saddens and perplexes the awful drama of Providence now acting on the moral theatre of the world. Whether for thought or for action, I am at the end of my career.” When peace was eagerly sought, and as eagerly anticipated, he calmly told the country: "We are not at the end of the struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive ourselves; we are at the beginning of great troubles." Then he condemns the lukewarmness of the Ministry as ill calculated to enable the country to bear up against "the burdens which must be inevitably borne in a long war. I speak it emphatically, and with a desire that it should be marked, a long war," and further on, he hints at twenty years, or more: this was said in 1796—what an extraordinary fulfilment has the work witnessed!

Mr. Prior well remarks that the greatest and perhaps most useful of Burke's many gifts was his capacity to point out consequences, which became almost prescience. In that point he stands alone. His predictions, though so nume rous and various, and by their boldness startling, became fulfilled to the letter in almost every instance. Yet the French Revolution was, by no means, the first occasion on which his power of prediction was developed. An attentive inquirer will find it marked in most of the public events of his life.

"He lived just long enough (says Mr. Prior) to find himself acknowledged the prince of political prophets; to see the reprobation he had ventured to pass on the most remarkable event of modern times more than justified by the horrid scenes to which it gave rise; to confirm the body of the nation in the belief that it had acted wisely; to convince many of the opposite party that their original judgment had been wrong.

Yet, historical writers are not agreed upon the value of these predictions. Lord Brougham observes: "The eulogists of Mr. Burke's sagacity would do well to recollect those yearly

* To Burke, Pozzo di Borgo, in 1847, gave credit "for an almost prophetic knowledge of European politics."

predictions of the complete internal ruin which for so long a period alternated with alarms at the foreign aggrandizement of the French Republic: they all originated in his famous work (the Reflections,)—though it contains some prophecies too extravagant to be borrowed by his most servile imitators. Thus he contends that the population of France is irreparably diminished by the Revolution, and actually adopts a calculation which makes the distress of Paris require above two millions sterling for its yearly relief; a sum sufficient to pay seach family above seventeen pounds, or to defray its whole expenditure, in that country."-Statesmen of the Time of George III. Series 1.

BURKE SUGGESTS A PICTURE TO BARRY.

One morning, Burke called upon Barry, whom he found painting a cabinet picture. "What are you doing ?" said Burke. "A mere trifle," replied Barry: "young Mercury inventing the Lyre; by accident finding a tortoise-shell at break of day on the sea-shore: he touches the dried filaments of the inside, when they give forth a note of harmony. He sits down, rejoicing in his discovery. Cupid comes behind him, and gives him the string of a bow." Thus were symbolized Love and Music. Ay," exclaimed Burke, "this is the fruits of early rising-there is the industrious boy: I will give you a companion for it. Paint Narcissus wasting his day in looking at himself in a fountain-there is the idle boy!" Barry caught the idea; and the pictures are admirable companions. They are well known by engravings of them.

66

BURKE'S LETTER TO ADMIRAL KEPPEL, THANKING
HIM FOR HIS PORTRAIT.

After the return of Keppel's portrait to Burke, under the circumstances related at page 232, the Admiral begged him to accept a picture of a later date, as an indication of his

A A

gratitude for Burke's exertions during the trial.* This picture, like the former one, was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was sent to Burke's residence in town, when he addressed to the Admiral the following eloquent letter of thanks: "The town and my house there will be more pleasant to me for a piece of furniture I have had since I saw you, and which I owe to your goodness. I shall leave to my son, who is of a frame of mind to relish that kind of honour, the satisfaction of knowing that his father was distinguished by the partiality of one of those who are the marked men of all story, by being the glory and the reproach of the times they live in, and whose services and merits, by being above recompense, are delivered over to ingratitude. Whenever he sees that picture, he will remember what Englishmen and English seamen were, in the days when the name of that nation, and when eminence and superiority in that profession, were one and the same thing. Indeed, I am perfectly con vinced that Englishman' and 'Seaman' are names that must live and die together. Perhaps the last honour which the naval soldiery of this nation may be permitted to do themselves and their country is, the justice they have done to you. This has sealed their reputation. It will be recorded with the rest, when people read of the people who have successively held the empire of the sea. I assure you, my dear Sir, that though I possess the portraits of friends highly honoured by me, and very dear to

* Burke's aid to Keppel was of the most practical value. Some of the best passages in the Admiral's defence were recognised as from his hand. Day after day, with young Richard at his side, he took his seat in the Court, and listened carefully, and weighed deliberately every point of the evidence; while the practical questions which arose in the course of the trial were entered into and studied by Burke with all the ardour of a professional seaman. He might be seen at the ear of Keppel, whispering words of encouragement, and ready with every suggestion that the circumstances required. And when the five charges were unanimously pronounced ill-founded and malicious, and Keppel's sword was returned to him in open Court, Burke's voice united in the loud shout of acclamation which the Duke of Cumberland began, and in which the poorest sailor of the forecastle heartily joined with tears rolling down the cheek and exultation on the brow.-Abridged from Macknight's Hist. Life and Times of Edmund Burke, vol. ii.

me on all accounts, yours stands alone, and I intend that it should so continue, to mark the impression I have received of this most flattering mark of your friendship."-Life of Keppel, vol. ii.

DID EDMUND BURKE WRITE "JUNIUS'S LETTERS?"

From the first appearance of these celebrated Letters, Burke appears to have been suspected of their authorship, which the Ministers and others went about to fasten upon him. This suspicion was entertained not only by his enemies but by his oldest friends. His revered and beloved friend, Dr. Markham, then Bishop of Chester, as early as 1765, addressed a letter to William Burke, in the warmest terms of friendship, speaking then with generous indignation of Edmund Burke's enemies, and hoping that the rise of his reputation "would silence malignity or destroy its effects," and rejoicing over the "disgrace of William Burke's opponents." Junius appears-he assails Lord Mansfield and the King. Burke is suspected: and Dr. Markham, the tried friend of the family, is induced, clearly without a vestige of personal offence, to write a letter teeming with the severest censure, to which Burke replied in as severe terms; this communication taking place after Burke had had ample opportunity of exonerating himself in an interview with the Bishop at Kew Green, in a discussion which Burke reminds the Bishop "spread out into great extent and variety;" and in which he had, therefore, elaborately vindicated himself. It was thus no off-hand impression on the mind of Dr. Markham, nor was it short-lived; for he never appears, by the Correspondence, to have written to the Burkes again. Dr. Markham is thought to have been actuated by servility to the King, and the desire of promotion; but the Bishop is a witness, the weight of whose evidence it is impossible to gainsay. Meanwhile, the Whigs became alarmed, and sent Charles Townshend to Burke to obtain his explicit denial to the charge. The first reply did not satisfy Townshend; and in his second reply, Burke, after saying that he had "never

positively declared in express terms that he was neither directly nor indirectly engaged in the publication of Junius's Letters," says: "I now give you my word and honour that I am not the author of Junius, and that I know not the author of that paper, and I do authorize you to say so." "This," says Mr. Jelinger Symons, "is explicit enough and doubt. less true enough as to the authorship;" but he maintains that this denial of knowledge of the authorship of that paper does not apply to the whole series of Letters, then approaching their completion, but refers, if to any, to that letter only which Townshend happened to name in his first inquiry.*

Burke's answer, therefore, as to his knowledge of the authorship, Mr. Symons considers to be very ambiguous and incomplete. At this period, before Dr. Markham's charge, Burke had cleverly refused to satisfy Sir William Draper's interrogation, or to give him a meeting: indeed, whatever he gave to others was not without reluctant and galled submission to the right implied in demanding it. When at a subsequent period, unsatisfied suspicion had so increased as to engender a distrust of his character for frankness and honesty, he is not blameable for going to the utmost verge of the limits of literal truth in endeavouring to escape by positive denial from these damaging imputations.

This

Burke's denial seems, however, to have been considered more satisfactory by his literary contemporaries. "Sir,” said Johnson, "I should have believed Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these Letters; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me." was the year when Garrick, smiling and happy amid the great who fondled and flattered him; sending meddling messages to the palace that Junius would write no more; writing himself to his "Carissimo Edmundo" - found himself, in supreme prosperity, suddenly and contemptuously

* William Burke the Author of Junius. By J. G. Symons, Barristerat-law. 1859. This work not only relates to the identity of William Burke, but includes an Essay on the Era of Junius, in twenty chapters, in which the inquiry is treated in a very attractive manner, notwithstanding all that has appeared upon the mystery.