He was especially active in forwarding plans for bettering the condition of the poor in his neighbourhood; and this not by eleemosynary aid, but by their own practice of economy and thrift, which are usually associated with a spirit of honest independence. Thus, he recommended the formation of societies among the industrial population for mutual support in cases of age and infirmity. He not only became a patron of one of these clubs, but subscribed as a poor man would do, attended its meetings, and took an active part as a committee-man in the distribution of the relief to sick members, when he lost no opportunity to impress upon them the duties of piety, loyalty, and good order. When in 1795 and 1796, famine stalked abroad, and corn rose to a very high price, a gentleman of the neighbourhood informed Mr. Prior that Mr. Burke, who ever had a practical remedy at hand, had a windmill built in the park at Butler's Court, in which he had good corn ground, made into bread in his own house, and retailed to the poor at a very reduced price. This, he said, was a better plan than to make them a present of it. The bread was, of course, unadulterated, and excellent. He had it served at his own table; and Mr. Prior's informant, at Mr. Burke's request, took a loaf to Wycombe, to show the more opulent classes of that town how much might be done, and with comparatively little trouble, for the benefit of the working people. In these days of savings'-banks, soup-kitchens, and clothing-clubs, Mr. Burke's bakery may not appear very striking; but sixty years ago, such an act was a real boon to a rural population in days of short-comings and high prices. Mr. Burke took unceasing interest in the comfort of the people about him. He would visit their cottages; he was even known to invite himself to dine with them, in order to show them that he could eat and enjoy their food, and thus show that they were better off than they imagined themselves to be. Then he would regulate matters of labour for them, encourage manly pastimes among them, and this not merely at holiday seasons, but generally. Upon public occasions, or upon any event of congratulation in his own family, he would treat the labourers and humble neighbours with a cask of strong beer; and Mr. Prior tells us that when the news was particularly good, Mr. Burke's directions were to tap the cask at both ends. Some time before the death of his son, news was brought that a serious accident had befallen him; his father was greatly alarmed; then came a second messenger, to say that the son had sustained no bodily harm. "Call up Webster," cried Mr. Burke, exultingly, “tell him to get all the assistance he can to turn the largest moveable cask of strong beer out of the cellarbring hither the people to partake of it—and be sure to tap it at both ends with the largest gimlet in the house." Burke was no croaker against poor human nature, or against his own times, as worse than those which have preceded them. "From the experience which I have had," he remarked, "and I have had a good deal, I have learned to think better of mankind." BURKE'S FONDNESS FOR CHILDREN. Burke was so very partial to children that he would play at tee-totum and push-pin with them, and apparently take as much delight in the stories of Jack the Giant Killer and Tom Thumb as themselves. "Half-an-hour might pass," says Murphy, "during which he would keep speaking in such a way that you could see no more in him than an ordinary man, good-naturedly amusing his young auditors, when some observation or suggestion calling his attention, a remark of the most profound wisdom would slip out, and he would return to his tee-totum." It is related of him that one day, after dining with Fox, Sheridan, Lord John Townshend, and several other eminent men, at Sheridan's cottage, he amused himself by rapidly wheeling his host's little son round the garden in a child's hand-chaise. While thus employed, the great orator, it is added, evinced by his looks and activity, that he enjoyed the sport nearly as much as his delighted playfellow. While at Loughrea, in 1766, strolling through the town, after an early dinner, on a fair or market-day, his attention was attracted to a group of children gazing longingly on the exterior of a puppet-show, or rude theatrical exhibition, to the interior of which those who had the means were invited to enter. The anxious curiosity of the children, and their repining at their inability to gratify it, induced Burke to bargain with the proprietor for the admission of the whole, when some friends coming up, insisted upon paying half the expense. "No," said Burke, "this pleasure must be all my own; for I shall never probably again have the opportunity of making so many human beings happy at so small a cost.” In the early part of his political career, he was scarcely installed in apartments in Dublin Castle, when his good friends the Shackletons hastened to pay him a visit, and of course expected to find the young statesman, whose industry was already well known, immersed in Government affairs. What was their surprise when, on entering the room, they caught him at play with his children: he was on all-fours, carrying one of them on his back round the room, while the other, a chubby infant, lay crowing upon the carpet. This incident recalls a similar story told of the famous Bourbon prince, Henry the Fourth. Even in his decline, Burke would often seek relaxation in amusing himself with children. "I saw him," said an eyewitness, "while he was under infirmity, not far from death; and yet he displayed, with the child of a friend, the most pleasing playfulness." BURKE'S LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. Whilst at Dublin University, Burke evinced his rural taste by translating in English verse, from the second Georgic, Virgil's famous panegyric of a country life. Burke's lines display great fervour and facility, as the following passage shows: How happy, too, the peaceful rustic lies, From heat retiring to the noontide glade, Here, 'mong the caves, the woods, and rocks around, MR. BURKE ADDRESSING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Macknight has well described the personnel of the great orator: "Tall, and apparently endowed with much vigour of body, his presence was noble, and his appearance prepossessing. In later years, the first peculiarity which caught the eye, as Burke walked forwards, as his custom was, to speak in the middle of the House, were his spectacles, which, from shortness of sight, seemed never absent from his face. But as yet his bright eyes beamed forth with all their overpowering animation. A black silk ribbon, by which an eye-glass was suspended, appeared on his frill and waistcoat. His dress, though not slovenly, was by no means such as would have suited a leader of fashion. He had the air of a man who was full of thought and care; yet there was in his whole deportment a sense of personal dignity and habitual self-respect. His brow was massive. They who knew how amiable Burke was in his private life, and how warm and tender was the heart within, might expect to see those softer qualities depicted on his countenance. But they would have been disappointed. It was not usual at any time to see his face mantling with smiles; he decidedly looked like a great man, but not like a meek or gentle one. His life had been a constant struggle; all his troubles were impressed upon his working features; in the marks about the jaw, the firmness of the lines about the mouth, the stern glance of the eye, and the furrows on the expansive forehead." These harsher peculiarities, however, only grew painfully obvious as years rolled on. From the first his Hibernian accent might very perceptibly be distinguished whenever he began to address the House. His voice was of great compass. He never hesitated for want of words. His utterance was rapid and vehement; but, quick as it was, his thoughts flowed forth with still greater freedom, and threatened to overcome the power of speech. As he spoke his head was continually in motion, and appeared now to rise and fall, and now to oscillate from side to side in a very singular manner with the nervous excitement of the speaker. EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE. Much of the splendid eloquence of Burke, and of his patriotic exertion in Parliament, was lost to the public, or at best echoed but in a faint whisper from St. Stephen's, owing to the imperfect means of reporting speeches at that period. "I will be heard," cried Burke in the House of Commons, in what he wittily called the fifth act of the tragic comedy acted by his Majesty's servants for the benefit of Mr. Wilkes, at the expense of the Constitution. "I WILL be heard, I will throw open those doors, and tell the people of England that when a man is addressing the chair on their behalf, the attention of the Speaker is engaged." But "great noise and members talking" were too much even for that impetuous spirit: he was not heard; nor till the publication of Sir Henry Cavendish's Notes, six years since, had the English people any detailed means of knowing what had passed in the most exciting debates ever known within their house.* A great many of the best things said by Burke were uttered in the course of the debates when the foolish fashion of the time emptied the benches at his rising. His being an Irishman, his being of the middle order, and his being totally above the calibre of the fashionable triflers who could listen to nothing but an epigram, could understand nothing but a double entendre, often left him nearly alone with the few necessary attendants of ministers on the Treasury bench. On one of these nights he animadverted in strong terms on some *Forster's Life of Goldsmith, p. 508, 1848. |