The eloquence of either might be compared to a river; but the one was overpowering by the weight of its waters, the other by the impetus of its stream. On the one majestically rode the merchandise of the world, "opimo flumine Ganges;" the other from its crystal sources rushed precipitately down the mountain's sides, carrying fertility to the plains, giving strength and freshness to the colours of nature, and enriching our domestic soil. All that was great was collected in Mr. Burke; all that was strong was generated in Mr. Fox. To the minds of both every thing was present that the occasion demanded: but that compass of thought and knowledge which surrounds and invests a subject; which comprehends its most distant results, and, raising it above party views, exhibits all its grand relations to human nature and society, was, in an eminent degree, the advantage and felicity of Burke, In this, perhaps, he has excelled all other orators, whether ancient or modern.

It cannot be pretended that Mr. Burke was not a party man. For the greater part of his life he acted, and strenuously and cordially acted, with a particular body of men. But it is plain, that while Mr. Fox and himself were associated in opposition to the persons carrying on the business of the state, their fundamental principles and final views were wide asunder. Upon great and radical questions of constitutional policy they entertained very different opinions and maxims. Concerning the national representation, the value of religious establishments, the theory of our constitution, as recognised and settled at the revolution, and in the extent of their reverence for the usages, forms, authorities, antiquities, and prescriptive rights and duties of the government, and those who live under it, their difference of sentiment was manifest during the whole period of their political friendship. In all these things Mr. Burke was provident, calculating, mindful of the infirmity of every human agent, and the fragility of his operations; and impressed with the danger of speculative innovations, and experiments grounded on visions of unattainable purity. Conscious that his liberty was not the liberty of low malecontents, he disdained to barter his consistency and sincerity for the acclamations of the crowd. And though sometimes an expression culpably deficient in respect for dignities and authorities may be found in his speeches, and even in his writings, yet it would be hard, and absurd in the extreme, to let these weigh against the tenor of his long political life.

The private lives of these distinguished men were at least as different as their politics. The youth of Mr. Burke was passed within the regular bounds of conjugal society, in literary intercourse, in severe study, and honourable avocations. The youth of Mr. Fox exhibited the spectacle of a man living after the VOL. III. New Series,

fashion of Epicurus, and speaking in the tones of Demosthenes. And it is but due to the dignity of virtue to presume, that had the youth of Mr. Fox been passed in a manner more like that of Mr. Burke, his genius would have left tavern politics to demagogues and debauchees, and assumed that commanding eminence for which it seemed by nature designed.

Mr. Burke's acquaintance with the inspired writings, and the works of the great theologians, supplied him with many lofty themes, and opened as it were a vista in his imagination, which disclosed the prospect of eternity. This source of sublimity seems not to have been much visited by Mr. Fox, whose knowledge of christianity, as a peculiar system of doctrine, appears to have been very confined. The sketches of his character collected by Philopatris Varvicensis from the newspapers and magazines, and the tedious diatribes of the doctor himself, not to mention the most amusingly absurd production of Mr. Trotter, and the numerous other silly panegyrics which have sprung up like funguses about the tomb of the departed statesman, have all thought it requisite to add to the list of his perfections the title of sincere christian. It is not for us to deny this title; but we may say, without offence or injustice, if we have any knowledge of the characteristics of the sincere christian, that the biography of Mr. Fox furnishes no certain evidence of his living or dying in the faith of any christian communion.

The omniscient author of the book called Philopatris Varvicensis tell us, "that it was not for such men as Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt to spend their last breath in dying speeches and confessionsthey had weightier duties to perform.' And Mr. Trotter, the confidential secretary of Mr. Fox, by telling us what duties of the death bed were really performed, has supplied an explanation of what this doctor in divinity means by the weightier duties of a dying christian. Now, as we have already said in our review of Trotter's Memoirs of C. J. Fox, we presume to think, with great deference to so learned a divine, that listening to the story of Dido and Æneas, or Tom Jones, or the poetry of Swift, were not among the weightier duties of a dying christian. We protest also against this death bed coalition of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox. The author of the preface to Bellendenus had put such a distance between these statesmen during their lives in every estimable point of character, that one could not but feel surprise at seeing them afterwards, by the same writer, approximated in their deaths. And falsely approximated-for unquestionable authority has informed us, that the great man last mentioned did make a dying confession of his faith in him who is alone able to save, and that he found no consolation in death, but in the hope of that salvation which our religion emphatically teaches us has been purchased for

the penitent. That this also was the character of Mr. Burke's concluding scene is sufficiently attested ;* and we have since had the melancholy opportunity of knowing that the death of Mr. Windham was the death of a professing christian, and, as we have every reason to presume, of a sincere believer.

Though we cannot approve of the lax criterion of christian orthodoxy, with which Philopatris Varvicensis appears to be contented concerning others, we will not suggest an uncharitable doubt of the firmness and orthodoxy of his own tenets. His creed in politics, however, seems to us to be somewhat too assertive of infallibility, and somewhat too full of damnatory clauses. The perfect contempt shown by the same writer on a former occasion for the great names (if not then great, then, at least, rising into high and honourable distinction) of Pitt, of Grenville, and of him whom he calls "a certain Mr. Wilberforce," has since stretched itself to the late Mr. Perceval, over whose ashes virtue still continues to weep, and whose memory is embalmed in the gratitude of the nation.

We should willingly, if our allotted space would have permitted us, have attempted a comparison between the eloquence of Mr. Pitt and that of Mr. Burke. To have dwelt on the merits of that lamented minister would have been to us an agreeable task. We should have been pleased with recalling his sounds and expressions to our memory, and with retracing the recollection of what once held our attention so enraptured. Like the awe-struck pagan passing over the ruins of Delphi, fancy would have brought back to our ear the voice of the oracle, and the sound of the invisible lyre. It would have produced a vivid remembrance of that loftiness of declamation, that moral sublimity, those commanding tones, that mellow rotundity, that perspicuity of detail, that plenitude of information, that accuracy of tact, that full continuity of expression, lucidness of arrangement, propriety, chastity, expansion, ease and grace, which dispelled all impatience and fatigue, and made party animosity forget itself into still admiration. We must have owned, too, if eloquence is to be estimated by its success, that the palm belonged to that form of it, which, coupled with firmness and foresight, was able to secure to its possessor an empire over the will independent of the passions, and to enable him, like Pericles, to fix his popularity on a basis of public confidence. We should have been compelled to admit that, in immediate effect and living force, Mr. Burke was not equal to the modern Pericles.

Mr. Burke's will, which is beautiful as a testamentary composition, begins after the old manner. "First, according to the ancient good and laudable custom, of which my heart and understanding recognise the propriety, I bequeath my soul to God, hoping for his mercy through the only merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

We are very unwilling to acknowledge that the habit of generalization, which imparted so lofty a character to the speeches of Mr. Burke, was any hinderance to their effect. We would not suppose that he failed of attracting attention by more emphatically deserving it. If it was really so, we trust that in his latter days he foresaw the amends which posterity would make to his fame: that in the distant perspective he had a clear vision of that high place and authority in which his name was to stand in the ranks of departed greatness. In him, and in him alone, among all the moderns, and, as far as we know, we may extend the comparison to the ancients too, patience of research, activity in business, the rarest eloquence, the richest fancy, and the profoundest philosophy, were all harmoniously combined. Cicero was both a philo sopher and an orator, but as his philosophy was not his own, he could not hold it in constant subservience to his occasions; nor could he, like Burke, disperse it over his speeches in aphorisms of immortal truth. In this consisted the solitary preeminence of our great countryman, whose works now lie spread upon our table

"A table richly spread in regal mode."

We would not be understood to mean that this philosophical eloquence is always appropriate and in place. The occasion, the purpose, and the auditory, must always vary the modes and the tests of good speaking. Mr. Burke usually addressed himself to the collective talent of his country. But we are far from being sure that the practice of generalizing must, in every view of it, be injurious to the success of speeches addressed even to the multitude. Care only must be taken to keep down all general propoBitions within the scope of general apprehension, or, which is the same thing in substance, of general experience. The common people have been at all times very sententious. Witness the pithy dialect of their proverbs and adages, which form their do mestic, their rural, their vernacular philosophy. Of this philo sophy of experience the eloquence of philosophy may make a dexterous use. It is within the compass of ordinary skill to inflame the passions of the people, and the success is as fugitive as the task is easy; but to fasten upon the understanding, to secure the moral mind, and to make the reason of the hearers a party to the reasoning of the speaker, is the only mode by which a fixed ascendency is to be gained, whether the purpose be to abuse or to enlighten. The fabric of popular eloquence should rest upon massy columns of Tuscan simplicity.

If we mistake not, the speeches of Mr. Burke to the Bristol electors were speeches of the above description. We allude particularly to that which was delivered in 1780. We read it

over immediately before we sat down to this article; and we read it under the disadvantage of an expectation raised to the verge of enthusiasm, by the recollection of the delight we felt in the perusal of it about twenty years ago. But we read it with augmented pleasure, arising partly, we presume to suspect, from an improved capacity of judging in ourselves, and partly from the contrast it exhibits to the puerile intemperance of modern party-politics. The speech is plain, and easy to be understood. It stoops to conquer, not to flatter. It appears to move from the heart, and to press towards the heart. But in the midst of its warm career it never omits to pay its tribute to truth, and to the understanding. Wisdom with its steady lamp lights it on its way, and renders the sense of every statement and argument luminously and emphatically clear. At judicious intervals a rest is given to the mind, wearied with the continuous effort of pursuing a series of resulting propositions: and that rest is always on an eminence, from which the surrounding objects may be contemplated at ease. Above all, we admire and love the manly independence of principle which governs the whole argument, and which with infinite address is made the vehicle of the most refined compliment to his auditors. In a former number we have lamented the poisonous effects of electioneering oratory. We should reverse the observation with a pleasure equal to the pain with which we made it, could we see the example of this great person prevail over that coarse and lying spirit which flatters the insolence of the mob with the name of freedom, and teaches the fatal and ferocious doctrine, that liberty consists in the contempt of authority. Such was not the conduct of Paulus Emilius in his address from the rostrum on being chosen general for the Macedonian war; nor was such the conduct of Mr. Burke in addressing the electors of Bristol. The occasions were dissimilar, but the conduct in both was both British and Roman in its character. The actions were internally the same.

We were on the point of quoting a passage from this admirable oration, but were checked by the recollection that it is not a part of our immediate subject. We must content ourselves with referring the reader to the speech itself, through the whole of which, but particularly from page 358 to the middle of page 360 of the octavo edition of 1800, he will find the justification of the praise we have bestowed upon it. He will find in it, we trust, sufficient reason for our selecting it as a proof of the efficacy of the legitimate union of philosophical generalities with popular eloquence. And he will take up the thread of that consistency of principle which shows Mr. Burke the same, amidst all the windings and turns of affairs, to him who judges of consistency not by the constancy of political friendships, but by the parallelism which a