EDMUND BURKE'S REPRESENTATIVES. 307 Two ages, as will be perceived, are not here correctly given. Edmund Burke at his death was not sixty-eight, but in his sixtyeighth year. His son's age should have been stated as thirty Of Mr. Burke's immediate family, none survived himself but his widow, and his niece, Mrs. Haviland, and her son. Mrs. Burke remained, for the rest of her life, at Gregories; her death occurred on the 2d of April, 1812. During nearly the whole period of her widowhood, until a short time before her demise, Mrs. Burke had the benefit of the constant companionship and affectionate attention of Mrs. Haviland, who was, as already stated, the only daughter of Mr. Burke's only sister, Mrs. French, and the relict of Colonel Thomas Haviland, who died in 1795, not long after his union with her. Mrs. Haviland, who had refused a very splendid offer of a second marriage, left Beaconsfield prior to Mrs. Burke's decease, and went to live at Brompton, where she died in 1816. Her son, Thomas William Aston Haviland, who was born in August 1795, and was educated at Westminster school, assumed, by sign manual, the additional surname and arms of Burke. The Royal License, which bears date the 6th April, 1818, sets forth that Mr. Haviland Burke was only child of Thomas Haviland, Esq., by Mary his wife, only child of Patrick French, Esq., of Loughrea, and Julia, his wife, which Julia was sister of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, of Butlers' Court, Beaconsfield; and that the name and arms of Burke were granted in memory of "that most distinguished statesman, the said Edmund Burke." Mr. Haviland Burke was called to the English bar, by the Hon. Society of Lincoln's Inn, the 18th Nov. 1819, and practised as a conveyancer and in the courts of Chancery. The law, however, was less to his taste than devotion to the fine arts. After some years he withdrew from the legal profession altogether, being in possession of a competent independence. He became a great collector of prints, pictures, and autographs; and in course of time he amassed a large and rare collection of these, to the value of several thousand pounds. In connexion with these subjects, Mr. Haviland. Burke possessed a fund of information: his agreeable society was much sought and courted by his brother collectors and other men of knowledge and ability. Mr. Haviland Burke had many of the amiable and benevolent characteristics of his illustrious grand 66 uncle. "His heart," says the Gentleman's Magazine, in a memoir of him, was cast in the tenderest mould, and few restraints were put upon its generous impulses. Such patronage as he could bestow was not withheld from more than one painter of merit when in difficulties. . . . Irish by descent, and possessing an Irish estate, the St. Patrick's charity early in life won his especial regard, which was never afterwards for a moment remitted. His activity and perseverance in the cause drew general notice.... To another charitable institution, the Middlesex Hospital, of which he was chairman, he was almost equally devoted. Both institutions at his death voted addresses of condolence to his family." Mr. Haviland Burke married, in 1827, Harriet, third daughter of William Minshull, Esq., of Kentish Town, the descendant of an ancient Buckinghamshire family, and by that lady, now his widow, he had seven children, three of whom are living. Mr. Haviland Burke died at his residence, 27, Gloucester Place, Marylebone, the 3d April, 1852. His surviving issue are two daughters, and one son, Edmund Haviland Burke, a student at Eton, the present heir and representative of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke. A final word or two about Edmund Burke's seat and grounds at Beaconsfield. His widow, Mrs. Burke, some years after her husband's death, sold the estate to her neighbour, James Du Pre, Esq., of Wilton Park, father of Caledon George Du Pre, Esq., present M.P. for Bucks. Wilton Park is one mile from Beaconsfield, a road only dividing it from the lands that belonged to Burke. Mrs. Burke, in the sale, reserved the occupation of her house, gardens, and some of the grass-land close to Gregories, for her life. There, as already stated, she, and for the most part of the time, her niece, Mrs. Haviland, resided until the demise of the elder lady in 1812, when this remaining portion of the property came also into Mr. Du Pre's possession. He let the house shortly after he got it to the Rev. Mr. Jones, who purposed converting it into a school; but scarcely had he obtained possession, when, on the 23d April, 1813, it was accidentally burnt to the ground. The land is now laid out in farms, and hardly a trace is left. A decayed wall and some stables only mark the situation of Edmund Burke's former mansion. Nothing really remains but the lasting halo of its departed greatness. The personal description of Edmund Burke has been handed down. He was about five feet ten inches high, well made and muscular; of that firm and compact frame that denotes more strength than bulk. His countenance had been in his youth handsome. The expression of his face was less striking than might have been anticipated; at least it was so until lit up by the animation of his conversation or the fire of his eloquence. In dress, he usually wore a brown suit; and he was in his later days easily POETICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF BURKE. 311 recognisable in the House of Commons from his peculiar bob-wig and spectacles. There are many portraits of Burke. These, and the caricatures of him by contemporary artists, have made his face and figure generally familiar. Burke's full-length likeness may be seen in one of the halls of Trinity College, Dublin; but the best pictures of him are decidedly the half-lengths and heads by Reynolds, Romney, and Barry. The bust presented by the late Mr. Haviland Burke to the British Museum, and now there, is the work of a clever sculptor named Hickey, whom Edmund Burke's benevolent patronage brought into public notice. During the greater part of Edmund Burke's life, his strict temperance secured for him tolerably good health; and in the end it was not positive sickness, but grief, which broke him down. From the period of his son's death the change in his looks and bearing is described as having become painfully discernible. His frame lost its elasticity, he contracted a stoop, and he gradually and almost visibly wasted away, until nature sunk exhausted under the rooted sorrow which weighed upon his heart. To Burke's health-preserving domestic habits, and especially his preference for water as a beverage, a graceful allusion is made in the supplement to Goldsmith's "Retaliation," the production of an anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine of August 1778: "To Burke a pure libation bring, Fresh drawn from clear Castalian spring; With civic oak the goblet bind, Fit emblem of his patriot mind; Let Clio at his table sip, And Hermes hand it to his lip." These lines recall the following more known and oft-quoted verses upon Burke in "Retaliation" itself: "Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much; |