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twenty years before, the English Cabinet was the very scene of mutation ; a political caravansera, in which the guests of to-day were the strangers of to-morrow ; a tideway, filled and empty every twenty-four hours; a perpetual flux and reflux of the political stream; — if its truer emblem, in those days of public impotence, was not to be found in the churchyard, the successive remnants of the decaying, to make room for the successive deposits of the dead. But this system was now to be at an end. England was to have a solid government at last. The Cabinet was to be no more an antechamber to the King's closet, and the levee

other men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness ; and then, prophet-like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and in his prophetic fury admonished nations."

But a long interval was to interpose in the life of Burke, between his growing reluctance to the rash and heady politics of Fox, and his direct recognition of the manly, rational, and English-minded system of the Minister. With no personal habits of prostration to urge him into a degrading bond with power; stimulated by neither the passion for title, which turns so many proud done, the doors to be locked, until it men into slaves, nor the craving for pleased the court officials to an- wealth, which presents the covetous nounce that they were open for a man a willing tool for any public fresh accession of visitors, equally baseness, Burke, reposing on the temporary. Pitt was to stand at the strength of a reputation, of which head of English council, and to stand he must have been conscious, and until he had impressed his own contented with the rank, nobler than powerful spirit upon English resist- all adventitious title, which he had ance, had crushed disaffection, given secured in the minds of his country confidence to Europe, asserted the and mankind, calmly waited his time, steadiness of British principle, and We have hitherto seen Burke for- marshalled the strength of the em- cinghis way through the obstacles of pire into that order, which waited obscure birth and narrow fortune, to only the word to carry the stand- a high influence in the councils of the ards of loyalty and national safety nation ; his weapons and his ambi- over the fallen force of military tion usurpation. The share which fell to less

the lot of Burke in tl.ls most bril- the sense of expediency. No man

liant era of our history, is to be told more openly asserted his principles,

in a more advanced portion of this and no man's principles were clearer

brief Memoir. But even here we of the plague-spot of our time, the

cannot refuse the expressive pane- passion for overthrow, were more

gyric of Grattan, a kindred genius, reverent of the old institutions of

like him converted, however late in his country, and more hostile to the

life, from partisanship to the cause follies of popular innovation, or the

of his country, and fitter than any furies of popular rapacity. He had

man then alive to inscribe an imperi- seen the heights of popularity reach-

shable record on the tomb of depart- ed hourly at a spring, while he was

ed greatness. climbing his way, sometimes dubi-

" On the French subject," said ously, always slowly. Wilkes was

Grattan, in 1815, in his speech for chicaning his ascent to the summit,

the renewal of the war, " speaking and Fox was storming it, while

of authority, we cannot forget Mr Burke was advancing by the broad

Burke Mr Burke, the prodigy of and deliberate road of great abilities

nature and acquisition. He read exercised on great subjects, sus-

every thing, he saw every thing, he tained by unexampled industry, and

foresaw every thing. His know- directed by unimpeachable honour,

ledge of history amounted to a power But his political life had commenced

of foretelling; and when he per- under circumstances which for many

ceived the wild work that was doing years threw their shadow over his

in France, that great political physi- career; his early connexion with the

cian, intelligent of symptoms, distin- Marquis of Rockingham had bound

guished between the access of fever him to the whole heavy system of

and the force of health ; and what that most formal of Ministers. But

no man

were equally legitimate; no ir sacrificed the sense of right