Lastly—To these attractions, of various kinds, with which the cause of Thrones was now encircled in the eyes of Burke, must be added one, which, however it may still further disenchant our views of his conversion, cannot wholly be omitted among the inducements to his change,—and this was the strong claim upon the gratitude of government, which his seasonable and powerful advocacy in a crisis so difficult established for him, and which the narrow and embarrassed state of his circumstances rendered an object by no means of secondary importance in his views. Unfortunately,—from a delicate wish, perhaps, that the reward should not appear to come in too close coincidence with the service,—the pension bestowed upon him arrived too late to admit of his deriving much more from it than the obloquy by which it was accompanied.
The consequence, as is well known, of the new course taken by Burke was that the speeches and writings which he henceforward produced, and in which, as usual, his judgment was run away with by his temper, form a complete contrast, in spirit and tendency, to all that he had put on record in the former part of his life. He has, indeed, left behind him two separate and distinct armories of opinion, from which both Whig and Tory may furnish themselves with weapons, the most splendid, if not the most highly tempered, that ever Genius and Eloquence have condescended to bequeath to Party. He has thus too, by his own personal versatility, attained, in the world of politics, what Shakspeare, by the versatility of his characters, achieved for the world in general,—namely, such a universality of application to all opinions and purposes, that it would be difficult for any statesman of any party to find himself placed in any situation, for which he could not select some golden sentence from Burke, either to strengthen his position by reasoning or illustrate and adorn it by, fancy. While, therefore, our respect for the man himself is diminished by this want of moral identity observable through his life and writings, we are but the more disposed to admire that unrivalled genius, which could thus throw itself out in so many various directions with equal splendor and vigor. In general, political deserters lose their value and power in the very act, and bring little more than their treason to the new cause which they espouse:—
"Fortis in armis Caesaris Labienus erat; nunc transfuga vilis."
But Burke was mighty in either camp; and it would have taken two great men to effect what he, by this division of himself achieved. His mind, indeed, lies parted asunder in his works, like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature,—each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility with each other.
It was during the discussions on the Army Estimates, at the commencement of the session of 1790, that the difference between Mr. Burke and his party in their views of the French Revolution first manifested itself. Mr. Fox having taken occasion to praise the late conduct of the French Guards in refusing to obey the dictates of the Court, and having declared that he exulted, "both from feelings and from principles," in the political change that had been brought about in that country, Mr. Burke, in answering him, entered fully, and, it must be owned, most luminously into the question,—expressing his apprehension, lest the example of France, which had, at a former period, threatened England with the contagion of despotism, should now be the means of introducing among her people the no less fatal taint of Democracy and Atheism. After some eloquent tributes of admiration to Mr. Fox, rendered more animated, perhaps, by the consciousness that they were the last offerings thrown into the open grave of their friendship, he proceeded to deprecate the effects which the language of his Right Honorable Friend might have, in appearing to countenance the disposition observable among "some wicked persons" to "recommend an imitation of the French spirit of Reform," and then added a declaration, equally remarkable for the insidious charge which it implied against his own party, and the notice of his approaching desertion which it conveyed to the other,—that "so strongly opposed was he to any the least tendency towards the means of introducing a democracy like that of the French, as well as to the end itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if such a thing should be attempted, and that any friend of his could concur in such measures (he was far, very far, from believing they could), he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end."
It is pretty evident, from these words, that Burke had already made up his mind as to the course he should pursue, and but delayed his declaration of a total breach, in order to prepare the minds of the public for such an event, and, by waiting to take advantage of some moment of provocation, make the intemperance of others responsible for his own deliberate schism. The reply of Mr. Fox was not such as could afford this opportunity;—it was, on the contrary, full of candor and moderation, and repelled the implied charge of being a favorer of the new doctrines of France in the most decided, but, at the same time, most conciliatory terms.
"Did such a declaration," he asked, "warrant the idea that he was a friend to Democracy? He declared himself equally the enemy of all absolute forms of government, whether an absolute Monarchy, an absolute Aristocracy, or an absolute Democracy. He was adverse to all extremes, and a friend only to a mixed government like our own, in which, if the Aristocracy, or indeed either of the three branches of the Constitution, were destroyed, the good effect of the whole, and the happiness derived under it would, in his mind, be at an end."
In returning, too, the praises bestowed upon him by his friend, he made the following memorable and noble acknowledgment of all that he himself had gained by their intercourse:—
"Such (he said) was his sense of the judgment of his Right Honorable Friend, such his knowledge of his principles, such the value which he set upon them, and such the estimation in which he held his friendship, that if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from books, all which he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the improvement which he had derived from his Right Honorable Friend's instruction and conversation were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to which to give the preference."
This, from a person so rich in acquirements as Mr. Fox, was the very highest praise,—nor, except in what related to the judgment and principles of his friend, was it at all exaggerated. The conversation of Burke must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step—occasionally, perhaps, mingling the low Fescennine jest with the lofty music of its march, but glittering all over with the spoils of the whole ransacked world.