other members, excepting his antagonist, Johnson, merely listeners. Something of the same sort is said by that antagonist, though in a more generous way. "What I most envy Burke for," said Johnson, “is, that he is never what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off. Take up whatever topic you please, he is ready to meet you. I cannot say he is good at listening. So desirous is he to talk, that if one is speaking at this end of the table, he'll speak to somebody at the other end."

The club was an opportunity for both Johnson and Burke ; and for the most part their wit-combats seem not only to have instructed the rest, but to have improved the temper of the combatants, and to have made them more generous to each other. "How very great Johnson has been to night," said Burke to Bennet Langton, as they left the club together. Langton assented, but could have wished to hear more from another person. "Oh, no!" replied Burke, "it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.”

One evening he observed that a hogshead of claret, which had been sent to the club as a present, was almost out; and proposed that Johnson should write for another, in such ambiguity of expression as might have a chance of procuring it also as a gift. One of the company said Dr. Johnson shall be our dictator. "Were I (said Johnson,) your dictator, you should have no wine; it would be my business cavere ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet:-wine is dangerous; Rome was ruined by luxury." Burke replied: "If you allow no wine as dictator, you shall not have me for master of the horse."

From the time of Garrick's death, "the Club" has been known as "the Literary Club;" although after it assumed this epithet, it gradually parted with its literary character, gaining in titled members what it lost in authors by profession.

BURKE'S HUMANITY.

In the year 1762, before Philip Astley began his popular career of equestrianism, there appeared in London one Johnson, an Irishman by birth, who exhibited many feats of activity in horsemanship. He was an active, clever fellow in his way, and was much noticed by Mr. Burke, then a student of the Middle Temple, and by his friend, Mr. Netherville. Dr. Johnson and Boswell also gave a fashion to these surprising performances, which attracted Burke frequently to the circus as a spectator. The favourite performance was that of a handsome black horse: whenever Johnson wanted him, he gave three smacks of his whip, and the docile creature came out of his stable, and stood by his master's side; he then ran about the ring, until another sound of the whip brought him again to his master. One evening, the signal was disregarded. When, at length, the horse stopped, Johnson, by a violent blow between the ears, brought him to the ground, where he lay, as if dying. Mr. Burke was among the circle of spectators, from whom he leaped into the ring, and rushing up to Johnson, vehemently exclaimed: "You scoundrel! I have a mind to knock you down," and he would in all probability have done so, had not his friend Mr. Netherville interposed. Johnson then apologized, and thus the matter ended; but (says the narrator,) I shall never forget the impression of awe and admiration made upon myself and others by the solemn passion with which Mr. Burke uttered this otherwise coarse reproof. Though the circle was immediately broken, all kept at a respectful distance; perhaps this was the first time he had ever produced an effect upon an audience. I must be excused for comparing great things with. small; but when I first heard him in the House of Commons pouring out a torrent of indignation against cruelty and corruption, I was reminded, after an interval of many years, of the champion of the poor black horse.

BURKE'S OUTSET IN PUBLIC LIFE.

Edmund Burke obtained, through his companion, William Burke, some important aids to his start in life: he first introduced him to Lord Rockingham; to Lord Verney, who gave him his first seat in Parliament; and to the Rev. Dr. Markham, afterwards Archbishop of York. Burke was, however, doomed to early disappointments. In the autumn of 1759, he applied for the consulship at Madrid, then vacant. His friend, Dr. Markham, took up his cause most zealously, and wrote to the Duchess of Queensberry, begging her to use her influence with Mr. Pitt, urging that Burke's "chief application has been to the knowledge of public business, and our commercial interests; that he seems to have a most extensive knowledge, with extraordinary talents for business, and to want nothing but ground to stand upon to do his country very important services." Dr, Markham added: "I value him not only for his learning and talents, but as being in all points of character a most amiable and most respectable man." Now, the Duchess was just the person to press a request upon the Minister: she would not readily take a refusal; she had extorted from Lord Bute a silk gown for Lord Thurlow --and she transmitted Dr. Markham's letter to the proper quarter, for it is printed in the Chatham Correspondence; but it was not replied to. "When," says Macknight, "Mr. Pitt, in this period of victory, the most triumphant in his life and in English annals, threw that letter aside, as unworthy of his attention, he little knew what he was doing." The Minister was not likely to patronize Burke when unknown; nor was he more disposed to give him office in after life: he could not bear any rival near his throne.

About this time, Burke's connexion commenced with Single-speech Hamilton, subsequently secretary to Lord Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Burke had rendered the government and Hamilton many services, when, in 1763, he obtained for him a pension of 300l. per annum from the Irish

Treasury. In those days, such pensions were by no means unusual, and were held, without imputation or blame, by persons of station and character. To Hamilton, Burke had given full value, and had a clear claim upon him for services performed; but the Secretary's demands upon his time had been large, and Burke determined to guard against this for the future. He therefore expressly stipulated for the use of his own time for literary pursuits, and without such reservation declined receiving the pension, in a letter of great spirit. An answer to this letter is not found among Burke's papers; probably, Hamilton never gave one in writing. Burke expostulated in vain much irritation ensued; he had been coarsely called "Hamilton's jackal,” and his “genius;” the Secretary was "vain, sullen, proud, cold, and envious," and he made matters worse by proposing to retain Burke out of his private fortune as in " a sort of domestic situation." was the consideration of a bargain, and sale of independence. It was a claim for absolute servitude. "Not to value myself as a gentleman," remonstrated Burke, "a freeman, a man of education, and one pretending to literature, is there any situation in life so low, that can subject a man to the possibility of such an engagement? Would you dare attempt to bind your footman to such terms ?"

:

It

At length, Burke resigned the pension* into Hamilton's hands, through that gentleman's attorney, having held it only one year; and from hence broke off all communication with him. Burke's "desperate fidelity" in this affair has only been known of late years; which reserve gave rise to a scandal, that the pension thus surrendered, from the most honourable and upright motives, was sold by him for a sum of money to pay his debts.

* A curious error occurred in the grant of this pension, which is thus corrected in a letter from Mr. Secretary Hamilton to Sir Robert Wilmot: "There is a mistake in one of the pensions which I desire may be rectified at any hazard, as I was the occasion of it. It is not William Birt who is to have a pension of 300l. per annum upon the Primate's list, but Edmund Burke." This information Mr. Prior received from the Right Hon. J. W. Croker.

Burke is supposed to have been the author of the excellent single speech which Hamilton made in the House of Commons; as well as of Hamilton's second speech, namely, that in the Irish Parliament on the motion for suffering popish regiments to be raised in Ireland. The latter also gave colour to the fiction that Burke was a papist and a Jesuit himself.

BURKE PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE MARQUIS OF

ROCKINGHAM.

In the scramble which ensued upon the breaking-up of the Grenville administration, Mr. Burke not unreasonably looked to obtain employment. He had thus sketched the political prospect of the period, in a letter to Mr. Flood, dated 18th May, 1765: "There is a strong probability that new men will come in, and not improbably with new ideas; at this very instant, the causes productive of such a change are strongly at work. The Regency Bill has shown such a want of concert and want of capacity in Ministers-such an inattention to the honour of the Crown, if not a design against it-such imposition and suspicion on the King, and such a misrepresentation of the disposition of the Parliament to the Sovereign, that there is no doubt a fixed resolution toget rid of them all, (except, perhaps, Grenville,) but principally the Duke of Bedford; so that you will have more reason to be surprised to find the Ministry standing by next week than to hear of their entire removal."

Mr. Burke had predicted wisely, and was in possession of the political secrets of the day. The King was so tired of his ministry that he even announced to them his intention to change before he had arranged who were to be their successors: his words were, "He could not bear it as it was."

of

The Duke of Cumberland was sent for, and was ordered to form a new administration, and treat with Mr. Pitt: "the hero of Culloden went down in person to the conqueror America, at Hayes," who, however, flatly refused. The Duke of Newcastle was then sent for, and formed a Ministry of a