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CHAP. XIV.obai. „noqpt A

Report concerning Mr. Burke.Decline of his Health Letter to Mrs. Leadbeater. His Death and Disposal of his Residence and Estate.His Person-Conversation.Wit. Piety.-Moral Character.Zeal in Public Measures.

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THE sagacity which enabled Mr. Burke to penetrate the unhappy results in the train of the French Revolution, and the consequent energy and pertinacity with which he opposed it both in speaking and in writing, excited among many persons who had not the same length of view as himself, and indeed no conception whatever of the evils impending, a variety of conjectures as to the cause. At first they were merely surprised at the boldness of his predictions; but when the breach took place with his party for what they thought merely speculative differences of opinion, they put him down as in some degree insane, an idea which was afterwards industriously circulated, and to which he partly alluded, after a vehement sally in the House of Commons, by a deliberate address to the chair in the words of St. Paul, I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and soberness." With those who found an interest in decrying his public exertions the rumour was frequently renewed, particularly after the death of his son, when his grief was known to be extreme; and it sometimes had the effect even of imposing upon his friends, an instance of which occurred

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soon after the publication of the Letter to a Noble Lord.

A report, under the guise of seeming precaution and secresy, reached them in town that he was afflicted with such total alienation of mind as to wander about his park during the day, kissing his cows and horses, a circumstance which, if true, would be no more than is daily done by many honest farmers and stable-boys, without any imputation of a wandering of the wits, and which with Mr. Burke's warm affection toward the dumb as well as the speaking members of his establishment would have been no great matter for wonder, he having in fact some favourite cows who chiefly grazed near the house. A man of rank, however, left London instantly to learn the particulars, and was received in the usual manner of an old friend without observing any perceptible change; not quite satisfied with this, yet deeming it indecorous to ask questions on the subject, he adverted in conversation to public circumstances, and to the probable train of any new studies by his host, when the latter, unsuspicious of the drift of the visiter, produced some of the most eloquent and ablyargued passages which he was then writing from the Letters on Regicide Peace. Convinced now of his information being erroneous, if not malicious, he hinted to Mrs. Burke the main purport of his

* A pretty piece, by Reinagle, delineating the house and grounds, represents Mr. Burke in front of the mansion patting a favourite cow, and his lady and a female friend. walking at a little distance.

journey, when he received the detail of the follow ing singular and affecting incident, which probably formed the foundation for the story, though it had thriven marvellously in the journey from Beaconsfield to London. 202 40 do 2201 sub va rydbo A feeble old horse, which had been a great fas vourite with the junior Mr. Burke, and his con stant companion in all rural journeyings and sports, when both were alike healthful and vigorous, was now in his age, and on the death of his master, turned out to take the run of the park for the remainder of his life at ease, with strict injunctions. to the servants that he should neither be ridden nor molested by any one. While walking one day in solitary musing, Mr. Burke perceived this worn out old servant come close up to him, and at length after some moments spent in viewing him, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, deliberately rested its head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself, the remembrance of his dead son, its late master, who occupied much of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment and almost intelligence of the poor brute, as if it could sympathize with his inward sorrows, rushing at once into his mind, totally overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck he wept long and loudly. 980 15 20 21 of gaitengang

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His health, however, though not his intellectual powers, had been for some time in a very declining state, until it terminated in a degree of general debility and loss of muscular power which rendered exertion and his usual degree of exercise

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impracticable. To this state of unexpected at least, if not premature decay, his habits of application, literary pursuits, and former laborious Parliamentary exertions, tended, when his frame, shaken by the loss of his son, and his mind losing that buoyancy which his fond paternal hopes had inspired, lefts no active power or principle to counteract the inroads of infirmity; that blow he found it impossible to forget or to recover, and from that moment he complained of being, "a dejected old man, buried in the anticipated grave of a feeble oldcage." Those who did not know his disposition, fancied the sustained much annoyance from the numerous attacks of the partizans of the French opinions, who indeed possessed many of the strong holds of the press, and to which the letters on Regicide Peace proved a new stimulus for renewed hostility.This however was not the case; the writings of the lower class of opponents he rarely saw and never heeded; the attacks of the higher, in the way of argument, he answered and refuted; the mere abuse of either he despised. Of the lat ter, an instance occurred about this time which furnishes a pretty good sample of the justice with which he was commonly assailed; for a freebooting bookseller finding himself prevented from appropriating to his own use the literary property of this eminent man, contrived to give vent to vulgar insolences by an sabusive advertisement against "Edmund Burke the Pensioner." The same person used to say, that Mr. Burke had fairly frighted his printers from going near him, on ac

count of being rated for their mistakes with vehe mence and variety of invective; not one at length would venture to approach his house, and therefore he was obliged to carry the proofs for revision himself.

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Finding medical aid of little avail, Mr. Burke proceeded to Bath early in February 1797, for the benefit of the waters, which in early life had proved so beneficial. " Here he continued for about four months confined to his bed or to his couch the greater part of the time'; "My health," said he, in a letter dictated at the time, has gone down very rapidly; and I have been brought hither with very faint hopes of life, and enfeebled to such a degree, as those who had known me some time ago, could scarcely think credible." This letter, which was on the affairs of Ireland, in reply to onė addressed to him from that country, though dic tated by snatches amidst pain and suffering, en forces with little diminution of force the same wise policy toward healing her internal divisions, which he had always advised, but which still remains to be completed; he hints at something like the . Union, by urging that the seat of her superior or imperial politics should be in England; Ireland is hurt, he says, not by too much English, bit by too much Irish influence.--This was his last effort on a political subject.

The day before he quitted Bath the following letter was dictated to Mrs. Leadbeater, and sighed by his tremulous hand; it was among the last dispatched of his private letters: