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they flash with righteous indignation; they are convulsed with humor and wit; they revel in ridicule and burlesque; they soar into the realm of the sublime and beautiful; they call all knowledge and wisdom to account. In the words of one who knew him well he was, “If not the most accomplished orator, yet the most eloquent man of his age; perhaps second to none in any age; he had still more wisdom than eloquence."

Wordsworth's recollections of the man in action are worth noting and far more pertinent than the oft-quoted lines from Goldsmith's Retaliation:

Silence! hush!

This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
No stammerer of a minute, painfully
Delivered. No! the Orator hath yoked
The Hours, like young Aurora, to his ear:
Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e'er
Grow weary of attending on a track

That kindles with such glory! All are charmed,
Astonished; like a hero in romance,

He winds away his never-ending horn;

Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense:
What memory and what logic! till the strain
Transcendent, superhuman as it seemed,
Grows tedious even in a young man's ear.
Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced
By specious wonders, and too slow to tell
Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,
Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides,
And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,
Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue-
Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave.
I see him,-old, but vigorous in age,-
Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start

Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
The younger brethern of the grove. But some-
While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
Against all systems built on abstract rights,
Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims

Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
Declares the vital power of social ties
Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
Exploding upstart Theory, insists

Upon the allegiance to which men are born-
Some say at once a froward multitude—
Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved).
The Prelude 7. 498-532.

That Burke's efforts were not always crowned with success cannot in strict justice be entirely laid to the fault of the "froward multitude.” As a speaker he lacked tact. He was too blunt and free with the truth to carry conviction. He thought more of presenting a clear case than of persuasion. One cannot dub part of his audience, though well within the bounds of veracity, "a profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us," and then expect to obtain their votes. In the ardor of his zeal Burke often abused his opponents unmercifully. The great advocate of prudence and policy was not always prudent and politic in his methods, relying too much on the amplification of the truth, and too little on the mastery of his audience. Though eloquent he was too good a writer to be an effective orator. The same

Lord who escaped the speech on the East India Bill by the unseemly method of crawling out under the benches, later wore out a printed copy of the speech in study.

The proper amplification of Burke's literary style would require a copious volume; therefore but a few

traits can be mentioned here. He was already a master of style when he wrote that clever imitation, A Vindication of Natural Society. Only a close student of all the niceties of the art could have done what he did in that work. Though his mastery was not again to be used in like manner, if we except the statement made by some that he never entirely shook off the influence of Bolingbroke, his ability as a stylist never failed him. We have abundance of evidence that he took great pains with his manuscripts and proofs, subjecting them to the most rigid criticism. He was essentially a man of letters in politics; he associated with men of letters; he was an able critic of literature and painting; in fact, he was a humanized statesman, endowed with broad sympathies, strong emotions, active imagination, right regard for the moral world, proper sense of order of his materials, and, considering the magnitude of his designs, endowed with artistic restraint. The evidences of literary skill are seldom absent from all that he spoke; likewise the trail of the orator is unmistakable in all but his earliest writings. All the figures of rhetoric, ancient and modern are at his bidding, but with perfect propriety, a harmonious blending of ornament and ornamented; there too are all the clever arrangements of words and sentences that make the spoken language vivid. His command of diction is large, displaying a most happy blending of native and classic stock. Language with him became absolutely plastic and flexible, conforming with perfect ease to all the delicate and almost imperceptible modulations of complex and keenest thought. Johnson said that Burke "winds into his subject like a serpent." His sentence structure is varied sometimes elaborately complex with many parallels; often epigrammatic; seldom, if ever, obscure; and, as a rule, emphatic. His wit and humor are not

caustic and subtle like Swift's, but awkward and blunt, sometimes even coarse. The delicacy, refinement and good taste that ought to have become habitual through his literary training was undoubtedly swept away occasionally by the impetuous current of his eloquence and fierce invective. In referring to this current Taine says: "Doubtless there is foam on its eddies, mud in its bed: thousands of wild creatures sport wildly on its surface." But whatever faults his style may possess, it will richly repay careful study. He who runs, if he be intelligent, may understand Burke, and be well rewarded both in manner and matter.

Leslie Nathan Broughton.

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