CHARACTER OF MR. BURKE
First published in the “Eloquence of the British Senate” and republished in “Political Essays.”
[P. 172.] The following speech. Hazlitt refers to the speech On the Economic Reform (February 11, 1780). See Burke’s Works, ed. Bohn, II, 55-126.
[P. 174.] the elephant to make them sport. “Paradise Lost” IV, 345.
native and endued. “Hamlet,” iv, 7, 180.
Lord Chatham. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), the great English statesman.
[P. 176.] a new creation. Goldsmith’s “Traveler,” 296.
[P. 178.] All the great changes. Cf. Morley’s “Life of Burke,” ch. 8: “All really profound speculation about society comes in time to touch the heart of every other object of speculation, not by directly contributing new truths or directly corroborating old ones, but by setting men to consider the consequences to life of different opinions on these abstract subjects, and their relations to the great paramount interests of society, however those interests may happen at the time to be conceived. Burke’s book marks a turning-point in literary history, because it was the signal for that reaction over the whole field of thought, into which the Revolution drove many of the finest minds of the next generation, by showing the supposed consequences of pure individualistic rationalism.”
[P. 179.] Alas! Leviathan. Cowper’s “Task,” II, 322.
the corner stone. Psalms, cxvii, 22.
to the Jews. 1 Corinthians, i, 23.
[P. 183.] the consequences of his writings. In this view Hazlitt has the full support of Lord Morley.
[P. 184.] How charming. Milton’s “Comus,” 476.
He was one of the severest writers we have. The description of Burke’s style which follows should be compared with that given on pp. 344-5 and with the splendid passage in the “Plain Speaker” essay “On the Prose Style of Poets,” beginning: “It has always appeared to me that the most perfect prose-style, the most powerful, the most dazzling, the most daring, that which went the nearest to the verge of poetry, and yet never fell over, was Burke’s. It has the solidity, and sparkling effect of the diamond; all other fine writing is like French paste or Bristol-stones in the comparison. Burke’s style is airy, flighty, adventurous, but it never loses sight of the subject; nay, is always in contact with, and derives its increased or varying impulse from it. It may be said to pass yawning gulfs ‘on the unsteadfast footing of a spear:’ still it has an actual resting-place and tangible support under it—it is not suspended on nothing. It differs from poetry, as I conceive, like the chamois from the eagle: it climbs to an almost equal height, touches upon a cloud, overlooks a precipice, is picturesque, sublime—but all the while, instead of soaring through the air, it stands upon a rocky cliff, clambers up by abrupt and intricate ways, and browzes on the roughest bark, or crops the tender flower.”
[P. 186.] the set or formal style. See pp. [147-8].
[P. 187.] Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), a criticism of the ministerial policy of the English government under George III.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a severe arraignment of the principles which inspired the revolution and a prophetic warning of its consequences.
Letter to the Duke of Bedford. A Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, to a Noble Lord, on the attacks made upon him and his pension, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, early in the present session of Parliament. (1706.)
Regicide Peace. Three Letters addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament, on the proposals for peace with the regicide Directory of France. (1796.)
[P. 188.] Fox, Charles James (1749-1806), the famous Whig statesman who was frequently the opponent of Burke and of the younger Pitt.
[P. 189.] Dr. Johnson observed, in his “Life of Pope” (ed. Birkbeck Hill, III, 230): “In their similes the greatest writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandised; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo running after Daphne is likened to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained; the ideas of pursuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer, and a god and the daughter of a god are not represented much to their advantage by a hare and a dog.”
a person. Conjecturally Joseph Fawcett. In the essay “On Criticism” (“Table Talk”) Hazlitt says: “The person of the most refined and least contracted taste I ever knew was the late Joseph Fawcett, the friend of my youth. He was almost the first literary acquaintance I ever made, and I think the most candid and unsophisticated. He had a masterly perception of all styles and of every kind and degree of excellence, sublime or beautiful, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballad, from Butler’s Analogy down to Humphrey Clinker.”
P. 189, n. the comparison of the British Constitution. “Letter to a Noble Lord,” Works, ed. Bohn, V, 137.