but gaming and music. Of Burke's amazing power of noting and knowing every thing, this anecdote is related: on his arriving once in Bath, with Mrs. Burke, after a long journey, she was too fatigued to attend the assembly in the evening, and yet wished to see the ladies' new fashions, so that she might give directions to her dressmaker in accordance with the taste of the place. Burke playfully undertook to make the requisite observations in her stead, and he actually did so to such perfection, that he astonished the workwoman in the morning with his apt and available information. No pictured account in a Belle Assemblée, or Journal de Modes could have guided better.

Part of the summer Burke frequently devoted to revisiting his ever-cherished native country, or to travelling about England to view the various seats and picturesque places. For this latter object he would ensconce himself, incognito, in a stage coach, proving on such occasions, as may be supposed, a rare boon to his fellowtravellers. A lady that once came in the stage with him a considerable part of the road from Yorkshire, without knowing who he was, found the attention of herself and the other passengers fixed by his great fund of local knowledge, and the anecdotes with which it was interspersed. They all concurred in thinking him the most entertaining personage they had ever met. What was the lady's surprise to discover afterwards in London, at a public assembly, that he who had delighted a stage-coach company was the great statesman, formed

"The applause of listening senates to command."

A visit to France in 1772 was marked by a circumstance which made an indelible impression on Burke's chivalrous mind. He saw, at Versailles, Marie Antoinette, then aged sixteen, and just two years married- -a momentous meeting. That transient view brought the royal lady the greatest champion distressed princess ever had. The stranger, who then looked at her in silent admiration, was afterwards, with words of fire, to proclaim her

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virtues and wrongs throughout the world, and to arm nations in her cause. His immortal description of her-immortal as the memory of her own unnatural sufferings-has gone to posterity with sad and withering effect. Who can read it without a tear of sympathy for the Queen-without horror at the wickedness which wrought her such immeasurable woe? The exquisite passage will be found in this volume in the chapter on the French Revolution.

In 1785, Burke, then delicate and ordered change of air, took a jaunt, in company with William Windham, to Scotland: they rode their own horses, went by Edinburgh, and proceeded northward to the Highlands. Burke enjoyed this journey more than Dr. Johnson did his to the Hebrides; for though Burke, like

the Doctor, delighted in the exhibition of the human mind in its diversities and contrasts, he was much more readily charmed with the external beauties of nature. "I found," he used to say, "health and pleasure in Scotland; I there beheld the works of God and man in a new and striking aspect." He also confessed that the visit cured him entirely of that hostility to Scotchmen, which he shared in common with the Whigs of his time who had opposed Lord Bute and the partisans of that unpopular minister.

Burke, however occupied, never slackened in his zeal towards the welfare of the Literary Club. He was a constant frequenter of it. In course of time, it received great accessions of genius and literature. Edward Gibbon, the historian, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Charles Fox, became members. Fox, strange to say, was generally mute in the company of Dr. Johnson, not from fear of his talents, but from a desire of information and instruction ; he liked, he said, "to listen and reap from the knowledge and experience of the old sage." Gibbon did not shine in the club; he disliked Dr. Johnson, and did not enter freely into conversation when he was present. This disrelish partly arose from the great difference of their sentiments on religion. Johnson had no patience with unbelievers. Besides, he undervalued that species of literary labour in which Gibbon excelled, and had declared in his company that the greater part of what was called history was nothing but conjecture. Whether or not this was the cause, Gibbon was reserved in the club, and abstained from intellectual contests. When he did speak, his conversation was rather epigrammatic and sarcastic than replete with the ability and learning which his works demonstrate. Johnson himself proposed Sheridan as a member, saying, when he recommended him, "he who has written the best comedies of the age must be a considerable man.”

Burke used to display his taste for general and classic punning at the club. One evening, speaking of the deanery of Ferns, which was then vacant, he said it must be barren, and that he believed there would be a contest for it between the two known

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divines Dr. Heath and Dr. Moss. As to livings in general, he said, Horace described a good manor—

"Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines;"

which he translated, "There are a modus in the tithes and fixed fines."

Burke's punning alteration of Horace's line, to make it describe the mob chairing Wilkes, is well known: "Fertur humeris lege solutis."

In November 1769, Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. FitzHerbert, and Edmund Burke-a grand array, appeared together at the Old Bailey, to give evidence to the character of a gentleman on trial for his life. Joseph Baretti, the well-known author, traveller, and editor of Macchiavel's works, had been attacked by a woman of the town, near the Haymarket, at night. In endeavouring to get away, he was surrounded by three fellows, who supported the woman and struck Baretti. On their continuing to molest him, he, apprehensive of his life, drew a knife, and warned them to keep off; a scuffle ensued, and Baretti stabbed two of them, of whom one named Evan Morgan died. Baretti was charged with murdering the man. Baretti's distinguished witnesses bore testimony to the goodness of his general character and the peaceableness of his disposition. The jury considered the homicide as in self-defence, and he was accordingly acquitted. Baretti was very intimate with the members of the Literary Club, and especially with Burke and Johnson, who highly valued him. He died in 1789.

Burke loved deeply and regarded with watchful solicitude all the members of his own family. He procured for his brother Richard, who had engaged in mercantile affairs, the collectorship of Grenada, during the first administration of Lord Rockingham, and had him appointed secretary to the Treasury when his lordship was minister again. Burke's influence, no doubt, secured the Recordership of Bristol for Richard, who succeeded, in the dignity,

the eminent lawyer John Dunning, Lord Ashburton. These benefits were obtained for no undeserving object. Richard Burke was a man of very considerable ability: he was engaged in several publications, and had even by some persons been deemed one of the authors of Junius. Letters that appeared in the Public Advertiser, signed Valens, during the American war, were supposed to be written by Richard, with the assistance of Mr. William Burke, who afterwards went to India.

Richard Burke was called to the bar in 1778-the year of Erskine's acquiring practice and reputation in his profession, -and was highly thought of by Lord Mansfield. Richard went the Western circuit; and some amusing letters of his, penned during his forensic journeys, occur in Lord Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke's Collection. In one letter, dated from Launceston, March 1783, he writes that he had got no brief, but had heard an assize sermon wherein it was certified, "that the judges of England were above not only conviction but corruption, owing to their having very large salaries." Handsome in person, fascinating in manners, and abounding in humour, wit, and fun, Richard Burke was a very popular member of the fashionable society of London. He was warmly attached to Edmund and his family, and whenever he could, he resided with them. He used frequently to indulge in practical jokes, and would not even refrain from now and then playing them off on his more dignified brother, which the statesman took in perfect good-humour, as part of the necessary mirth of his home. Richard Burke, probably in some of his venturesome escapades, had at different times slightly fractured an arm and a leg. It is in allusion to this and to his eccentric ways that Goldsmith wrote on him the well-known lines in "Retaliation:"

"Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at.
Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet!
What spirits were his! what wit and what whim!

Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb;