A PREFACE. PORTION of the following chapters has already appeared in the "Fortnightly Review." This portion has since undergone many considerable modifications, while the rest, including the whole of the last two chapters, is now published for the first time. It scarcely requires to be said that the stand-point of my book is not in any sense biographical. When the outward facts of a statesman's life have once been established and set forth in an accessible record, it seems a work of supererogation to ask the reader once more to tread ground with which he is already sufficiently familiar. Mr. Macknight's industry has found out for us all that we can hope to know as to the personal events and dates of Burke's career. From the historical side the case is different. The opinions we hold about every prominent statesman |