BURKE AND ARTHUR MURPHY.

15

literature; he not only wrote for the stage, but he acted upon it, and successfully too. He was popular at Covent Garden theatre in some tragic characters, such as that of Othello. He was afterwards called to the bar in 1762, and went the Norfolk circuit. He died at Knightsbridge in 1805, a retired commissioner of bankrupts, with a pension of 2001. a year.

Murphy was both a wit and a gentleman; he was the friend of Dr. Johnson, and was intimate with all the leading men of the day. He was, when Burke first met him, editing the well-known Gray's Inn Journal. The discovery of such an associate proved invaluable to Burke; it opened to him the very society and resources he sought. Murphy found no less pleasure in knowing Burke. The introduction thus took place: Mr. Thomas Kelly, a common friend of both, and Burke's bondsman at the Temple, said one day to Murphy, "You should, sir, know our countryman Burke; a strangely clever fellow, I assure you;" and he then launched out into much more praise about him. Bring us toge ther," was Murphy's reply; and Kelly made a party soon after at his chambers, where the young gentlemen met each other. Mr. Murphy was filled with astonishment, not only at the brilliancy and force of his new acquaintance's genius, but at the extent and variety of the literary attainments of a man little more than twenty years of age. From that day he and Burke were friends through life.

66

Of Mr. Burke's pecuniary means at this period conflicting accounts have been given. Some assert that he continually received large supplies from his family, and that he was extremely well off. Others say that it was not so, and that he was driven to his pen for a livelihood. The truth most probably lies between. Burke's father, a flourishing attorney in easy circumstances, made his son unquestionably a fair allowance, such as suited the wants and ways of a law-student; but Burke, be it observed, sought from the beginning a higher and more prominent position. To extravagance, in the sense of money thrown away upon debauchery and dissipation, Burke was ever a stranger; but he was neverthe

less a man of fashion, making his way into associations and company of wealth and distinction. This, as every one knows, could not be done without extra expense; and to a father annoyed, as was the fact, by his son's evident distaste for his profession, it would have been vain for Burke to look for more than his student allowance. Under these circumstances he adopted the all-honourable course of relieving the lightness of his purse by the powers of his brain. He began regularly to write for daily, weekly, and monthly publications. To these he contributed essays on various subjects of general literature, and particularly politics. His compositions united already information, reasoning, and invention much beyond his ordinary contemporaries, though the profits came in but slowly, and public distinction had not yet arrived.

At this period, Burke was in the habit, either alone or with some agreeable friend, of travelling about England and sojourning at different country places, for the benefit of his still delicate health and weak constitution.

One giant attraction would now draw the youthful genius from his desk, his journeys, and even from the intellectual tables of his friends. It was Burke's frequent and favourite custom to go alone to the House of Commons; to there ensconce himself in the gallery, and to sit for hours, his attention absorbed, and his mind enrapt in the scene beneath him: "Some of these men," he remarked to a friend, "talk like Demosthenes and Cicero, and I feel when I am listening to them as if I were in Athens or Rome." Soon these nightly visits became his passion; a strange fascination drew him again and again to the same place. No doubt the magic of his own master spirit was upon him, and the spell was working. He might be compared to the young eagle accustoming its eye to the sun before it soared aloft: but with him events had yet to occur prior to the full flight of his ambition. While the House of Commons was but his place of recreation, literature continued to be his chief employment.

Among Burke's earliest effusions some were in verse; these

ESSAY ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

17

wanted neither grace nor feeling, and rose above mediocrity; but the writer, in all he undertook, would be great or nothing; and he had the sense soon to see that his qualifications were not those

of a first-rate poet. Verse, therefore, he gave up, and devoted himself to prose, of which he was becoming so rapidly a master, that he was soon, by means of a single essay-that on the Sublime and Beautiful-to take, at the age of twenty-six, a position among

с

the standard authors of his country. All indeed who knew him, even at this time, were struck with the amazing strength of his intellect, and the infinite resources of his knowledge. He was

prepared at the very shortest notice to write or speak well and ably upon almost any subject. One cause of this superior readiness over most men of his years may perhaps be found in that total abstinence from vicious indulgences already alluded to. He eat and drank with great moderation. He took but little wine, his grand object at the social board being the feast of wit and reason. Of gambling or play he knew nothing, even now and then to his own annoyance; for he used to declare, that whenever he was obliged to join a family-party in the amusement of cards, he had to begin by learning the game. It might be added, that the softer sex could not allure him from his course; but the breath of scandal, whether in joke or earnest, has just saved the great champion of chivalry from the ungallantry of not unbending to female fascination—from being reputed more of a Ulysses than a knight-errant.

The object of Burke's attachment, or amour, as his friends would maliciously have it, was no less a person than the famous Miss, or Mistress, or, to use her more familiar designation, Peg Woffington.

A few words about this lady may not be here misplaced. Margaret Woffington, an Irishwoman, and an actress of great ability and repute, was of very humble origin. While she was a child, her mother, a poor widow, kept a small grocer's, or, to use the Irish term, a huckster's shop, upon Ormond Quay, Dublin. Under these inauspicious circumstances Margaret began her career. Her first rise occurred thus: The Beggars' Opera was then the rage over the three kingdoms. A Frenchwoman, one Madame Violante, a rope-dancer and exhibitor of mountebank and such-like performances, undertook to get up a representation of this celebrated musical drama with a company of children, or, as they were called in the bills, "Lilliputians." Little Woffing

MISTRESS WOFFINGTON.

19

ton, then a pretty child in her tenth year, impersonated the bold Macheath, and did it so well, that the Lilliputian theatre was crowded every night. The sense and spirit of the girlish hero

became the theme of general talk and praise. The career of Margaret Woffington was thus begun, and her after proficiency did not belie the promise of her infantine talents.