of the structure may be hidden by flowers, yet, like a great cathedral, throughout the whole there is a massive unity of design.

It is the literary quality of Burke's speeches, then, that renders them of interest to-day and is chiefly responsible for the perpetuity of his fame as an orator. The leading characteristics of his subjectmatter and style (already incidentally referred to) are :

1. Thoroughness of treatment. This manifests itself in a broad comprehensiveness joined to an amplitude of detail, — in generalization coupled with exhaustiveness. Burke has been called "myriad-minded." Both depth and breadth are shown in the treatment of every subject he discussed.

2. Rhetorical excellence. This was secured by much practice in writing. His principal speeches were carefully prepared in advance, though not always rigidly adhered to in delivery; hence an excellence in form and finish which could not have been attained in extemporaneous efforts. He always wrote, however, with an audience in mind. Like Macaulay, his prevailing style suggests the speaker. As we have seen, the finished elaborateness of his speeches were a drawback in delivery, and occasionally the reader nowadays feels the justice of Johnson's stricture, that "he sometimes talked partly from ostentation"; or of Hazlitt's criticism, that he seemed to be "perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance a minuet with him before he begins." But while there are passages here and there that may warrant such censure, evident self-consciousness and a lack of ease and delicacy, inant quality of his style contradicts the idea of the mere rhetorician dealing in fine phrases, but rather reveals the master wielding language to subserve a controlling purpose.

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3. Figurative language. Burke's fertility of imagery, comparisons, analogies, and illustrations, enabled him to exhaust a subject without tediousness, so that we have much reiteration and reënforcement without mere repetition. His idea of a truly fine sentence, as once stated to a friend, consists in a "union of thought, feeling, and imagery, of a striking truth and a corresponding sentiment, rendered doubly striking by the force and beauty of figurative language." In such sentences Burke's speeches and writings abound. He is no doubt excessively ornate at times, his figures being placed in such bold relief or dwelt upon so long that the primary idea is lost sight of in the image. We find great extremes of imagery, from his much-admired picture of the queen

of France, as he saw her "just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy," or of friendship as "the soft green of the soul, on which the eye loves to repose," to Lord Chatham's administration "pigging together in the same truckle-bed," and other comparisons yet more vulgar. While a master of the decorative style, Burke does not always escape the faults that usually accompany an abundance of figures. His imagination seemed to need the restraining and chastening influence of a critical situation, such as was afforded in the efforts for "conciliation" with America.

4. Command of words. In his deliberative speeches Burke's tendency, as we have seen, was to overload his main arguments with too many collateral topics. Likewise his sentences frequently contain secondary thoughts— qualifying and modifying clauses which tend to weaken the blow by dividing it. This method of exhaustiveness in treatment required the use of many words; but though copious in language, he is rarely verbose. Though he usually develops every phase of his subject, he always illuminates it. His multifarious ideas always find fitting expression. By the introduction of a fresher and more natural diction Burke gave a lasting stimulus to English prose literature, his writings and speeches - notably the speech in this volume being studied as

models in present-day English.

5. Passion. It was his passion for order and justice, previously mentioned, that inspired his commanding and noble passages and colored the words in which they were expressed; so that we are made to feel that the more magnificent passages must have been written in moments of absolute abandonment to feeling. It was his passion, after all, that produced his style- the amplitude, the weightiness, the high flight, and the grandeur that comported with his imperial themes and makes his productions now worth while. To summarize: As an orator, Burke was outclassed by Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan in immediate influence upon the House of Commons, but he far surpassed them all in his ultimate influence. "He had not the impetuous and splendid eloquence of Chatham, nor the remarkable skill in debate of Fox, but in learning, in the power of clothing great thoughts in the most appropriate words, and of producing speeches which were even more interesting when read than when they were delivered, he far surpassed them both."

Macaulay speaks of him as "superior, in aptitude of comprehension and richness of imagination, to every orator, ancient or modern."

As a man, all that we know of Burke is of good repute. Some of his contemporary political opponents attempted to impeach his honesty because of his extravagances, and later critics have essayed to cast a shadow over his early life in London, concerning which Burke always maintained a dignified silence; but there is no evidence to substantiate these charges. There is no reason for doubting that the noble thoughts and high principles which Burke enunciated, emanated from an earnest mind and a sound character. He has therefore wielded an influence that has not yet by any means spent its force. The consensus of opinion points to Burke as an abiding name in history. Wordsworth believed him to be "by far the greatest man of his age," and Macaulay considered him "the greatest man since Milton." "He is not only the first man in the House of Commons," said Johnson, his political opponent, "he is the first man everywhere.” "A gentleman," said Sheridan, "whose abilities, happily for the glory of the age in which we live, are not entrusted to the perishable eloquence of the day, but shall live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us shall be mute, and most of us forgotten."

It is a mark of Burke's singular and varied genius that hardly any two people agree precisely as to which of his productions should be considered the masterpiece. Each great essay or speech that he composed is the rival of every other. But his speech on Conciliation has perhaps been most universally admired, "the wisest in its temper, the most closely logical in its reasoning, the amplest in appropriate topics, the most generous and conciliatory in the substance of its appeals."

When this speech was delivered in the House of Commons, events in the colonies were fast hastening toward the Declaration of Independence. The first Continental Congress had met, and within a month the battles of Concord and Lexington were fought. On February 20, 1775, Lord North, then Prime Minister, brought forward so-called "Propositions for Conciliating the Differences with America." Burke seized the opportunity to propose a method of conciliation that might be really effective; for, as he shows in the speech following (paragrap's 63-76), Lord North's plan was

a scheme to divide and conquer. Burke proposed that instead of imposing taxes the colonies be granted the opportunity of taxing themselves, and trust the result to the natural loyalty of a kindred people. He waived all discussion of the right of taxation, but based his argument solely on expediency. But it is not Burke's particular plan — for that may have been impracticable — that chiefly interests and holds us now; it is rather the high and noble principles underlying such plan, and the wise political maxims with which the speech abounds, — maxims which have no doubt been quoted by succeeding statesmen more fully and frequently than in the case of any other speech in oratorical literature.

1. I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your good nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You will not think it unnatural that those who have an object depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to super- 5 stition. As I came into the House full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, by which we had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to us from the other House. I do confess I could not help looking on 10 this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favor, by which we are put once more in possession of our deliberative capacity upon a business so very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we 15 are at this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our American Government as we were on the first day of the session. If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are 20 therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness.

2. Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this side of the grave. When I first had the honor of a seat in this House, the affairs of that continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and most delicate object of Parlia5 mentary attention. My little share in this great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust; and, having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than common pains to instruct myself in 10 everything which relates to our colonies. I was not less under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to 15 ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by

every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh mail which should arrive from America.

3. At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect 20 concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bowing under that high authority, and penetrated with the sharpness and strength of that early impression, I have continued ever since, without the least deviation, in my original sentiments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate perseverance in error, or to a 25 religious adherence to what appears to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge.

4. Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their sentiments and their conduct than could be justified in a particular per30 son upon the contracted scale of private information. But though I do not hazard anything approaching to a censure on the motives of former Parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted that under them the state of America has been kept in continual agitation. Everything administered as