PARLIAMENT THE DISPUTE WITH AMERICA-BURKE'S FIRST HIS ENERGY IN SUPPORT OF MINISTRY-HIS CONFERENCE WITH SPEECH CHATHAM'S RESIGNATION-WILKES-JUNIUS-LIBEL BILL-DISSENTERS -" THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS"-SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION CHARLES FOX-BURKE'S ELECTION FOR MALTON AND BRISTOL SPEECH ON AMERICAN CONCILIATION-DR. JOHNSON'S PAMPHLET AMERICAN WAR-ECONOMICAL REFORM-GORDON RIOTSSLAVE-TRADE ABOLITION-DIFFERENCE WITH BRISTOL CONSTITUENTSHOWARD BURKE'S RETIREMENT FROM BRISTOL, AND RE-ELECTION FOR MALTON-FAILURE OF MINISTERIAL MEASURES WITH REGARD TO AMERICA ACCESSION OF THE ROCKINGHAM ADMINISTRATION-BURKE PAYMASTER OF THE FORCES HIS PROCEEDINGS-DEATH OF THE MARQUESS OF ROCKINGHAM-HIS MAUSOLEUM AT WENTWORTH PARK-SHELBURNE MINISTRY-PEACE WITH AMERICA. WHEN the eloquence of Edmund Burke came upon the ear of Parliament, it was indeed a time, to use his own words, "for a man to act in." The political world then bore a gloomy and frowning aspect. It was the year 1765. George III. had been but a short time on the throne, when he found himself obliged to contend with the dominion of the aristocracy, and to experience the strength of the people. His favourite, the Earl of Bute, arbitrarily made minister, and afterwards a comptroller of ministers, was about to succumb to the oligarchy, and leave to it the struggle for place and power. John Wilkes, the unworthy instrument of a great cause, had just taught a startling lesson of what danger lay in invading the security of the British hearth, or the freedom of the British press. These were lesser troubles: one giant event was to crush them into minor significance. The fated act which declared it proper to charge certain stamp-duties in the colonies and plantations of America had passed; the colonists were men of a caste and temper not to submit: the storm of discontent had begun, rife with rebellion and redolent of revolution. The Grenville administration, though strong in kingly favour, and in the eloquence of Charles Townshend, shrunk from the very outburst of the tempest. The public looked to Pitt; but the king disliked and feared the future Earl of Chatham. Before employing him again, his majesty sought aid elsewhere. The king's uncle, the |