Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry

by John G. Edgar

Burke had already projected and brought into operation the “Annual Register,” which was for years carried on under his sagacious inspection; though political matters soon occupied so much of his attention that he had little leisure for literary pursuits not strictly connected with affairs of state: but his introduction to public life was gradual. In the year 1759 he became acquainted with Singlespeech Hamilton, son of a Scottish advocate who had come to England at the Union. This mysterious individual had, a short while previously, made the solitary but successful oratorical effort from which his nickname was derived, in a debate long remembered as one of the greatest in which the parliamentary personages of that generation had partaken. In 1761 he went to Ireland as Secretary to the Lord-lieutenant, and Burke accompanied him as a friend and adviser. For his services on this occasion the latter was granted a pension of £300 a year, which he sacrificed, after enjoying it for eighteen months, on his rupture with Hamilton.

Soon after making this sacrifice, which did not prevent him tendering his aid and drawing his purse to forward the interests of his whimsical countryman, Barry the painter, Burke had the gratification of playing a part in the political world. On the dismissal of George Grenville from the head of affairs, Lord Rockingham, chief of the Whig magnates, was intrusted with the duty of forming an administration. That nobleman, having been filled with admiration of Burke’s occasional papers in the “Public Advertiser,” was led to desire the acquaintance of the writer, who speedily became his private secretary, and member of parliament for Wendover. He was, not, however, “swaddled, rocked, and dandled into a legislator.” He set himself studiously to comprehend official forms and parliamentary proceedings, used every means to accomplish himself in voice and action—with that view even frequenting the theatre to derive hints and instruction from the tones, looks, and gestures of Garrick. Both by solitary study and debating at a society, he prepared himself to take an active part in the business of the House of Commons. He made his first speech on the bill for repealing the American Stamp Act, with an eloquence which excited the admiration of all present, and evoked the valuable praise of the great Earl of Chatham. Sir John Hawkins expressed his amazement at the extraordinary eminence to which Burke had suddenly ascended; upon which Dr. Johnson said,

“Sir, there is nothing marvelous in it; we who know Burke feel sure that he will be one of the first men in the country.”

On the fall of the Rockingham ministry, to which his genius had imparted some degree of dignity, Burke wrote and circulated a plain and simple defense of its measures. He soon after made an ironical reply to his own pamphlet in the form of a letter, signed “Whittington,” and professing to be the production of a tallow-chandler, who aspired to the office of lord-mayor. In this epistle a severe attack was made on the cabinet which Lord Chatham had just put together.

By this time Burke, from his intimacy with patrician senators, was known and appreciated in the world of fashion, where his talents and acquirements qualified him to shine, in spite of those social demarcations whose lines are not always justly drawn. He was an especial favorite, and won golden opinions in the “blue-stocking” circles; and he was wisely careful not to mortify the vanity nor incur the wrath of learned ladies, by pointing out their errors or exposing their fallacies. His position in Parliament was soon ascertained and ere long recognized. On the very day when he broke ground in the House of Commons, the first Pitt addressed it for the last time, and men were in doubt which of them was the more splendid speaker. Ere two years had elapsed, Burke had established his oratorical supremacy.

About this period a tract of Grenville’s exhibited so much ill-nature that the Rockingham party felt the necessity of retaliating. Accordingly, Burke published his “Observations on the Present State of the Nation.” The popular error that a man of genius can not deal with practical matters as successfully as those who are less richly endowed by nature, was the consolation of mediocrity very much earlier than the days of Burke, and from him it now met with a signal refutation. He executed his task with complete triumph on every point of consequence, and proved his mastery over the dry, minute, financial, and statistical details, which were supposed to form the stronghold and peculiar province of his sharp but narrow-minded adversary.

Burke had, ere this, purchased a pleasant villa near Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, where he could enjoy rural privacy and rest his eye on lawns, woods, meadows, and corn-fields. Attached to his residence was land worth about six hundred a-year, of which he retained the greater part in his own occupation, that he might indulge in the satisfaction of farming. Without adopting any expensive system, he proved himself one of the most successful agriculturists in the county. When living in town he had various articles of produce carted up with his own stout nags, which were employed one day to draw his carriage, and on the next to plow the soil. As a country gentleman he exerted himself to the utmost to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry among whom he lived; he was daily earning their blessings by the schemes he devised for their benefit. He planned various institutions for enabling mechanics and laborers to save something from their wages against the season of sickness, and his hand was ever open as day to the poor or distressed. Thus he won and enjoyed the respect and admiration of the neighborhood. To his numerous guests his hospitality was overflowing. He neither affected style nor studied display, but regaled them with substantial fare, and delighted them with cheerful and entertaining conversation. Among his visitors he counted Dr. Johnson, for whose talents and virtues he always expressed a sincere esteem, and by whose death-bed his voice faltered with grief and emotion.

As one of the freeholders of Bucks, Burke drew up a petition concerning the Middlesex election, which was approved of by a county meeting, and presented by him to Parliament. He likewise set forth his views and opinions of the political affairs of the day, in a treatise entitled “Thoughts on the Present Discontents,” wherein he advocated the claims of the great Whig connection to the government of the empire. In the House of Commons he maintained their interests with unrivaled eloquence; he led their ranks, in opposition to Lord North, during the American War; and he was justly regarded as by far the most formidable assailant whom that minister had to encounter in the arena of debate. His magnificent speech on American taxation was considered one of the most extraordinary on record; but his fanciful flights and profound reasoning were often too little adapted to the taste of his audience to be relished or followed; and his contemporaries became careless of attending to orations which, nevertheless, will last as long as the English language. His own friends, who crept stealthily away to avoid listening to his rich effusions, were, on their publication, surprised at the delight experienced in perusing them. Such was their treatment of an orator who spoke for posterity.

A dissolution occurring in 1774, Burke was, without his knowledge, put in nomination as a candidate for the representation of Bristol. He had just been elected for Malton, in Yorkshire, when the intelligence of this unsought distinction arrived; and straightway he proceeded to the ancient city. There his eloquence was exerted with such force that it penetrated even the heads of the wealthy traders in rum and sugar, who, after a protracted contest, placed him at the top of the poll. An amusing anecdote is related of his colleague in the canvass—a colonial merchant. After one of the mighty orator’s most glowing addresses to the inhabitants, the worthy individual feeling himself quite overpowered by the torrent, instead of attempting to explain his views to the audience as expected, exclaimed with grave but excited earnestness, “I say ditto to Mr. Burke! I say ditto to Mr. Burke!” It happened, however, that when the next general election took place, Burke had rendered himself so unpopular to the constituency by his support of the Catholic claims and of the Irish Trade Acts, that he judged it prudent to decline a contest; and he again took shelter in the borough of Malton, which he represented during the remainder of his parliamentary career.