Averse alike to flatter or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend?
[646] Difˊ-fi-dence, want of confidence.
[647] Per-sistˊ-ing, persevering steadily.
[648] Nigˊ-gard, meanly; parsimonious.
[649] Com-plaˊ-cence, civility.
CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.
BURKE.
Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman, to be the great central figure in the array of great names which shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century. But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor and probity.