"MY DEAR LORD,

"If I were to write all that is in my heart and head relative to you, and to your proceedings,* I should write volumes. At present I abstain from any subject but that which at this instant may give your Lordship occasion to remember me.

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My friend Mr. Shippen, of Pennsylvania, a very agreeable, sensible, and accomplished young man, will have the honour of delivering this to your Lordship. I flatter myself that you will think of him as I do; and, if you do, I have no doubt that he will find, under your Lordship's protection, every thing that he can expect (and he expects a great deal) from Ireland. He has been for some time upon his travels on the Continent of Europe; and, after this tour, he pays us the compliment of thinking that there are things and persons worth seeing in Ireland. For one person I am sure I can answer, and am not afraid of disappointing him, when I tell him, that in no country will he find a better pattern of elegance, good breeding, and virtue. I shall say nothing further to recommend my friend to one to whom a young gentleman, desirous of every sort of improvement, is, by that circumstance, fully recommended. America and we are no longer under the same Crown; but, if we are united by mutual good will, and reciprocal good offices, perhaps it may do almost as well. Mr. Shippen will give you no unfavourable specimen of the new world."

*On the Regency question..

His Lordship, in return, thought he could not do better for his particular friends, bound to England, than to consign them to the care of one so celebrated, and so capable of affording instruction and amusement. Among these, about this time, was Mr. Hardy, destined to be his Lordship's biographer, who, although already known to Mr. Burke, seemed to feel the charm of his society and amiable qualities, with additional force, during this visit.

་་

"He was," says that gentleman, "social, hospitable, of pleasing access, and most agreeably communicative. One of the most satisfactory days perhaps that I ever passed in my life, was going with him tête-à-tête, from London to Beaconsfield. He stopped at Uxbridge whilst his horses were feeding, and happening to meet some gentlemen of I know not what Militia, who appeared to be perfect strangers to him, he entered into discourse with them at the gateway of the inn. His conversation at that moment completely exemplified what Johnson said of him, That you could not meet Burke under a shed without saying that he was an extraordinary man.'

"He was altogether uncommonly attractive and agreeable. Every object of the slightest notoriety as we passed along, whether of natural or local history, furnished him with abundant materials for conversation. The house, at Uxbridge, where the treaty was held during Charles the First's time; the beautiful and undulating grounds of Bulstrode, formerly the residence of Chancellor Jeffries; and

Waller's tomb, in Beaconsfield church-yard, which, before we went home, we visited, and whose cha racter as a gentleman, a poet, and an orator, he shortly delineated, but with exquisite felicity of genius, altogether gave an uncommon interest to his eloquence; and although one-and-twenty years have elapsed since that day, I entertain the most vivid and pleasing recollection of it."

The most flattering testimony yet borne to the superiority of his public and private character, to his senatorial and literary talents, appeared in 1787, in the celebrated Latin preface to Bellendenus, by its celebrated author Dr. Parr; an offering certainly of no common value either in the terms in which it was expressed, or in the quarter from which it came; a characteristic tribute of unfeigned admiration from the most learned to the most eloquent man of the age. It is said that the Doctor has written an epitaph for him which, however, he has not yet made public.

His own taste in epitaph-writing was again put in requisition, by the completion, in August, 1788, of the splendid, and in this country unequalled, mausoleum to the memory of the Marquis of Rockingham, erected about a mile in front of Wentworth House, in Yorkshire, from which, as well as from the surrounding country, it forms a noble and interesting object 90 feet high. The interior of the base is a dome supported by 12 doric columns, with niches for the statues of the deceased Nobleman and his friends, among whom the distinguished writer of the following piece now takes his

stand. The inscription, for force, precision, and fitness, has perhaps, like the mausoleum itself, no equal among the mortuary remains of the country:

"CHARLES, MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM 3306

"A statesman in whom constancy, fidelity, sincerity, and directness, were the sole instruments of his policy. His virtues were his arts. A clear, sound, unadulterated sense, not perplexed with intricate design, or disturbed, by ungoverned passion, gave consistency, dignity, and effect, to all his measures. In Opposition he respected the principles of Government; in Administration he provided for the liberties of the people. He employed his moments of power in realizing every thing which he had promised in a popular situation. This was the distinguishing mark of his conduct. After twenty-four years of service to the public, in a critical and trying time, he left no debt of just expectation unsatisfied.

1

By his prudence and patience he brought together a party which it was, the great object of his labours to render permanent, not as an instrument of ambition, but as a living depository of principle.

The virtues of his public and private life were not in him of different characters. It was the same feeling, benevolent, liberal mind that, in the internal relations of life, conciliates the unfeigned love of those who see men as they are, which made him an inflexible patriot. He was devoted to the cause

but

of liberty, not because he was haughty and intractable, because he was beneficent and humane, ssib mugs "Let his successors, who from this house behold this monument, reflect that their conduct will make it their glory, or their reproach. Let them be persuaded that similarity of s, not proxim proximity of blood, gives them an interest in

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manners,

this statue.

CHAPTER X.

Regency Question.-French Revolution. Mr. Burke's opinions immediately formed.-His Correspondents.-Rupture with Mr. Sheridan.-Mr. Gerrard Hamilton.

TOWARD the end of October, 1788, the melancholy illness of the King withdrew public attention from all other subjects to the consequent proceedings in Parliament, in which Mr. Burke, who, it might be thought, had enough to do with the complicated labours of the impeachment, was destined to take an equally conspicuous part.

It is more than doubtful whether, at the commencement, this was quite congenial to his wishes. But the absence from England at first, and subsequent illness of Mr. Fox, threw the labouring oar upon him; and a sense of party honour or necessity, added to a firm conviction that the Heir Apparent was treated with injustice and disrespect, carried him forward to wield it with as much of energy as he had ever shown upon any occasion, but with less moderation of temper. Personal favour or aggrandizement he had no reason to expect ; above six weeks of the emergency had elapsed when he pointedly declared in the House of Commons, and the omission was then well known, though remedied soon afterward, that he knew as little of the interior of Carlton House as of Buckingham House. This did not in the least abate the zeal of his exertions.