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.