- -The preserver of his country's freedom-he whose name stands highest among all the living sons of menhe whom any nation on earth would be proud to call her own, and who has won for himself a larger claim to British gratitude than Britain ever can compensate-even he has been reviled, insulted, threatened.-(Much cheering.)-On the other hand, the names of men whose guilty lives were justly forfeited to the offended laws of their country, have been drawn forth from that oblivion in which charity had shrouded their ignominious end, and they are now held up as fit objects for the admiration, and, I presume, the imitation of the people.. · (Cheers.) — Even in smaller matters, we see the current of popular opinion turned from the natural course, and running in a false direction. We see the exiled outlaw -(loud cheers)-restored only by the grace of his Sovereign, making his exile a boast, and the cause of it a passport to the favour and the confidence of the people.-(Continued cheering.)—We see the unenfranchised mob dictate to the electors how they are to bestow their suffrages. We see the beardless apprentices dictate to their masters when they are to close their warehouses. We see the unwilling debtor dictate to his creditor what measures he is to adopt, or whether he is to adopt any measures, to recover payment of his just debt. (Much cheering.)-One step more, and we shall see the public delinquent dictate to the public prosecutor whether he is to be brought to trial.-(Cheers.)—In all these things I see a total unhingement of fixed opinions-an aversion to the exist ing order of things, merely because it is so-and a senseless desire for movement and change. Looking to the indications I have mentioned, I cannot venture to hope that the tide will not also be turned against the Established Church,-(cheers) -with what success will depend on the firmness of the friends of the Church, and the firmness of our rulers. In the former I have implicit confidence; in the latter I have not yet learned to repose the same confidence. (Cheers and laughter.)-If, indeed, my confidence in them was to be at all measured by their confidence in themselves, it would be ample in the extreme.-(Reiterated cheers and laughter.)-Their confidence in their own power and ability seems to be such that nothing is too difficult for them. One of their greatest errors has been their overweening confidence in themselves, blinding them to difficulties and to consequences. They seem almost to think themselves omnipo tent. There is nothing in the his tory of heathen or barbarous times more absurd than the miscalculating conceit of the politicians of the present day.-(Cheers.) — When the heathen conqueror, exposed to the flattery of an admiring and devoted people, who had already ranked him with the gods, commanded his attendant to give him daily remembrance of his mortality, he acted in the spirit of philosophy, conscious of the infirmities of mankind, and of their proneness to forget them. When the English Monarch, in an age comparatively barbarous, placed his chair on the sea-shore, and forbade the advance of the ocean wave, he too acted in the spirit of genuine philosophy, reproving a nation's flattery, and marking his knowledge of his own weakness. But in our day has sprung up a race of statesmen, who, rejecting the precepts of philosophy, and the lessons of experience-forgetting the weakness of human nature, and surrendering themselves to the intoxication of power-vainly think that they can ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm-(cheers)—that because they can raise the blast of popular passion, they can direct it to a proper end, and allay it at their pleasure-that because they can destroy, therefore they can reconstruct and restore. This is indeed the acmé of human presumption.-(Cheers.)-The merest child may apply the torch, but who shall stay the conflagration ? The feeblest arm may destroy the functions of life in the noblest and most vigorous of God's created beings, but who shall reanimate the frame?-(Continued cheers.)-Let them think of this ere it is too late. Let them awaken from that delusive dream in which they have been indulging. Let them set themselves to work to preserve that which still remains. Let them try in earnest to check that torrent of destructive ness which is at present directe 1839.1 with fearful force against all that is of England, is about to commence. These are the dictates of sound philosophy arrayed in the garb of impressive eloquence. How truly, how forcibly is the developement of that principle traced, which lies at the bottom of all this restless anxiety for change-the consciousness of power working upon ignorance and which shews itself alike in the conduct of the apprentice who dictates to his master when he is to close his shop, or the Westminster tailor who dictates to the Premier when he is to open the Session! Here we must close our notice of the proceedings of this remarkable meeting, deeply regretting that we cannot make room for any observations on the energetic speech of Mr Dundas of Arniston, in proposing the health of Sir George Clerk; the very effective and striking address of the gallant companion in arms of the Duke of Wellington, Sir John Oswald; or the speech of Sir William Rae, in acknowledging his own health, and proposing the memory of Sir Walter Scott; a speech distinguished by many of the best characteristics of eloquence, strong emotion, a spirit of the most firm and manly sincerity, and the greatest tact in handling a topic on which the commonplaces of oratory would have been so out of place. The single recollection to which he alluded-his parting interview with the great man now taken from this scene of contest and trouble -was more effectual to call up the solemn and hallowed recollections associated with the name of Sir Walter Scott, than the most elaborate eulogy he could have pronounced. A word only before concluding. The first Session of the experimental Parliament, big with the fate nour, must at no distant period perceive the necessity of reverting to those Conservative principles, which, in an evil hour for themselves and their country, they abandoned. The Conservative party are entitled to demand it of them, not as a matter of expediency, but of right. If Ministers were pledged to one party to introduce Reform, they were not less deeply and solemnly pledged to the other, that that Reform should be a final measure-not the herald of farther change, but the means of satisfying the mass of the people that change was unnecessary and undesirable. They have kept their faith to the Reformers-shall it be broken to us and to the country? They have abandoned the outworks of the Constitution, as indefensible -shall they now as tamely yield up the citadel? One bugbear, which seems to alarm them, we are sure is an imaginary one. They have nothing to fear in the new Parliament from any combination between the Conservative and the Radical party, to deprive them of their possession of place or power. These are not the days when any Conservative need envy them their thorny seats, or their uneasy splendour. He would indeed be in love with danger, who would wish at this moment to snatch the reins of government from the hands of the present holders, when he sees that the only path they have left to him runs along the brink of a precipice. No! The Conservatives will act in Parliament as they have acted out of it, -they will pursue the only object they have in view, the good of their country, turning neither to the right hand nor the left,-mingling with no party, but moving onward in their own straightforward course, like that Sicilian river which carries its waters fresh and limpid even across the salt and bitter currents of the sea. Posterity will never acquit Ministers of the deep guilt of having hazarded the safety of the country; but next to the merit of not having erred, would be the candid and timely confession of error. Let them take their stand then ere it be too late,-while yet some of the bulwarks of our Constitution stand unshaken,though not unassailed-while yet our Monarch wears something more than" the likeness of a kingly crown,"-while our hereditary Peerage is left to us, though shorn of its beams,-while a national Church is left to us to elevate our morality, and to lay the foundation for the duties of the citizen in those of the Christian, and while our impartial and independent tribunals are left to us, independent alike of popular violence or regal influence, to make the majesty of the law felt and respected, and to give security to the persons and properties of all. If, reflecting upon these things, our Ministers even now, at this eleventh hour, revert to the principles from which they have swerved too long, and evince the same firmness in maintaining what remains of our Constitution, as they shewed rashness in assailing that venerable edifice, the prospects of England need not yet be despaired of. But if, insensible to all the warnings which are heard around them, they continue to pursue in the new Parliament the course which they began in the old; if one solitary concession be made to clamour instead of conviction; if one jot or tittle of the property of the Church be diverted from its sacred destination; if even the task of distribution be attempted by an unthinking head or an ungentle hand; if the interests of our colonies are to be abandoned to wild and reckless legislation; if the securities of our agriculturists are to be sacrificed to the interested complaints of the manufacturing classes, or the dreams of political theorists, then, assuredly, the glory of England is gone for ever. Then, indeed, above the entrance to the Chapel of St Stephen's, that hall which was once the fountain of wise legislature, the focus and rallying point of British wisdom and worth, may be written up the gloomy inscription over the portal of the Inferno "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' intrate." Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Edinburgh. THE people of England are attached to liberty. They are made for it. They have by nature a gravity of mind which tends to save them from political rashness. They have a manliness which repels dishonourable submission to force. Thus, superior by their original temperament, alike to the extravagances of democracy, and to the oppressions of despotism, they alone, of all European nations, have been qualified to build up that last and noblest labour of utility and virtue, a free Constitution. Yet while nations are composed of men, they must be liable to error. The vast and fluctuating varieties of human opinion must exhibit those currents and changes which defy or astonish the wisdom of the wise. New and untried hazards must perplex their political fortitude, strong temptations to hasty aggrandizement, or rash terrors of public loss, must overbalance the practical knowledge of the state; and England, with all her experience, vigour, and virtue, must take her share in those contingencies which compel nations to revert to first principles, and refresh their declining years by draughts from the original fountains of their fame. It is for such purposes that the lover of his country should value history. For he sees in it not a mere museum of the eccentricities and adventures of nations, it offers more than an indulgence to mere curiosity. It opens the door of that great repository of the faults and frailties, of the greatness and power, VOL. XXXIII, NO. CCV. VOL. XXXIII. of ages which have now gone down to the grave, not to gaze on them as curious specimens of the past, but as opulent and true instructors of the present. He sees in their configura tion the secrets of the living frame, the sources of actual public strength, the organs of national renown, the muscular energy, the fine impulses which give activity and force to the whole animated system. But the most effectual portion of history is that which gives down great men to the future; for it furnishes the mind of the rising generation with a model on which it can shape itself at once. The embodied virtue of the champion of truth and freedom stands before it; the progress of genius and learning, of generous ambition and faithful principle, is displayed to the eye in all its successions. There is nothing ideal, nothing to be made up by fancy, or left to chance. The standard of excellence is palpable to the touch; and men can scarcely look upon this illustrious evidence of human capabilities without unconsciously emulating its labours or sharing its superiority. In giving a rapid view of the life of the celebrated Burke, we are less anxious to render the due tribute to his ability than to his principles. His genius has long gained for itself the highest prize of fame. In an age eminent for intellectual distinction, Burke vindicated to himself the admiration of Europe. Owing nothing of his elevation to birth, opulence, or official rank, he requir T ed none of those adventitious supports to rise and move at ease, and with instinctive power, in the highest regions of public effort, dignity, and renown; the atmosphere of courts and senates was native to his majesty of wing. There was no fear that his plumage would give way in either the storm or the sunshine; those are the casualties of inferior powers. He had his share of both, the tempest, and that still more perilous trial, which has melted down the virtue of so many aspiring spirits in the favour of cabinets. But Burke grew purer and more powerful for good; to his latest moment, he constantly rose more and more above the influence of party, until at last the politician was elevated into the philosopher; and fixing himself in that loftier region, from which he looked down on the cloudy and turbulent contests of the time, he soared upward calmly in the light of truth, and became more splendid at every wave of his wing. This is no exaggeration of his singular ability, or of its course. Of all the memorable men of his day, Burke is the only orator, whose eloquence has been incorporated into the wisdom of his country. His great contemporaries grappled triumphantly with the emergencies of the hour, and having achieved the exploit of the hour, were content with what they had done. But it is palpable that Burke in every instance contemplated a larger victory; that his struggle was not more to meet a contingency, than to establish a principle; that he was not content with overwhelming the adversary of the moment, but must bequeath with that triumph some new knowledge of the means by which the adversary might be overwhelmed in every age to come; some noble contribution to that grand tactic by which men and nations are armed and marshalled against all difficulty. The labours of his contemporaries were admirable; the mere muscular force of the human mind never exhibited more prodigious feats, than in the political contests of the days of Chatham, Holland, Pitt and Fox. The whole period from the fall of the Walpole Ministry to the death of Pitt, was an unrelaxing struggle of the most practised, expert, and vivid ability. But it was the struggle of the arena-a great rivalry for the prize of the peoplethe fierce and temporary effort of great intellectual gladiators. Where they were exhausted or perished, others followed, if with inferior powers, with close imitation. But no man has followed Burke. No defender of the truth has exhibited that fine combination of practical vigour with abstract and essential wisdom, that mastery of human topics and means with that diviner energy which overthrew not merely the revolutionary spirit of his day, but enables us to maintain the conflict against all its efforts to come; like the conqueror of the Python, leaving his own image to all time, an emblem of equally unrivable strength and grandeur, a model of all nobleness in form and mind. Edmund Burke, like most of those men who have made themselves memorable by their public services, was of humble extraction; the son of an Irish attorney. Yet as Ireland is the land of genealogies, and every man who cares for the honours of ancestry may indulge himself at large among the wide obscurity of the Irish lineages, Burke's biographers have gratified their zeal by searching for the fountains of his blood among the De Burghs or Burgos, whose names are found in the list of Strongbows, knights in the invasion under Henry the Second. Edmund Burke justly seems to have thought little upon the subject, and contenting himself with being the son of Adam, prepared to lay the foundations of a fame independent of the Norman. He was born in Dublin, January 1, 1730, old style; of a delicate constitution, which in his boyhood he rendered still more delicate by a love for reading. As he was threatened with consumption, he was removed at an early age from the thick air of the capital to the house of his grandfather at Castletown Roche, a village in the county of Cork, in the neighbourhood of the old castle of Kilcolman, once the residence of the poet Spenser, and seated in the centre of a district remarkable for traditional interest, and landscape beauty. Early associations often have a powerful effect on the mind of genius, and it is not improbable that the rich and lovely scenery of |