the delivery, it being in character.

Then the speech was

read and criticised upon, its many beauties illustrated. Then was Belial's speech read, to the great delight of the hearers, whose opinion was that Homer only can be compared to Milton, not only for the beauties that shine in every verse, but likewise for the just and lively colours in which each character was drawn; for that none but Homer, like him, ever supported such variety and exactness in the speeches of such a contrast and variety of persons." "These notices," writes Mr. Walker, of Dublin, "suggest an opinion that the finest oratory of modern times might owe its origin and perfection to the poetry of Milton."

In the correspondence of Burke and his friends, we find allusions to certain contributions to the press. One writes:-"Ned (Burke) is busy about the next Reformer, or he would write to you." There is also reference to a comedy believed to have been written by Burke, but which Thomas Sheridan, who then directed the Dublin Theatre, "a pitiful fellow," had the bad taste to reject.

""Tis

One of his favourite poets at this time was Waller. surprising how so much softness and so much grandeur could dwell in one soul." Young's Night Thoughts made so deep an impression upon Burke, that he could repeat long passages from memory; and in a copy of the work which often formed a travelling companion in his youthful days, the following lines, stated to be in his handwriting, have been mentioned as written on one of the fly-leaves :—

Jove claim'd the verse old Homer sung,

But God himself inspired Young.

No irregularities in college life have been laid to Burke's charge. He joined a large body of students in forcing an apology on their knees in the college courts, from certain persons who had abused them for taking the part of Thomas Sheridan, in the great theatrical riot of 1747. Burke has minutely described the proceedings in one of his letters. At a performance of Rowe's Fair Penitent, the decisive conflict occurred, during which an apple was thrown at one of the

foremost students, and he was violently abused; when the whole University, considering themselves abused in the person of their member, the assailants sought pardon on their bended knees, as above described.

Shortly before this, Burke had experienced a narrow escape from death, or serious injury. He writes:"As I sat in a shop under Dick's coffee-house, the back house which joined it fell and buried the coffee-house keeper and his wife in the ruins." On the same day his chronicle is enlivened with the more humorous misadventure of a long chase through the streets after his hat and wig, which had been blown off.

Amidst the heat of party spirit, it was said that Burke quitted the University without a degree. This (says Prior) is untrue. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1748, and of Master in 1751. He was presented with the further degree of LL.D. in 1791.

BURKE'S EARLY VERSES.

When Burke left Ballitore for the college of Dublin, the correspondence between the two friends began: the letters between 1744 and 1747 afford specimens of Burke's early style; and especially indicate in his tender years the piety and virtue which adorned his whole life. These letters exhibit frequent inclinations for versifying; indeed, Burke, at this period, seldom wrote a letter to a friend without enclosing some specimens of his verse; here is one from a letter to Richard Shackleton:

Ye beauteous nymphs who haunt the dusky wood,
Which hangs recumbent o'er the crystal flood,
Or risen from water, as the water fair,
'Mong the cleft rocks divide your amber hair;
Oft, as delighted with my rural lay,
Earnest you listen'd all the summer's day,
Nor thought it long ;-with favour hear my vow,
And with your kind assistance help me now.
And you, whose midnight dance in mystic round,
With a green circle marks the flowery ground,
O, aid my voice that I may wake once more
The slumbering echo on the Mulla's shore.

Thou chief of floods, Blackwater, hoary sire,
With all thy beauties all my breast inspire,
To trace the winding channel of thy course,
And find the hidden wonders of thy source.

Such attempts at versifying, Burke's mature judgment led him to abandon. They rarely rise above common-place specimens of the art, however excellent may be their tone and feeling. Nevertheless, he was more of a versifier in his youth than was ever supposed until some time after his death. When Sir James Mackintosh said that had Burke ever acquired the habit of versification, he would have poured forth volumes of sublime poetry, (Mackintosh's Memoirs, by his son,) he little suspected that while Edmund was at Trinity College, he was the most inveterate of versifiers-thus falsifying the vaticinal speculation of the metaphysical philosopher of the North; and the evidence is strengthened by Mr. Macknight's statement that Burke "continued his poetical efforts longer, and met with less success than any man who ever engaged in political life with a tenth part of his qualifications."

To show the extent to which Burke carried his versificationis cacoëthes, we may mention that one of his letters to Shackleton contains a day of his life at college, in 110 lines!

BURKE ARRIVES IN LONDON.-HIS FIRST VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Mr. Prior has printed, in his Life of Burke, the following characteristic letter addressed by Edmund to his old schoolfellow, Matthew Smith, describing his first impressions on viewing Westminster Abbey; which letter, it should be remembered, was written when Burke was barely of age:

"Soon after my arrival in town I visited Westminster Abbey; the moment I entered I felt a kind of awe pervade my mind which I cannot describe; the very silence seemed sacred. Henry the Seventh's chapel is a very fine piece of Gothic architecture, particularly the roof; but I am told that it is exceeded by a chapel in the University of Cambridge

(King's College chapel). Mrs. Nightingale's monument has not been praised beyond its merit. The attitude and expression of the husband in endeavouring to shield his wife from the dart of death, is natural and affecting. But I have always thought that the image of death would be much better represented with an extinguished torch inverted, than with a dart. Some would imagine that all these monuments were so many monuments of folly ;-I don't think so; what useful lessons of morality and sound philosophy do they not exhibit! When the high-born beauty surveys her face in the polished Parian, though dumb the marble, yet it tells her that it was placed to guard the remains of as fine a form and as fair a face as her own. They show, besides, how anxious we are to extend our loves and friendships beyond the grave, and to snatch as much as we can from oblivion. Such is our natural love of immortality: but it is here that letters obtain the noblest triumphs: it is here that the swarthy daughters of Cadmus may hang their trophies on high; for when all the pride of the chisel and the pomp of heraldry yield to the silent touches of time, a single line, a half-worn-out inscription, remain faithful to their trust. Blest be the man that first introduced these strangers into our islands, and may they never want protection or merit! I have not the least doubt that the finest poem in the English language, I mean Milton's Il Penseroso, was composed in the long-resounding aisle of a mouldering cloister or ivied abbey. Yet, after all, do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets. I should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust. The good old expression family buryingground' has something pleasing in it, at least to me!"

His first impressions of London are very characteristic. He writes: "The buildings are very fine; it may be called the sink of vice; but its hospitals and charitable institutions, whose turrets pierce the skies like so many electrical conductors, avert the wrath of heaven." His early impressions of "the state of learning in this city" are thus given: “I don't

think there is as much respect paid to a man of letters on this side of the water as you imagine. I don't find that genius, the 'rath primrose which forsaken dies,' is patronized by any of the nobility, so that writers of the first talents are left to the capricious patronage of 'the public.' Notwithstanding discouragement, Literature is cultivated in a high degree. Poetry raises her enchanting voice to heaven. History arrests the wings of Time in his flight to the gulf of vision. Philosophy, the queen of arts, and the daughter of heaven, is daily extending her intellectual empire. Fancy sports on airy wing like a meteor on the bosom of a summer cloud; and even Metaphysics spins her cobwebs, and catches some flies."

In his account of his journey, he writes: "What a contrast to our poor country, where you'll scarce find a cottage ornamented with a chimney! But what pleased me most of all was the progress of agriculture, my favourite study, and my favourite pursuit, if Providence had blessed me with a few paternal acres."

BURKE STUDIES FOR THE BAR.

Burke had been from the first intended by his father for the Bar. He entered his name at the Middle Temple in April, 1747; and early in 1750, he came to keep his terms in London. How the sensitive student must have shuddered as, on his way to his chambers, just before passing under Temple Bar, he must have seen the heads and limbs of the rebels of 1745, which were then exposed on spikes above the pediment of the Bar. His visits to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, "the chosen temples of fame," afforded him pure delight. How germane to his after life is the following reflective passage: "The House of Commons not unfrequently exhibits explosions of eloquence that rise superior to those of Greece and Rome, even in their proudest days. Yet, after all, a man will make more by the figures of arithmetic than the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the trade wind, and then he may sail secure over Pactolean sands. As to the