PREFACE EMBERS of the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, have frequently expressed the wish that the Minute Book of the original Debating Club, founded by Edmund Burke in 1747, which lies amongst the records of the Society, should be published. The biographers of Burke give but little information about his early life; none of them had access to this manuscript, which throws important light on the period of his career when he was an undergraduate. His surroundings-how he thought—what he thought—the influences which acted upon him—and the impulses which inspired him-in those assimilative years, when the character of the great philosopher-statesman was being moulded, are matters of absorbing interest; and in the précis of the College debates contained in the Minute Book of the Club, and kept mainly in his own hand-writing, will be found the germ of many of the ideas and the utterances of Burke, which afterwards impressed the world. I have thought it desirable to prefix to the transcript a narrative of Burke's early life and school and college days. The main source of our information for these periods is contained in the Leadbeater Papers1 published in 1862; volumes which are difficult now to obtain and which deal only in a subsidiary way with Edmund Burke. No attempt has hitherto been made to edit the correspondence between Burke and Richard Shackleton contained in them. It throws much light on Burke's pursuits, life and ideas when a student in Trinity College, and frequently refers to the intended formation of the Debating Society, the minutes of which are reproduced in the following pages. A few additional letters dealing with the period covered by Burke's college career are printed in the Fitzwilliam Edition of his correspondence; and Prior, in the fifth edition of his Life of Burke, gives excerpts from some correspondence between Shackleton and other college friends of Burke which I have made use of. I have also incorporated a few letters printed in now forgotten magazines, and have had access to some hitherto unpublished material. Frequent reference has been made to Gilbert's History of Dublin, and to contemporary Dublin newspapers, pamphlet literature and 1 The Leadbeater Papers: a Selection from the MSS. and Correspondence of Mary Leadbeater. 2 vols. London. Bell and Daldy. 1862. memoirs in this attempt to weave together an account of Burke's undergraduate career. to my I am indebted to the Officers and Committee of the College Historical Society for their permission to publish the Minute Book, and to the authorities of Trinity College, Dublin, for allowing me access to the records of the College. I am under peculiar obligations friend Mr T. U. Sadleir, M.A., whose research and intimate knowledge of social and public life in Dublin during the eighteenth century is displayed in his contributions to the volumes published by the Georgian Society, and produced under his editorship. I am also indebted to my uncle, Professor William Ridgeway1, LL.D., Sc.D., Litt.D., F.B.A., of Cambridge University, and to Mr F. Elrington Ball, Litt.D., for much valuable information and assistance. ARTHUR P. I. SAMUELS. August, 1914. 1 Now Sir William Ridgeway. NOTE References to documents as being in the Irish Record Office, Dublin, must be taken as of the time when the manuscript of this volume was written. Almost all such documents have since perished in the destruction of the Four Courts, Dublin, and the Record Office on 1st July, 1922. |