The Press. — London, England, 1853-11-26 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 26, 1853. litraturt. The Piddle and Domestic Life V Edmond Burke' By Peter Burke, Esq. Loudon : lugnuu, Cooke, and Co. WE know few subjects in English criticism demanding more circumspect conclusions than the real character of Ldmund Burke. We have read nearly all that has been published on his life, and we are familiar with his volu minous works, and, after sonic painstaking examination of certain passages in his career. we have arrived at opinions differing from the extravagance of his panegyrists and from the malignity of his detractors. If we hail an appropriate publication upon which to com ment we might enter at sonic length upon the criticism of Burke's genius ; but it would be making Mr. Peter Burke's ill-conceived and badly-executed volume of too much importanee if we were to take it for a text. We have heard sonic rumours of forthcoming works on the life and character of Burke, and we shall pro bably have opportunities at a future time of entering upon the investigation of Burke's real life, as distinguished from that cloudy picture of it which has been commonly pre sented to the public. It is a very curious fact that two such orna ments to different branches of literature as Burke and Sheridan should have fared so badly at the hands of their biographers. The only tolerable memoir of Burke is that of Mr. Prior, which is totally deficient in depth of thought and vivacity of style. It contains, however, some particulars about Burke which are worth knowing, and it may be an assist ance to future writers. When we received Mr. Peter Burke's volume we expected to find either original knowledge or graceful compila tion. But, even on a cursory view, the author's deficiencies are glaringly conspicuous. Know ing not more of his subject than any reader of Prior's work, he tells what little he has col lected in a style below mediocrity. While we write we have all the biographical works re lating to Burke before us ; and we can declare, after a careful scrutiny, that Mr. Peter Burke has not added a single fact to the knowledge that any political writer of average information possesses about Burke. On the other hand, there arc several very grave questions about Edmund Burke which are not even mooted for consideration. Burke is described as almost a faultless character. His exaggera tions—his frensied antipathies—his propen sity to flatter—and the want of consistency in much of his public conduct—are not indicated or criticised. Nor has the present biographer the requisite acumen for discussing the diffi cult subject of the real character of Burke's political philosophy. Was it insular, and merely the rhetorical echo of the traditional public life of Englund, or can it be accepted as a comprehensive system elaborated by scien tific processes? So also, in the grave questions of the prosecution, or, as some would have it, the persecution, of Hastings—on Burke's ardent espousal of the religious cause of the Irish Papists, and his contemptuous indifference to the political claims of the Irish " National ists ' —on his peremptory opposition to Par liamentary Reform in all seasons, even in 17043, when a great portion of the soundest classes in the land asked for it—on his fre quent antagonism to the Protestant Dissenters of England—on all these knotty questions Mr. Peter Burke can give no adequate commen tary, or explain the contradictions—some of them only apparent, but others real—that attract the notice of any one who studies the career of Burke with even ordinary attention. Insight into character is one of the first requisites of a biographer. Of the blindness of Mr. Peter Burke as a panegyrist we have a strong instance in his elaborate attempt to prove that Edmund Burke was identical with the reckless and malignant scribe who wrote under the name of " Junius." Foul, indeed, would be the stains on the memory of Burke if it could be shown that he was the masked writer of that celebrated name. Obscenity. disguised in brilliant diction, and offered to the public. was a moral offence from which Burke would revolt; and the idea that he could pen so indecent a composition as Ju- THE PRESS. nius's reply to the letter of ".Janie " ( writtenby Caleb Allitefoord--" Miscellaneous 1 t era. N0.:04"i could never enter into the head of any person who ever read that gross specimen of the grovelling depths to which Junius could descend. But, apart from that pravity which must be ascribed to Junius. anti which has been ingeniously premed into argument as a proof that so perverted a heart anti su elOtlUCat a pen could have belonged only to " the wicked Lord Lyttelton. - could any person suppose that a Mau of honour like Edmund Burke—attached by ia , cuniary and political obligations to the 11'higs—woulti take to writing up George Orenville, and enter into secret communication with the suecesful rival of the Rockinghams? Only fancy Edmund Burke being guilty of the atrocity of libelling the Sovereign as " al coward." and secretly gloating over the fact that the King writhed and pined under his dastardly slander ! Leaving the consideration of Mr. Peer Burke's careless anti unsatisfactory volume, we may take this opportunity of making some brief remarks on the popularity of Burke as a political writer. It has always appeared to us that there are three classes of readers with whom Burke will always Lind fame. The first and most numerous class are those who read him fur his style, and who are captivated with the rolling flow of his rhetoric anti the eu phony of his sonorous sentences. His energy. brilliant diction, and bursts of vehemence will always make him "impular." The second and higher class read Mal for his rhetorical art. his dazzling frnee in argument, his power of grasping a case. and exhibiting it in various lights. The third and the highest class read him fin- his merits as a deep thinker, specu lating on human affairs. and yet foremost in the political struggles of his time—great in the Senate, and still greater in the closet. A glance at his works, and their toartieular merits, at once shows us why with these three classes of readers Burke must win admirers. No professed essayist, not even Mr. Macaulay. has written pieces more successful ill winning a multitude of readers than the author of the " Reflections on the }'reach Revolution," " Let ter to a Noble Lord," and " Thoughts on a Regicide Peace." Lawyers, and controversial ists of nil kinds, will find in "An Appeal from the New to the Oh 'Whigs" a model of pole mical argumentation ; and founders of systems will see in the "Thoughts on the Discontents," with its codification of the ethics of " party," a great example of the art of systematising without technical abstruseness, and mingling profound reasoning with popular convictions. fo the political philosopher nearly all of Burke's famous writings will always present some spe cial merits. line of his grandest merits as a writer is his unrivalled power of enlarging our views, even when he is dismissing an epheme ral question. He dignifies the trivial and ex panda the confined in a manner unlike any other author. This great Man himself habitually lived in an abiding sense of ordained morality. and lie saw every political incident in its relation to the mysterious scheme under which we live. Always moralising on life, his writings would have had the coldness and tendency to platitude of ethical eommentators, were it not that nature had given him an imagination partaking of metaphj sival subtlety and poetic fancy, which sometimes apprehended truths with the insight of genius, and which always decorated common subjects with the pris matic hues of the ideal. Systems wear out; and the laurels of genius often fade, and mighty reputations, like that of Bolingbroke, for exa ample, lie half buried. But the fame of Burke has gone on increasing since his death. Burke was more than a philoso pher or a genius: he was a philanthropist and a patriot, vith a love for all that cheers and ennobles human nature, and a hatred alm o st fanatical for those low, peddling systems of polities in which, as he himself says, •• men are but as the flies of n summer !" His lofty spirit of humanity inspires his writings with a moral force that gives them their gravely grand impressiveness. Such deep-toned com positions could never have come from a cold calculating heart of the modern "utilitarian " kind. In his system of philosophy the feelings were recognised as ilititrlMlCfitt4, existing for noble purposes. National passions were in 711 his views " moral esseitees" dividing king ilollis from mull other by other bounds than the "denominations of a nomenelature. - If the author of " Letters on a Regicide Peace" hail hied to olli• time. how his blood would have boiled at the sight of "antiquated staggering in lbowning-street. and communicating its fears to denioeratie Maker'', who moek at " g l or y " w hil e they grovel before wilt!. %%lint a fine lesson lie might Ihive read the recalcitrant statesman. adopting ti a• a teat that passage from his own writings-- No rounsellor i s so rash its f ear - But the whole subject of " Burke " is ono which we must reserve tau another oppolitmity. Calling for more discriminative study than has hitherto been gi% en to it. IIS oi•easiouri arise, it may invite us again. rieborlit, hoe .fluttralbe Ft.li.r. 1;y W. We ht. gall h. lonthin : Simpkin and N6%14111'11. 111 t. WEsr4.lllTll hits Written exeellent book on popular subject. Strong as is the inter eNt felt by Englishmen in Australian progress, the state of ll n antipislean colonies ib Very imperfectly known at home. 1 hi, volumo beton , us will do much to supply this want as regards one — the yOllngemt auil 111114 pros perous—of these colonies and we Can only regret that a work so ‘aluablo in all respects should not be Wllll6llllll in that cheap forum which would have made it arcessiblo to all readers. The history of Victoria (late "Australia Felix ") may he told in nr tinV words. Port Phillip, from wheel', as a district of New South Wales, it derived its name, was dig eovered in 1,401, visited in the same year by the explorer Flinderm, and examined by Col lins, of convict-colonising notoriety. in 1m414, with a view to the foundation there of a penal settlement. of this project nothing came; the convict party being transferred, after a three months' trial, to Van Diemetes Land, though not until several hail made their ea cape. Of these one only was seen again, thirty years hater. having in the interim joined a native tribe, and adopted their customs. He hail tOrgotten his native language, discarded clothing, anal showed little curiosity or desire to rejoin his countrymen. Ultimately, how ever, the acquired habits of barbarism forsook him, anal, having made himself useful its an interpreter. he was rewarded with It small pension, which he still enjoys, residing at Ilobarton. Although one or two attellllltl4 were Made to I'XiIII/IV the country westward from Sydney, no result ensued, anal Port Phillip remained unexplored until the year I/435, %then the in creasing population of Van Diemen's l.tund led to a general detain- to visit its Two parties set oft about the same time, one of which. headed by it Mr. Bateman, purchased 800,000 acres of land from certain aborigines whom they met—making no particular in quity as to the title of the sellers—and forth with established at company to dispose of the same. This purchase was, very properly. re• pudiated by Government, the colonists receiv ing compensation lot expenses ineurred in the shape of a payment of 7,111N1i. Their rivals ‘‘4.4e less fortunate, mot got nothing ; while this quadrangular duel, waged between the natives. the free emigrants, and the two colo nising compauics. 14111611 MA for years to create angry anal unavailing disputes. Who shall define the rights of discoveriTia, or decide on the power of native tt ibes to sell the lands an 4.r which they hunted? The problem Illny be soluble, but certainty our colonial system has done nothing to solve it. however, did not check the prosperity of the new settlement. New South Wales became jealous of the monopoly enjoyed by Van Diemen . % Land ; and her enterprising fliwk-mnstera, deseenaling from the north anal east. poured in their stock until arrested In their progress by the opposite stain in of eido nisation which 11,cl-tided northward from the coast. In Is:10, when a first attempt was made to decide the Wad question, the settlement contained four hinoli cal person... , In th e nex t yeas Nielbourne. Geelong, anal W ilhanistown were founded—the knitter being made the capital of the colony, though singularly ill sit at a distance of nine miles from the