the effect of his intervention was electric. Within six days, 7,000 copies of the Reflections had been sold; during the first year it was estimated that 19,000 copies had been sold in England and 13,000 in France. Louis XVI is said to have translated it himself, a service which he had in calmer times rendered to some of the early chapters of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

Burke at once became estranged from his old political friends-the later scene in the House when he renounced the friendship of Sheridan and Fox being ever memorable. But there rallied to him all those who had been opposed to him throughout his life, who now gladly took up the finest weapon that had ever been put into the hands of a party of reaction and privilege. There came back also to idolize him once more one who had been alienated by his prosecution of Warren HastingsFrances Burney, authoress of Evelina. Edward Gibbon, the greatest of historians, but hardly what we should call an enlightened politician, applauded from his retreat at Lausanne-'I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can forgive even his superstition.' As regards French affairs, however, though happily not as regards all others, we lose Burke as the champion of distressed nationalities; no longer do we hear of ' presumptions in favour of the people,' or of the lack of ability to draw up indictments against a whole people.' And yet it was the same Burke. Calmer students have been able to notice his consistency, which was very far from being apparent to that generation. If only his facts had been correct! 'I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that (Revolution) society' (p. 7); here is an echo of the pro-American speeches. He is misled by a false analogy to the English Revolution, and never desires to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers.'

But when Burke says that in France he does not discern the character of a government that has been, on the whole, so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation'; and thinks it

was a government well deserving to have its excellencies heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities improved to a British constitution,' we feel how little Burke could have appreciated the enormous burdens that had for centuries been laid upon that people. Again, could he have understood anything of the general and local laws and privileges when he regards the outcry against the nobility as a 'mere work of art'! His remarks on the clergy are equally unwarranted by the general facts. It was nearly forty years before that Lord Chesterfield-a better statesman than his epistolary reputation has permitted us to suppose-had written from Paris : 'In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now exist and daily increase in France.' Arthur Young was one who regarded Burke as 'the greatest genius of the age.' He was pursuing his investigations in France at the very time of the outbreak of the Revolution, and published his Travels in France eighteen months after Burke's Reflections. He had added a chapter on the Revolution, which contains the sober judgment of one of the few Englishmen at that time competent to express an opinion on the social conditions of France. It might have been Burke at his best when he says: 'It is impossible to justify the excesses of the people But is it really the people to whom we are to impute the whole? or to their oppressors who had kept them so long in a state of bondage?' Every newspaper recalled the murder of a seigneur; but on the other side the sufferers were too ignoble to be known; and the mass too indiscriminate to be pitied. The most convincing answer to Burke's theory of gradual improvement to a British constitution' is given by Young: 'The true judgment to be formed of the French Revolution must surely be gained from an attentive consideration of the evils of the old government; when these are well understoodand when the extent and universality of the oppression under which the people groaned-oppression which bore upon them from every quarter, it will scarcely be

attempted to be urged that a revolution was not absolutely necessary to the welfare of the kingdom.' Under the horror of later excesses, Young retracted his views; but the evidence of the eye-witness, given at the time, remains.

Something of the same kind happened to Sir James Mackintosh, whose immediate opinions prompted the Vindiciae Gallicae, a forcible and reasoned reply to Burke's Reflections. Thomas Paine was more uncompromising in the celebrated Rights of Man.

The rapturous passage about Marie Antoinette and the age of chivalry which Sir Philip Francis had candidly told Burke, much to his vexation, was pure foppery, but which Horace Walpole approved from his own experience, was effectively disposed of by Paine: were men to weep over the plumage and forget the dying bird?

Lamentable as were the extremes to which Burke allowed himself to go in the Reflections, and still more in the later writings on France, the truth of his prophetic utterances is amazing. The French constitution certainly did not remain where it was, but indeed passed through great varieties of untried being' which would have surprised even him. But the most amazing prophecy of all was surely that where Burke points to a military domination—' until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself.' (p. 243.)

Here, again, it is possible to point to numerous maxims and phrases that have passed into the permanent currency of public life. The writer, who was destined to exercise a potent influence alike over Disraeli and Gladstone, affords every thoughtful student of affairs a constant refreshment of great ideas, and noble language in which to clothe his own poorer conceptions. How often have we heard the appeal to 'men of light and leading'; even now there are those who feel that politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.' (p. 12.)

Those who believe in public service broadening out from the duty which lies nearest' gladly remember that' to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections' (p. 50); and that no cold relation is a zealous citizen. (p. 218.)

The temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence' (p. 55), is a warning appreciated by those who resent pushfulness' in public life. In an age of much greater opportunity for expression of individual opinion the wise exhortation to sift and reject may be even more needed: 'Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.' (p. 93.)

A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of the statesman (p. 174), has long afforded a definition of philosophic conservatism. Of more general acceptance is that comforting reminder that 'Difficulty is a instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too... Our antagonist is our helper.' (p. 184.)

severe

"Every politician ought to sacrifice to the graces ; and to join compliance with reason' (p. 272), says Burke; and surely, for these aphorisms and the many more like them which might be pointed out in this volume alone, those who have ever experienced the aridity of ordinary public speech and the unoriginality of public conduct, ought to be fervently grateful.

The Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in reference to some objections to some points raised in the Reflections, finds Burke considerably advanced even

in the two or three months which had elapsed. He now hopes for foreign intervention, and, if a foreign prince enters France to punish the guilty, civilized war will not be practised, nor are the French who act on the present system entitled to expect it! (p. 205.)

The most notable literary features of this piece are the tribute to Cromwell for appointing Sir Matthew Hale Chief Justice, and the invective against Rousseau, the great professor and founder of the philosophy of Vanity.'

The Thoughts on French Affairs appeared at the end of 1791, and shows Burke still further committed to his views of the imminent danger of suffering the continuance of the French system. He examines the French doctrines from the aspect of Europe; and as a deliberate conviction he would repeat over and over again that the state of France is the first consideration in the politics of Europe, and of each state, externally and internally concerned.

Having declared the evil as in his opinion it exists, at the conclusion he says, however, that the remedy must be 'where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good intentions than they can be with me,' and he thinks he has done with the subject for ever.

That Burke had something still to say on French affairs will be seen in a later volume.

F. W. RAFFETY.