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SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH AND MR. BURKE AT

BEACONSFIELD.

In December, 1796, the appearance in the Monthly Review of a paper on Mr. Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace, by Sir James, then Mr., Mackintosh, led to a correspondence between the author and reviewer. Mackintosh, in one of his letters, observes: "From the earliest moment of reflection your writings were my chief study and delight. The instruction which they contained is endeared to me by being intwined and interwoven with the freshest and liveliest feelings of youth. The enthusiasm with which I once embraced it is now ripened into solid conviction by the experience and meditation of more mature age. For a time, indeed, seduced by the love of what I thought liberty, I ventured to oppose, without ever ceasing to venerate, that writer who had nourished my understanding with the most wholesome principles of political wisdom. I speak to state facts, not to flatter; you are above flattery, and permit me to say, I am too proud to flatter even you.

"Since that time a melancholy experience has undeceived me concerning subjects in which I was the dupe of my own enthusiasm. I cannot say (and you would despise me if I dissembled) that I even now assent to all your opinions on the present politics of Europe. But I can with truth affirm, that I subscribe to your general principles, and am prepared to shed my blood in defence of the laws and constitution of my country. Even this much, Sir, I should not have said to you, if you had been possessed of power."

Burke was a sufferer from illness at Beaconsfield, and his reply was made by the hand of another, the disease under which he was so soon to sink already incapacitating him from all such exertion. After thanking Mackintosh for his letter, as well calculated to stir up those remains of vanity that he had hoped had been nearly extinguished in a frame approaching to the dissolution of everything that can feed that passion -though, indeed, it afforded him a more solid and a more

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sensible consolation, Mr. Burke proceeds: "You have begun your opposition by obtaining a great victory over yourself; and it shows how much your own sagacity, operating on your own experience, is capable of adding to your own extraordinary natural talents, and to your early erudition. It was the show of virtue and the semblance of public happiness, that could alone mislead a mind like yours; and it is a better knowledge of their substance which alone has put you again in a way that leads the most securely and the most certainly to your end. As it is on all hands allowed that you were the most able advocate of the cause which you supported, your ! sacrifice to truth and mature reflection adds much to your glory. For my own part, (if that were anything,) I am infinitely more pleased to find that you agree with me in several capital points, than surprised to find that I have the misfortune to differ with you on some.

Though I see very few persons, and have, since my misfortune,* studiously declined all new acquaintances, and never dine out of my own family, nor live at all in any of my usual societies, nor even in those with which I was most closely connected, I shall certainly be as happy as I shall feel myself honoured by a visit from a distinguished person like you, whom I shall consider as an exception to the general rule. I have no habitation in London, nor ever go to that place but with great reluctance, and without suffering a great deal. Nothing but necessity calls me thither; but though I hardly dare to ask you to come so far, whenever it may suit you to visit this abode of sickness and infirmity, I shall be glad to see you."

Burke did not, however, think much of Mackintosh's "supposed conversion." He says, writing to Dr. Laurence: "I suspect by his letter that it does not extend beyond the interior politics of this island; but that with regard to France and many other countries, he remains as frank a Jacobin as ever. The conversion is none at all; but we must nurse up these nothings, and think these negative advantages *The death of his son.

as we can have them; such as he is, I shall not be displeased if you bring him down."

The visit to Beaconsfield, which immediately followed, was, probably on account of the infirm state of Mr. Burke's health, confined to a few days; "but they were days which his visitor often recalled to memory as among the most interesting of his life. General respect for Mr. Burke's character and talents he had always felt and expressed; these were now merged into something of a feeling of affection towards the man. There unfortunately remains no memorial of this meeting, offered by the Hannibal of political wisdom to his youthful competitor after their warfare. Thoughts worthy of record must have been struck out by the collision of such minds, so differently circumstanced. The younger, who had the world all before him, disappointed in his lofty expectations, still with the buoyancy of spirit natural to youth, clinging to hope, though with less confidence than heretofore—the elder going down to his place of rest, while the darkness all round the horizon only confirmed his forebodings-whilst a generous confidence in enlarged principles, and an ardent desire for the future happiness of the race, were common to both.*

When Mackintosh was on a visit to Beaconsfield, the conversation turning upon the late Mr. Richard Burke, Mr. Burke said: "You, Mr. Mackintosh, knew my departed son well. He was, in all respects, a finished man, a scholar, a philosopher, a gentleman, and, with a little practice, he would have been a consummate statesman. All the graces of the heart, all the endowments of the mind, were his in perfection. But human sorrowing is too limited, too hedged in by the interruptions of society, and the calls of life, for the greatness of such a loss. I could almost exclaim with Cornelia, when she bewailed Pompey, (you must know that fine passage in Lucan,)

Turpe mori post te solo, non posse dolore."

* Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh. Edited by his son, Robert James Mackintosh, Esq. Vol. i. 1835.

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MACKINTOSH'S OPINION OF BURKE.

In the Diary of a Lover of Literature (Thomas Green, Esq., of Ipswich,) we find these details:

"June 13th, 1799.-Had a long and interesting conversation with Mr. Mackintosh, turning principally on Burke and Fox. Of Burke he spoke with rapture, declaring that he was, in his estimation, without any parallel, in any age or country, except, perhaps, Lord Bacon and Cicero; that his works contained an ampler store of political and moral wisdom than could be found in any other writer whatever; and that he was only not esteemed the most severe and sagacious of reasoners, because he was the most eloquent of men, the perpetual force and vigour of his arguments being hid from vulgar observation by the dazzling glories in which they were enshrined. In taste alone, he thought him deficient; but to have possessed that quality in addition to his other would have been too much for man. Passed the last Christmas (of Mr. Burke's life) with Burke at Beaconsfield (the visit referred to in the former anecdote), and described, in glowing terms, the astonishing effusions of his mind in conversation; perfectly free from all taint of affectation; would enter with cordial glee into the sports of children, rolling about with them on the carpet, and pouring out, in their gambols, the sublimest images, mingled with the most wretched puns. Anticipated his approaching dissolution with due solemnity but perfect composure;-minutely and accurately informed, to a wonderful exactness, with respect to every fact relative to the French Revolution. Burke said of Fox, with a deep sigh: He is made to be loved.' Fox said of Burke, that Mackintosh would have praised him too highly, had that been possible, but that it was not in the power of man to do justice to his various and transcendent merits.

"Of Gibbon, Mackintosh neatly remarked, that he might have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind, without his missing it."

Sir James Mackintosh says: "The second speech by Mr. Burke, on America, was thought by Mr. Fox the best work of the master. The judgment was certainly right: it has the careful correctness of his first manner, joined to the splendour of his second; it was the highest flight of his genius under the guidance of taste; except a few Burkeisms, in the noble peroration, it contains few deviations from beauty. The most characteristic of all his productions is the speech on the Carnatic: it contains the most sublime and the most distasteful passages."

Again: "Burke's best style was before the Indian business and the French Revolution had inflamed him. Mackintosh read some admirable passages from his address to the Colonies, and from his address to the King, which was not published till after his death. Very bold and very fineglowing with rational liberty; and without any of his faults.' He quoted from the address to the King a passage, which Lord Grenville said was 'the finest that ever Burke wroteperhaps the finest in the English language'-beginning, 'What, gracious Sovereign, is the empire of Austria to us, or the empire of the world, if we lose our own liberties ?'—suggested evidently by the passage in the Psalms, 'What shall a man,' &c. Burke's speech on the war in the Carnatic is the finest, perhaps, of all his compositions, but in it also are some of his most glaring defects."

'IMPEACHMENT" OF FOX BY BURKE.

Early in 1797, Owen, the publisher of Piccadilly (whose dishonesty has already been noticed), announced a letter from Mr. Burke to the Duke of Portland, on the Conduct of the Minority in Parliament, containing Fifty-four Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Fox; "from the Original Copy in the possession of the Noble Duke." The publication appeared; professing to be " printed for the Editor," and sold by Owen. It was a pamphlet of 94 pages; and had been sent to press by one Swift, a person whom Burke had taken into his service

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