But the main paper in the collection is none other than the manuscript of the "Observations on the Conduct of the Minority," being the identical copy from which the surreptitious publication was made which disturbed the last hours of Burke. The body of it is in the handwriting of the amanuensis to whom the familiar letters were addressed; but it shows the revision of Burke, and on several pages most minute and elaborate corrections and additions, with changes of sections. Of one of these pages there is an accurate fac-simile in the third volume of Mr. Macknight, who says that "the manuscript was given by Swift's sister, after his death, to the gentleman who kindly permitted him to inspect it." [15]
These manuscripts—both the letters and the Observations—all concern the closing period of Burke's life, after the unhappy feud between himself and Fox, to which they directly relate. In order to appreciate their value, we must glance at the scene by which the memorable friendship of these men was closed.
Few political events in English history are read with more interest than the separation of Burke and Fox. They had been friends and allies; but the French Revolution, which separated so many persons in France, reached across the Channel to separate them. They differed so radically with regard to this portentous, undeveloped movement, that their relations, both political and personal, were rudely severed. Burke, in the House of Commons, openly announced this result. He was most earnestly inveighing against France, when he said, "It may be indiscreet in me at my time of life to provoke enemies, and give occasion to friends to desert me." Fox whispered, "There is no loss of friends." Burke for a moment paused, and then exclaimed, "Yes, there is a loss of friends; I know the price of my conduct. I have done my [pg 389] duty at the expense of my friend. Our friendship is at an end." As he finished, Burke walked across the floor of the House, and squeezed himself between Pitt and Dundas on the Treasury Bench. Fox rose to reply, while tears streamed down his face. In the course of his remarks he intimated that Burke had heaped upon him the most ignominious terms. Burke at once said that he did not recollect having used any; when Fox replied, "My right honorable friend does not recollect the epithets. They are out of his mind. Then they are completely and forever out of mine. I cannot cherish a recollection so painful; and from this moment they are obliterated and forgotten."
But the difference was too intense. A few days later it broke forth again. "I complain," said Burke, "of being obliged to stand upon my defence by the right honorable gentleman, who, when a young man, was brought to me and evinced the most promising talents, which I used my best endeavors to cultivate; and this man, who has arrived at the maturity of being the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever existed, has described me as having deserted and abandoned every one of my principles!" Fox replied, but alluded to Burke no longer as "friend", but as "the right honorable gentleman", and said, in a taunting style, that "all he had to do was to repent, and his friends would be ready to receive him back and love him as they had previously done". Burke was indignant. He said,—"I have gone through my youth without encountering any party disgrace, and though in my age I have been so unfortunate as to meet it, I do not solicit the right honorable gentleman's friendship, nor that of any other man, either on one side of the House or the other." [16] This most important and historic friendship was at an end.
The larger part of the Whigs at that time sided with Fox. But Burke turned away from Parliament and politicians in one of the most masterly productions of his pen, entitled, "An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." One of the autograph-letters in the collection before us, addressed to the amanuensis, Swift, relates to the last corrections of this tract, and contains the title, arranged for the printer. It is the letter of which a fac-simile is given by Mr. Macknight.
Meanwhile, the difference between the two statesmen became more fixed and intense. The Whig Club declared, "that their confidence in Mr. Fox was confirmed, strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him." Burke and some forty-five noblemen and gentlemen withdrew from the club. It was then that Burke, in justification of himself and his friends, took the pen, and drew up what his biographer Prior calls the "famous" paper, entitled, "Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, particularly in the Last Session of Parliament, addressed to the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, 1793," which will be found in the third volume of Bonn's edition of his Works.
This paper presents, in fifty-four articles, duly numbered, objections to the course and policy of Fox. It was, in brief, an arraignment of that distinguished gentleman. But it was not intended for publication, at least at that time. It was transmitted to the Duke of Portland, with a letter, asking that it might not even be read at once, but that the Duke would keep it locked in the drawer of his library-table, and when a day of compulsory reflection came, then be pleased to turn to it. Communicated thus in confidence, it might have remained indefinitely, if not always, unknown to the public, locked in the ducal drawer, if the amanuensis whom Burke employed in copying it had not betrayed him. This was none other than Swift, to whom the familiar letters were addressed. Unknown to his employer, he had appropriated to himself a copy in his own handwriting, with corrections and additions by Burke, which seems to have come between the original rough draught and the final copy transmitted [pg 390] to the Duke of Portland. Some time afterwards, while Burke was in his last illness, feeble and failing fast, this faithless scrivener communicated this copy to an equally faithless publisher, by whom it was advertised as "Fifty-Four Articles of Impeachment against the Eight Honorable C.J. Fox." When this was seen by Mrs. Burke, she felt it her duty to keep all newspapers and letters from her husband, that he might know nothing of the treachery, at least until it was relieved so far as it could be. Dr. Lawrence and Dr. King, assisted by the affidavit of Mr. Rivington, succeeded in obtaining an injunction against the publisher on the very day when the tract appeared. But two thousand copies had already stolen abroad.
It was not until Mrs. Burke, on opening a letter from Dr. Lawrence to her husband, learned that the injunction had been obtained, that, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of February, 1797, she delivered to him his newspapers and correspondence for the past week. He was less disturbed than had been expected. "This affair does vex me," he said; "but I am not in a state of health at present to be deeply vexed at anything. Had I intended it for the public, I should have been more exact and full. Many temperaments and explanations there would have been, if ever I had had a notion that it should meet the public eye." He was justly indignant at the knavish publisher, whose conduct surpassed that of the Dublin pirates, or Edmund Curll. But he was at a loss to know how the publisher obtained a copy. He did not suppose that the Duke of Portland had given up his, and he remembered only "the rough and incorrect papers" constituting the first draught, which, it seems, Dr. Lawrence, about a year before, had paid the false Swift a guinea to deliver back. He had forgotten the intermediate copy made by Swift and corrected by himself.
This illicit publication, especially under such a title, was calculated to attract attention. Its author was dying, so that it seemed to be his last words. Pitt read it with delight, and declared it to be a model in that style of composition. But his latest biographer says of it, that "it may, perhaps, be regretted that Burke ever wrote the 'Observations on the Conduct of the Minority.' It is certainly the least pleasing of all his compositions."[17] In style, it is direct, terse, and compact, beyond any other composition of Burke's. Perhaps, as it was not intended for the public, he was less tempted to rhetorical indulgence. But the manuscript now before us exhibits the minute care with which it was executed. Here also may be traced varieties of expression, constituting the different forms which a thought assumed, not unlike the various drawings of Raffaelle for the same wonderful picture.
But we must stop. It is only as a literary curiosity that we are now dealing with this relic.