in his will a disinclination to posthumous honours, which were limited to a flag-stone or a small tablet on the churchwall. His reason for preferring this plainness is expressed in few words: he says, "Because I know the partial kindness to me of some of my friends; but I have had in my life too much of noise and compliment." Perchance he recalled the pathos of the Bard, who, in a churchyard at a few miles distant, had sung:

Nor you, you proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the notes of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ?-GRAY. Accordingly, in the south aisle of Beaconsfield church was

placed a lozenge-shaped marble tablet, white upon a black ground: it bears the following inscription:

NEAR THIS PLACE LIES INTERRED ALL

THAT WAS MORTAL OF THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE,

WHO DIED ON THE 9TH OF JULY, 1797, AGED 68 YEARS.

IN THE SAME GRAVE ARE DEPOSITED

THE REMAINS OF HIS ONLY SON, RICHARD BURKE, ESQ., REPRESENTATIVE IN PARLIAMENT FOR THE BOROUGH OF MALTON, WHO DIED THE 2ND OF AUGUST, AGED 35.

OF HIS BROTHER, RICHARD BURKE, ESQ.,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW,

AND RECORDER OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL,
WHO DIED ON THE 4TH OF FEBRUARY, 1794:

AND OF HIS WIDOW, JANE MARY BURKE,
WHO DIED THE 2ND OF APRIL, 1812,
AGED 78.

When Mr. Jesse visited Beaconsfield a few years since, the old gardener, who lived many years with Mr. Burke, told him of the splendour of the funeral, the number of equipages, and the nobility and illustrious families of the mourners.

Mr. Jesse was also told that Burke was so sensible of the hatred that he had incurred from the Revolutionists, that he desired to be buried in a wooden coffin, being apprehensive that his remains would be taken up and exposed at some future period, should that party gain the ascendancy.*

On the Sunday following the day of the funeral, a sermon was preached in the church, which characterized the deceased statesman and philanthropist with such pathos, as deeply to affect the hearers.

All acknowledged that a great man had passed from among them, and many of the poorest felt that they had lost a sym

*In the autumn of 1831, when a vault was being made in the church for James Cundee, Esq., close to Edmund Burke's, a portion of the wall gave way, and the Rector distinctly saw Edmund's wooden coffin, greatly decayed, and the lid fallen in; but he did not disturb it, to see whether the skeleton was entire.

pathizing friend. A great concourse of mourners filled the wide space around the churchyard. The church was filled: a large attendance of the neighbouring gentry bore witness to the esteem in which Burke was held in his own county; and many Peers, Members of the House of Commons, and men of letters, and artists, gathered round the coffin of him whose voice had so often influenced the deliberations of the senate, but was now hushed in the silence of the grave.

Just after Burke's decease appeared the following, written by M. Cazalés: "Died at his house at Beaconsfield, with that simple dignity, that unostentatious magnanimity so consonant to the tenour of his life and actions, the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. There never was a more beautiful alliance between virtue and talents. All his conceptions were grand, all his sentiments generous. The great leading trait of his character, and that which gave it all its energy and its colour, was that strong hatred of vice which is no other than the passionate love of virtue. It breathes in all his writings; it was the guide of all his actions. But even the force of his eloquence was insufficient to transfuse it into the weaker or perverted minds of his contemporaries. This has caused much of the miseries of Europe; this has rendered of no effect towards her salvation the sublimest talents, the greatest and rarest virtues that the beneficence of Providence ever concentrated in a single character for the benefit of mankind. But Mr. Burke was too superior to the age in which he lived. His prophetic genius only astonished the nation which it ought to have governed."

He had

M. Cazalés was a frequent guest at Beaconsfield. geen an opponent of Mirabeau in the National Assembly, and bore so strong a resemblance to Mr. Fox as to be mistaken for him more than once in the streets. An amusing anecdote is told of his first visit to Gregories. He had often heard of roast-bif as an indispensable dish of all Englishmen, but with so little idea of its nature as to take up a slice of toast at breakfast, and ask whether that was not the great staple of an English stomach of which he had heard so much?

BUTLER'S COURT, AFTER BURKE'S DEATH.

Mrs. Burke continued to reside at Butler's Court, (as Gregories was now called,) until her death; here visited by he friends of her late husband, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Windham. In her latter years, she suffered much from heumatism, which deprived her of the power of taking exercise. Some time previous to her death, she sold the mansion and estate to her neighbour, James Du Pré, Esq., of Wilton Park, for 38,500l., reserving the use of the house and grounds during her life, and for one year after her death. With her lived Mrs. Haviland, the niece of Mr. Burke, to whom she left a legacy of 50007.; the remainder of the property being bequeathed to Mr. Burke's own nephew, Mr. Nugent; including the library and the tokens of regard which had been presented to the great statesman, and were preserved at Gregories. The sculpture was dispersed by sale, and a few of the pieces are now in the British Museum.

Among these relics was an old carved chair, which had been for many years used in the House of Commons, and upon its displacement was presented to Mr. Burke. It was sold to Mr. Peregrine Dealtry; and after his decease, in 1814, was presented by his sisters to Dr. Parr, who preserved it with great care at Hatton. On his death, in 1825, it passed to Dr. John Johnstone, of Birmingham, the editor of Parr's Works.

The mansion of Butler's Court outlasted but a few days beyond a year after Mrs. Burke's death. It had been let to a clergyman for the purpose of a school; but was accidentally burnt down on the morning of the 23rd of April, 1813.*

MR. JESSE'S VISIT TO BEACONSFIELD.

Of Burke's domestic life, especially about the period of his son's death, Mr. Jesse, (the author of several charming books on Natural History,) gives an interesting account in his Favourite Haunts.

* Cliefden, the seat of Burke's intimate friend, Lord Inchiquin, only five miles distant, was burnt down a few years before: like Butler's Court, it was built upon the plan of Buckingham House.

Towards the end of the autumn of 1845, Mr. Jesse, accompanied by the Rev. J. Mitford, of Benhall, Suffolk, paid a visit to Beaconsfield, and Gregories or Butler's Court, about half a mile from the town, on the left of the road to Penn. Of the whole domain, 600 acres, Burke held 160 in his own hands. A small park-like extent of ground surrounded the house, and the scenery, without being striking, is agreeable. The place is still adorned with fine trees, and enriched with the view of distant coppices and woods. The house of Gregories was burnt down a few months after Mrs. Burke's death, but the site is clearly marked by the inequality of the broken ground, and the ruins of the foundation. Part of the old stables is still remaining, and the kitchen-garden has received no further change than having had fruit-trees, as more profitable, substituted for vegetables by the tenant who hires it. This person is no other than the old gardener who lived many years with Burke, and who now, in his old age, obtains a scanty livelihood from the produce of the trees chiefly planted by his own hands, and many during the lifetime of his master. "Four times," he said, "he had followed to the grave the remains of this illustrious family;" for on the same marble tablet in the church at Beaconsfield, are recorded the deaths of Burke and his beloved son, and his brother Richard. Many years after, the name of Mrs. Burke was added to theirs.

The old man, although in very advanced age, retained the clearness of his intellect, and related some anecdotes of his great master, to whom and his family he seemed much attached he particularly dwelt upon the deep, overwhelming sorrow which Mr. Burke endured to his death for the loss of his son.

*

He stated that Mr. Burke lived hospitably and elegantly at Gregories; that his house was always full of company,

His afflicted father mentioned him in many pathetic passages of his later works; and notwithstanding Burke's own transcendent talents and genius, he is said to have remarked, with a mixture of personal and paternal pride, how extraordinary it was that Lord Chatham, Lord Holland, and he should each have had a son superior to his party.Croker's Boswell's Johnson.