HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 5 The locality was classic ground, and imagination may easily trace the youthful Edmund wandering amid such scenes, now absorbed in the quaint but glowing verse of that other Edmund whom he might in some measure associate with his ancestry, now all-attentive to some marvellous tale of the Elizabethan times which touched upon history, his favourite theme. It is but natural to suppose that upon the beautiful banks of the Blackwater, England's future orator imbibed in the poetry of the Faerie Queene the taste for ornate and eastern imagery which gave such splendour to his eloquence; that amid the memories hanging around the ruins of Kilcolman, he first thirsted for the historic knowledge which was to throw such power and prophetic force into his reasoning and his language. After a residence, on and off, of five years at Castledown Roche, where he picked up the rudiments of Latin and other juvenile scholastic information from a worthy pedagogue named O'Halloran, at the neighbouring village school of Glanworth, Edmund Burke arrived at a more serious stage of his education. He became in the year 1741, in his twelfth year, as well as his brothers Garrett and Richard, an inmate of the famous classical academy at Ballitore, in the county of Kildare, a village some twenty-eight miles from Dublin. This academy, one of widespread and just repute, was then kept by Abraham Shackleton, a member of the Society of Friends, and a very accomplished and amiable man. He had come from Yorkshire, and had opened the school in Ballitore in 1726. Mr. Abraham Shackleton was a skilful and successful teacher, and at his school were educated many who became afterwards of considerable public note; Barry the painter, the protégé of Edmund Burke, being, as well as his patron, among the number. The following quaint verses, from an old magazine, bear tribute to the acknowledged eminence of the academy: "I've read in foreign climes of Ballitore, He said, and of its celebrated school, The days of Shackleton are days of yore, Nor ever fade, till fades the earthly scene." Ballitore school continued to thrive long after the days of its most distinguished pupil. Abraham Shackleton's only son Richard succeeded his father in the management of the establishment about the year 1750, and from him the direction passed in 1775. to his sole surviving son Abraham Shackleton, who, in his turn, ceded it in 1809 to his son-in-law, James White, who remained at its head until its final close in 1840. Mr. White's daughter by his marriage with Miss Shackleton is wedded to a talented French gentleman, M. Théodore Eugène Suliot. Mr. White had a second wife, who, now his widow, lives with her children at Orange Hill, in the north of Ireland. HIS EDUCATION AT BALLITORE. 7 The main stem of the Shackletons still flourishes as worthy and as respectable as ever. Abraham Shackleton, the grandson of him who originated the school, died in 1815, and his three sons, Richard, Ebenezer, and George, all married men, and the two latter blessed with many children, are now resident in or near Ballitore. The memory of the illustrious senator, their friend, is green with them yet, as attest their ever-cordial readiness and courtesy, in reverting to their recollections and knowledge of him. The associations and amities which Burke made at this school remained dear to him through life. One friend of this period was Abraham Shackleton's son, Richard Shackleton, who, as above stated, succeeded his father in managing the school. To this Richard Shackleton, Burke was ever after warmly attached. Affectionate correspondence and mutual visits passed between them till Mr. Shackleton's decease in 1792; and after that event Mr. Burke continued his intimacy with the Shackletons until his own death. One of his very last letters was addressed to the daughter of his friend, Mrs. Mary Leadbeater; her affecting answer is to be found in the correspondence published by Lord Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke, and the reader is referred to it as a production fully worthy of a lady who, inheriting the talent of her family, obtained public favour herself as an author, and won the approbation of another genius of Ireland, Maria Edgeworth a name, like that of Edmund Burke, of neverfading reputation. Mrs. Mary Leadbeater died in 1826, leaving a son and two daughters. Her son, Richard S. Leadbeater, lives at Stradbally, Queen's Co., Ireland. At Ballitore Edmund Burke devoted himself with ardour, industry, and perseverance to his studies, and laid the foundation of a classical erudition, which would have entitled ordinary men to the character of scholars, but constituted a very small proportion of his multifarious knowledge. His learning was the learning of a philosopher, not of a pedant. He considered the dead lan guages not as mere scholastic lore, but as keys to the best thoughts and imagery, knowledge and reasoning. Of the versatility of Burke's genius, even at this time, the following anecdote is related. Mr. Shackleton one day, when the assizes were commencing at Carlow, permitted his scholars to have a holiday to view the procession, on condition that the elder boys should give a description in Latin verse of the objects they saw, with their impressions from them. Edmund wrote, on his own account, a full and able description of what he beheld. A schoolfellow, whose exercises Burke often composed for him, applied rather late for the usual help on this occasion. Burke hurriedly undertook the job, and having his ideas somewhat exhausted by his own exercise, he tried to get new hints from the youth, but found that the promising juvenile had observed at the assize ceremony no other object but a fat piper with a brown coat. Edmund accordingly began in doggerel Latin : "Piper erat fattus qui brownum tegmen habebat ;" and went on with remarkable humour through many verses in the same style as the Polemomidinia of the celebrated Scotch bard, Drummond of Hawthornden. Burke's brother Richard, who abounded in vivacity and pointed wit, was by many esteemed, in their boyish days, the abler of the two; as, among superficial judges, boys are rated according to the vivacity, not the force of their intellectual qualities and operations, by the quickness of the vegetation more than the value of the production. Of the comparative merits of the two brothers, both their master and father entertained a very different opinion from that which others had conceived. They allowed that Richard was bright, but maintained that Edmund would be wise. The event justified their opinion. Richard was quick and acute; Edmund went beyond that: his faculties were inventive and comprehensive, sagacious and energetic. Edmund Burke left Mr. Shackleton's school after being there HIS CAREER AT COLLEGE. 9 three years, and then immediately entered Trinity College, Dublin, on the 14th April, 1744. He became, the 26th May, 1746, a scholar of the house, which is similar to being a scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. Oliver Goldsmith, who was at Trinity College with Burke, has asserted that Burke did not render himself very eminent in the performance of his academical exercises. Dr. Leland, who was also Burke's contemporary, has declared the same. This, however, was not strictly correct. A desultory taste for all sorts of knowledge no doubt impeded Burke's more brilliant progress in the strict academical course; yet he did not go through college altogether without distinction. Witness the scholarship just mentioned; and it is also known that he received prizes for classic proficiency. In 1748 Burke took his degree of B.A.; that of M.A. he obtained in 1751. He was presented with the further degree of LL.D. in 1791. Edmund Burke devoted a great portion of his time at college to general reading; his chief subject was history-the future weapon of his strength; among historians Plutarch was his favourite. In oratory, he pored over Demosthenes; he took his moral philosophy from Francis Bacon, and especially from Addison; and he doated on the poetry of Shakespeare. In classics his bias was for Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius. He was also extremely fond of works of fiction: "A good novel is a good book," was a remark he used frequently to make. Burke went through his college career as he passed the rest of his life, without any vice or dissipation, not appearing to think of such things. At this period too, as ever after, he delighted in society-in being surrounded by warm friends and pleasant companions. A high moral tone and dignified bearing, tempered by an extreme urbanity of manner, and a wonderful power of charming in conversation, had already become his characteristics: already too his company was sought among the gay and fashionable, as much as among the learned. He had that |