At
midnight
hour, when culverin
And gun and bomb were sleeping,
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And gun and bomb were sleeping,
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
”
Doubtless German literature owes less to Bürger than English
owes to Burns, but it owes much. Bürger revived the ballad form
in which so much of the finest German poetry has since been cast.
With his lyric gifts and his dramatic power, he infused a life into
these splendid poems that has made them a part of the folk-lore of
his native land. Lenardo und Blandine,' his own favorite, Des
Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain' (The Pastor's Daughter of Tau-
benhain), (Das Lied vom braven Mann' (The Song of the Brave
## p. 2769 (#337) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2769
Man), Die Weiber von Weinsberg' (The Women of Weinsberg), Der
Kaiser und der Abt' (The Emperor and the Abbot), (Der Wilde
Jäger' (The Wild Huntsman), all belong, like Lenore,' to the lit-
erary inheritance of the German people. Bürger attempted a trans-
lation of the Iliad in iambic blank verse, and a prose translation of
Macbeth. ' To him belongs also the credit of having restored to
German literature the long-disused sonnet. His sonnets are among
the best in the language, and elicited warm praise from Schiller as
« models of their kind. ” Schiller had written a severe criticism of
Bürger's poems, which had inflamed party strife and embittered the
last years of Bürger himself; but even Schiller admits that Bürger
is as much superior to all his rivals as he is inferior to the ideal he
should have striven to attain.
The debt which Bürger owed to English letters was amply repaid.
In Lenore' he showed Percy's Reliques) the compliment of quoting
from the ballad of Sweet William,' which had supplied him with
his theme, the lines:-Is there any room at your head, Willie, or
any room at your feet ? » The first literary work of Walter Scott
was the translation which he made in 1775 of Lenore, under the
title of William and Helen'; this was quickly followed by a trans-
lation of The Wild Huntsman. ' Scott's romantic mind received in
Bürger's ballads and in Goethe's (Götz,' which he translated four
years later, just the nourishment it craved. It is a curious coinci-
dence that another great romantic writer, Alexandre Dumas, should
also have begun his literary career with a translation of Lenore. '
Bürger was not, however, a man of one poem. He filled two goodly
volumes, but the oft-quoted words of his friend Schlegel contain
the essential truth: « Lenore) will always be Bürger's jewel, the
precious ring with which, like the Doge of Venice espousing the sea,
he married himself to the folk-song forever. ”
WILLIAM AND HELEN
WALTER SCOTT'S TRANSLATION OF LENORE)
F
ROM heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:-
Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead? »
With gallant Frederick's princely power
He sought the bold crusade;
But not a word from Judah's wars
Told Helen how he sped.
V-174
## p. 2770 (#338) ###########################################
2770
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
With Paynim and with Saracen
At length a truce was made,
And every knight returned to dry
The tears his love had shed.
Our gallant host was homeward bound
With many a song of joy;
Green waved the laurel in each plume,
The badge of victory.
And old and young, and sire and son,
To meet them crowd the way.
With shouts, and mirth, and melody,
The debt of love to pay.
Full many a maid her true-love met,
And sobbed in his embrace,
And fluttering joy in tears and smiles
Arrayed full. many a face.
Nor joy nor smile for Helen sad;
She sought the host in vain;
For none could tell her William's fate,
If faithless or if slain.
The martial band is past and gone;
She rends her raven hair,
And in distraction's bitter mood
She weeps with wild despair.
rise, my child,” her mother said,
"Nor sorrow thus in vain :
A perjured lover's fleeting heart
No tears recall again. ”
«O mother, what is gone, is gone,
What's lost forever lorn;
Death, death alone can comfort me;
( had I ne'er been born!
“O break, my heart, O break at once!
Drink my life-blood, Despair!
No joy remains on earth for me,
For me in heaven no share. »
«O enter not in judgment, Lord! ”
The pious mother prays;
## p. 2771 (#339) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2771
Impute not guilt to thy frail child!
She knows not what she says.
“O say thy paternoster, child !
O turn to God and grace!
His will, that turned thy bliss to bale,
Can change thy bale to bliss. ”
«O mother, mother, what is bliss ?
O mother, what is bale ?
My William's love was heaven on earth;
Without it earth is hell.
«Why should I pray to ruthless Heaven,
Since my loved William's slain ?
I only prayed for William's sake,
And all my prayers were vain. ”
“O take the sacrament, my child,
And check these tears that flow;
By resignation's humble prayer,
O hallowed be thy woe! )
“No sacrament can quench this fire,
Or slake this scorching pain ;
No sacrament can bid the dead
Arise and live again.
“O break, my heart, O break at once!
Be thou my god, Despair!
Heaven's heaviest blow has fallen on me,
And vain each fruitless prayer. ”
“O enter not in judgment, Lord,
With thy frail child of clay!
She knows not what her tongue has spoke;
Impute it not, I pray!
«Forbear, my child, this desperate woe,
And turn to God and grace;
Well can devotion's heavenly glow
Convert thy bale to bliss. ”
«O mother, mother, what is bliss ?
() mother, what is bale ?
Without my William what were heaven,
Or with him what were hell ? »
## p. 2772 (#340) ###########################################
2772
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
Wild she arraigns the eternal doom,
l'pbraids each sacred Power,
Till, spent, she sought her silent room,
All in the lonely tower.
She beat her breast, she wrung her hands
Till sun and day were o'er,
And through the glimmering lattice shone
The twinkling of the star.
Then, crash! the heavy drawbridge fell
That o'er the moat was hung;
And, clatter, clatter, on its boards
The hoof of courser rung.
The clank of echoing steel was heard
As off the rider bounded;
And slowly on the winding stair
A heavy footstep sounded.
And hark! and hark! a knock Tap! tap
A rustling stifled noise;
Door-latch and tinkling staples ring;
At length a whispering voice:
“Awake, awake, arise, my love!
How, Helen, dost thou fare?
Wak'st thou, or sleep'st ? laugh'st thou, or weep'st ?
Hast thought on me, my fair ?
“My love! my love! so late at night!
I waked, I wept for thee.
Much have I borne since dawn of morn;
Where, William, couldst thou be ? »
« We saddle late — from Hungary
I rode since darkness fell;
And to its bourne we both return
Before the matin bell. ”
1
«() rest this night within my arms,
And warm thee in their fold!
Chill howls through hawthorn bush the wind; —
My love is deadly cold. ”
“Let the wind howl through hawthorn bush!
This night we must away;
## p. 2773 (#341) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2773
The steed is wight, the spur is bright;
I cannot stay till day.
“Busk, busk, and boune! Thou mount'st behind
Upon my black barb steed:
O'er stock and stile, a hundred mile,
We haste to bridal bed. ”
«To-night — to-night a hundred miles!
O dearest William, stay!
The bell strikes twelve - dark, dismal hour!
O wait, my love, till day! ”
“Look here, look here -- the moon shines clear -
Full fast I ween we ride;
Mount and away! for ere the day
We reach our bridal bed.
« The black barb snorts, the bridle rings,
Haste, busk, and boune, and seat thee!
The feast is made, the chamber spread,
The bridal guests await thee. ”
Strong love prevailed: she busks, she bounes,
She mounts the barb behind,
And round her darling William's waist
Her lily arms she twined.
And, hurry! hurry! off they rode,
And fast as fast might be;
Spurned from the courser's thundering heels
The flashing pebbles flee.
And on the right, and on the left,
Ere they could snatch a view,
Fast, fast each mountain, mead, and plain,
And cot and castle flew.
« Sit fast- dost fear ? — The moon shines clear! -
Fleet goes my barb — keep hold!
Fear'st thou ? ” – “O no! " she faintly said:
“But why so stern and cold ?
«What yonder rings, what yonder sings ?
Why shrieks the owlet gray ? ” –
« 'Tis death-bells' clang, 'tis funeral song,
The body to the clay.
## p. 2774 (#342) ###########################################
2774
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
“With song and clang, at morrow's dawn,
Ye may inter the dead;
To-night I ride, with my young bride,
To deck our bridal bed.
“Come with thy choir, thou coffined guest,
To swell our nuptial song!
Come, priest, to bless our marriage feast!
Come all, come all along! ”
Ceased clang and song; down sunk the bier;
The shrouded corpse arose :
And hurry! hurry! all the train
The thundering steed pursues.
And forward, forward, on they go;
High snorts the straining steed;
Thick pants the rider's laboring breath
As headlong on they speed.
“O William, why this savage haste ?
And where thy bridal bed ? ”
« 'Tis distant far, - low, damp, and chill,
And narrow,- trustless maid! »
“No room for me? » — "Enough for both;
Speed, speed, my barb, thy course! »
O'er thundering bridge, through boiling surge,
He drove the furious horse.
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is wight, the spur is bright,
The flashing pebbles flee.
Fled past on right and left how fast
Each forest, grove, and bower!
On right and left fled past how fast
Each city, town, and tower!
“Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear,
Dost fear to ride with me?
Hurrah! hurrah! the dead can ride! »
( William, let them be! -
« See there, see there! What yonder swings
And creaks 'mid whistling rain? ”
1
## p. 2775 (#343) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2775
«Gibbet and steel, th' accursed wheel,
A murderer in his chain.
« Hollo! thou felon, follow here:
To bridal bed we ride;
And thou shalt prance a fetter dance
Before me and my bride. ”
And hurry! hurry! clash, clash, clash!
The wasted form descends;
And feet as wind through hazel bush
The wild career attends.
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.
How fled what moonshine faintly showed!
How fled what darkness hid!
How fled the earth beneath their feet,
The heaven above their head!
«Dost fear ? dost fear ? the moon shines clear
And well the dead can ride;
Dost, faithful Helen, fear for them ? ” —
“O leave in peace the dead! )
«Barb! barb! methinks I hear the cock;
The sand will soon be run;
Barb! barb! I smell the morning air;
The race is well-nigh done. ”
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.
« Hurrah! hurrah! well ride the dead;
The bride, the bride is come;
And soon we reach the bridal bed,
For, Helen, here's my home. ”
Reluctant on its rusty hinge
Revolved an iron door,
And by the pale moon's setting beam
Were seen a church and tower.
## p. 2776 (#344) ###########################################
2776
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
With many a shriek and cry whiz round
The birds of midnight, scared;
And rustling like autumnal leaves
Unhallowed ghosts were heard.
O'er many a tomb and tombstone pale
He spurred the fiery horse,
Till sudden at an open grave
He checked the wondrous course.
The falling gauntlet quits the rein,
Down drops the casque of steel,
The cuirass leaves his shrinking side,
The spur his gory heel.
The eyes desert the naked skull,
The mold'ring flesh the bone,
Till Helen's lily arms entwine
A ghastly skeleton.
The furious barb snorts fire and foam,
And with a fearful bound,
Dissolves at once in empty air,
And leaves her on the ground.
Half seen by fits, by fits half heard,
Pale spectres flit along,
Wheel round the maid in dismal dance,
And howl the funeral song:-
«E'en when the heart's with anguish cleft,
Revere the doom of heaven.
Her soul is from her body reft;
Her spirit be forgiven! ”
THE WIVES OF WEINSBERG
W""
HICH way to Weinsberg ? neighbor, say!
'Tis sure a famous city:
It must have cradled, in its day,
Full many a maid of noble clay,
And matrons wise and witty;
And if ever marriage should happen to me,
A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be.
King Conrad once, historians say,
Fell out with this good city;
## p. 2777 (#345) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2777
So down he came, one luckless day,
Horse, foot, dragoons, - in stern array,-
And cannon, — more's the pity!
Around the walls the artillery roared,
And bursting bombs their fury poured.
But naught the little town could scare;
Then, red with indignation,
He bade the herald straight repair
Up to the gates, and thunder there
The following proclamation :---
“Rascals! when I your town do take,
No living thing shall save its neck! »
Now, when the herald's trumpet sent
These tidings through the city,
To every house a death knell went;
Such murder-cries the hot air rent
Might move the stones to pity.
Then bread grew dear, but good advice
Could not be had for any price.
Then, “Woe is me! ” “O misery! )
What shrieks of lamentation !
And “Kyrie Eleison! ” cried
The pastors, and the flock replied,
“Lord! save us from starvation!
«Oh, woe is me, poor Corydon -
My neck, – my neck! I'm gone, - I'm gone!
Yet oft, when counsel, deed, and prayer
Had all proved unavailing,
When hope hung trembling on a hair,
How oft has woman's wit been there! -
A refuge never failing;
For woman's wit and Papal fraud,
Of olden time, were famed abroad.
A youthful dame, praised be her name! -
Last night had seen her plighted,
Whether in waking hour or dream,
Conceived a rare and novel scheme,
Which all the town delighted;
Which you, if you think otherwise,
Have leave to laugh at and despise.
At midnight hour, when culverin
And gun and bomb were sleeping,
## p. 2778 (#346) ###########################################
2778
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
Before the camp with mournful mien,
The loveliest embassy were seen,
All kneeling low and weeping.
So sweetly, plaintively they prayed,
But no reply save this was made :-
« The women have free leave to go,
Each with her choicest treasure;
But let the knaves their husbands know
That unto them the King will show
The weight of his displeasure. ”
With these sad terms the lovely train
Stole weeping from the camp again.
But when the morning gilt the sky.
What happened? Give attention:
The city gates wide open fly,
And all the wives come trudging by,
Each bearing — need I mention ?
Her own dear husband on her back,
All snugly seated in a sack!
Full many a sprig of court, the joke
Not relishing, protested,
And urged the King; but Conrad spoke:-
"A monarch's word must not be broke!
And here the matter rested.
“Bravo! ” he cried, “Ha, ha! Bravo!
Our lady guessed it would be so. ”
He pardoned all, and gave a ball
That night at royal quarters.
The fiddles squeaked, the trumpets blew,
And up and down the dancers flew,
Court sprigs with city daughters.
The mayor's wife — () rarest sight!
Danced with the shoemaker that night!
Ah, where is Weinsberg, sir, I pray?
'Tis sure a famous city:
It must have cradled in its day
Full many a maid of noble clay,
And matrons wise and witty;
And if ever marriage should happen to me,
A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be.
Translated by C. T. Brooks: Reprinted from (Representative German Poems)
by the courtesy of Mrs. Charles T. Brooks.
## p. 2778 (#347) ###########################################
## p. 2778 (#348) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE,
## p. 2778 (#349) ###########################################
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## p. 2778 (#350) ###########################################
EDMU URTE.
## p. 2779 (#351) ###########################################
2779
EDMUND BURKE
(1729-1797)
BY E. L. GODKIN
ES
DMUND BURKE, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1729, was the son
of a successful attorney, who gave him as good an educa-
tion as the times and the country afforded. He went to
school to an excellent Quaker, and graduated at Trinity College in
1748. He appears to have then gone to London in 1750 to keep
terms,” as it was called, at the Middle Temple, with the view of
being admitted to the bar, in obedience to his father's desire and
ambition. But the desultory habit of mind, the preference for lit-
erature and philosophical speculation to connected study, which had
marked his career in college, followed him and prevented any seri-
ous application to the law. His father's patience was after a while
exhausted, and he withdrew Burke's allowance and left him to his
own resources.
This was in 1755, but in 1756 he married, and made his first
appearance in the literary world by the publication of a book.
About these years from 1750 to 1759 little is known. He published
two works, one a treatise on the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful, and the other a Vindication of Natural Society,' a
satire on Bolingbroke. Stray allusions and anecdotes about other
men in the diaries and correspondence of the time show that he
frequented the literary coffee-houses, and was gradually making an
impression on the authors and wits whom he met there. Besides the
two books we have mentioned, he produced some smaller things,
such as an Essay on the Drama,' and part of an Abridgment of
the History of England. But although these helped to secure him
admission to the literary set, they did not raise him out of the rank
of obscure literary adventurers, who from the Revolution of 1688,
and especially after the union with Scotland, began to swarm to
London from all parts of the three kingdoms. The first recognition
of him as a serious writer was his employment by Dodsley the book-
seller, at a salary of $100 a year, to edit the Annual Register, which
Dodsley founded in 1769. Considered as a biographical episode, this
may fairly be treated as a business man's certificate that Burke was
industrious and accurate. As his income from his father was with-
drawn or reduced in 1755, there remain four years during which his
way of supporting himself is unknown. His published works were
## p. 2780 (#352) ###########################################
2780
EDMUND BURKE
reasons.
certainly not “pot-boilers. ” He was probably to some extent de-
pendent on his wife's father, Dr. Nugent, an Irish physician who
when Burke made his acquaintance lived in Bath, but after his
daughter's marriage settled in London, and seems to have frequented
and have been acceptable in the same coffee-houses as Burke, and
for the same
But Burke was not a man to remain long
dependent on any one. These nine years were evidently not spent
fruitlessly. They had made him known and brought him to the
threshold of public life.
In 1759, political discussion as we understand it—that is, those
explorations of the foundations of political society and analyses of
social relations which now form our daily intellectual food — was
hardly known. The interest in religion as the chief human concern
was rapidly declining. The interest in human society as an organism
to be studied, and if need be, taken to pieces and put together again,
was only just beginning. Montesquieu's great work, The Spirit of
the Laws,' which demanded for expediency and convenience in legis-
lation the place which modern Europe had long assigned to authority,
had only appeared in 1748. Swift's satires had made serious breaches
in the wall of convention by which the State, in spite of the convul-
sions of the seventeenth century, was still surrounded. But the
writer whose speculations excited most attention in England was
Bolingbroke. The charm of his style and the variety of his interests
made him the chief intellectual topic of the London world in Burke's
early youth. To write like Bolingbroke was a legitimate ambition for
a young man. It is not surprising that Burke felt it, and that his
earliest political effort was a satire on Boling broke. It attracted the
attention of a politician, Gerard Hamilton, and he quickly picked up
Burke as his secretary, treated him badly, and was abandoned by
him in disgust at the end of six years.
The peculiar condition of the English governmental machine made
possible for men of Burke's kind at this period what would not be
possible now. The population had vanished from a good many old
boroughs, although their representation in Parliament remained, and
the selection of the members fell to the lords of the soil.
About one
hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons were in this
way chosen by great landed proprietors, and it is to be said to their
credit that they used their power freely to introduce unknown young
men of talent into public life. Moreover in many cases, if not in
most, small boroughs, however well peopled, were expected to elect
the proprietor's nominee. Burke after leaving Hamilton's service
was for a short time private secretary to Lord Rockingham, when
the latter succeeded Grenville in the Ministry in 1766; but when he
went out, Burke obtained a seat in Parliament in 1765 in the manner
## p. 2781 (#353) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2781
we have described, for the borough of Wendover, from Lord Verney,
who owned it. He made his first successful speech the same year,
and was complimented by Pitt. He was already recognized as a man
of enormous information, as any one who edited the Annual Register
had to be.
A man of such powers and tastes in that day naturally became a
pamphleteer. Outside of Parliament there was no other mode of dis-
cussing public affairs. The periodical press for purposes of discussion
did not exist. During and after the Great Rebellion, the pamphlet
had made its appearance as the chief instrument of controversy.
Defoe used it freely after the Restoration. Swift made a great hit
with it, and probably achieved the first sensational sale with his
pamphlet on The Conduct of the Allies. Bolingbroke's Patriot
King' was a work of the same class. As a rule the pamphlet ex-
posed or refuted somebody, even if it also freely expounded. It was
inevitable that Burke should early begin to wield this most powerful
of existing weapons. His antagonist was ready for him in the per-
son of George Grenville, the minister who had made way for Burke's
friend and patron Lord Rockingham. Grenville showed, as easily
as any party newspaper in our own day, that Rockingham and his
friends had ruined the country by mismanagement of the war and of
the finances. Burke refuted him with a mastery of facts and figures,
and a familiarity with the operations of trade and commerce, and a
power of exposition and illustration, and a comprehension of the
fundamental conditions of national economy, which at once made him
famous and a necessary man for the Whigs in the great struggle
with the Crown on which they were entering.
The nature of this struggle cannot be better described in brief
space than by saying that the King, from his accession to the throne
down to the close of the American War, was engaged in a persistent
effort to govern through ministers chosen and dismissed, as the Ger-
man ministers are now, by himself; while the subservience of Parlia-
ment was secured by the profuse use of pensions and places. To
this attempt, and all the abuses which inevitably grew out of it, the
- Whigs with Burke as their intellectual head offered a determined
resistance, and the conflict was one extraordinarily well calculated to
bring his peculiar powers into play.
The leading events in this long struggle were the attempt of the
House of Commons to disqualify Wilkes for a seat in the House, to
punish reporting their debates as a breach of privilege, and the
prosecution of the war against the American colonies. It may be
said to have begun at the accession of the King, and to have lasted
until the resignation of Lord North after the surrender of Cornwallis,
or from 1770 to 1783.
## p. 2782 (#354) ###########################################
2782
EDMUND BURKE
Burke's contributions to it were his pamphlet, (Thoughts on the
Cause of the Present Discontents,' and several speeches in Parlia-
ment: the first, like the pamphlet, on the general situation, and
others on minor incidents in the struggle. This pamphlet has not
only survived the controversy, but has become one of the most
famous papers in the political literature of the Anglo-Saxon race. It
is a century since every conspicuous figure in the drama passed
away; it is seventy years since every trace of the controversy dis-
appeared from English political life; most if not all of the principles
for which Burke contended have become commonplaces of English
constitutional practice; the discontents of that day have vanished as
completely as those of 1630: but Burke's pamphlet still holds a high
place in every course of English literature, and is still read and
pondered by every student of constitutional history and by every
speculator on government and political morals.
In 1774 Parliament was dissolved for the second time since Burke
entered it; and there a misfortune overtook him which illustrated in
a striking way the practical working of the British Constitution at
that period. Lord Verney, to whom he had owed his seat for the
borough of Wendover at two elections, had fallen into pecuniary
embarrassment and could no longer return him, because compelled
to sell his four boroughs. This left Burke high and dry, and he was
beginning to tremble for his political future, when he was returned
for the great commercial city of Bristol by a popular constituency.
The six years during which he sat for Bristol were the most splen-
did portion of his career. Other portions perhaps contributed as
much if not more to his literary or oratorical reputation; but this
brought out in very bold relief the great traits of character which
will always endear his memory to the lovers of national liberty, and
place him high among the framers of great political ideals. In the
first place, he propounded boldly to the Bristol electors the theory
that he was to be their representative but not their delegate; that
his parliamentary action must be governed by his own reason and
not by their wishes. In the next, he resolutely sacrificed his seat by
opposing his constituents in supporting the removal of the restric-
tions on Irish trade, of which English merchants reaped the benefit.
He would not be a party to what he considered the oppression of
his native country, no matter what might be the effect on his politi-
cal prospects; and in 1780 he was not re-elected.
But the greatest achievement of this period of his history was his
share in the controversy over the American War, which was really
not more a conflict with the colonies over taxation, than a resolute
and obstinate carrying out of the King's principles of government.
The colonies were, for the time being, simply resisting pretensions
## p. 2783 (#355) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2783
a
to which the kingdom at home submitted. Burke's speeches on
(American Taxation (1774), on Conciliation with America (1775),
and his "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777) on the same sub-
ject, taken as a sequel to the Thoughts on the Present Discontents,'
form a body of literature which it is not too much to pronounce not
only a history of the dispute with the colcnies, but a veritable politi-
cal manual. He does not confine himself to a minute description of
the arguments used in supporting the attempt to coerce America; he
furnishes as he goes along principles of legislation applicable almost
to any condition of society; illustrations which light up as by a sin-
gle flash problems of apparently inscrutable darkness; explanations
of great political failures; and receipts innumerable for political hap-
piness and success. A single sentence often disposes of half a dozen
fallacies firmly imbedded in governmental tradition. His own de-
scription of the rhetorical art of Charles Townshend was eminently
applicable to himself:— "He knew, better by far than any man I
ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time
all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that
side of the question which he supported. ”
This observation suggests the great advantage he derives as
political instructor from the facts that all his political speeches and
writings are polemical. The difficulty of keeping exposition from
being dry is familiar to everybody who has ever sought to commu-
nicate knowledge on any subject. But Burke in every one of his
political theses had an antagonist, who was literally as he says him-
self, a helper: who did the work of an opposing counsel at the bar,
in bringing out into prominence all the weak points of Burke's case
and all the strong ones of his own; who set in array all the fallacies
to be exposed, all the idols to be overthrown, all the doubts to be
cleared up. Moreover he was not, like the man who usually figures
in controversial dialogues, a sham opponent, but a creature of flesh
and blood like Grenville, or the Sheriffs of Bristol, or the King's
friends, or the Irish Protestant party, who met Burke with an ardor
not inferior to his own. We consequently have, in all his papers
and speeches, the very best of which he was capable in thought and
expression, for he had not only to watch the city but to meet the
enemy in the gate.
After the close of the American War, the remainder of Burke's
career was filled with two great subjects, to which he devoted him-
self with an ardor which occasionally degenerated into fanaticism.
One was the government of India by the East India Company, and
the other was the French Revolution. Although the East India
Company had been long in existence, and had towards the middle
of the eighteenth century been rapidly extending its power and
## p. 2784 (#356) ###########################################
2784
EDMUND BURKE
influence, comparatively little had been known by the English public
of the nature of its operations. Attention had been drawn away
from it by the events in America and the long contest with the
King in England. By the close of the American War, however, the
“Nabobs, as they were called, -or returned English adventurers, —
began to make a deep impression on English society by the appar-
ent size of their fortunes and the lavishness of their expenditure.
Burke calculated that in his time they had brought home about
$200,000,000, with which they bought estates and seats in Parliament
and became a very conspicuous element in English public and pri-
vate life. At the same time, information as to the mode in which
their money was made and their government carried on was scanty
and hard to acquire. The press had no foreign correspondence;
India was six months away, and all the Europeans in it were either
servants of the Company, or remained in it on the Company's suf-
ferance. The Whigs finally determined to attempt a grand inquisi-
tion into its affairs, and a bill was brought in by Fox, withdrawing
the government of India from the Company and vesting it in a com-
mission named in the bill. This was preceded by eleven reports
from a Committee of Inquiry. But the bill failed utterly, and
brought down the Whig ministry, which did not get into office again
in Burke's time. This was followed in 1985, on Burke's instigation,
by the impeachment of the most conspicuous of the Company's offi-
cers, Warren Hastings. Burke was appointed one of the managers
on behalf of the Commons.
No episode in his career is so familiar to the public as his con-
duct of this trial, owing to Warren Hastings having been the subject
of one of the most popular of Macaulay's Essays. None brought out
more clearly Burke's great dialectical powers, or so well displayed
his mastery of details and his power of orderly exposition. The
trial lasted eight years, and was adjourned over from one Parlia-
mentary session to another. These delays were fatal to its success.
The public interest in it died out long before the close, as usual ir.
protracted legal prosecutions; the feeling spread that the defendant
could not be very guilty when it took so long to prove his crime.
Although Burke toiled over the case with extraordinary industry and
persistence, and an enthusiasm which never flagged, Hastings was
finally acquitted.
But the labors of the prosecution were not wholly vain. It awoke
in England an attention to the government of India which never
died out, and led to a considerable curtailing of the power of the
East India Company, and necessarily of its severity, in dealing with
Indian States. The impeachment was preceded by eleven reports
on the affairs of India by the Committee of the House of Commons,
## p. 2785 (#357) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2785
and the articles of impeachment were nearly as voluminous. Prob-
ably no question which has ever come before Parliament has received
so thorough an examination. Hardly less important was the report
of the Committee of the Commons (which consisted of the managers
of the impeachment) on the Lords' journals. This was an elaborate
examination of the rules of evidence which govern proceedings in
the trial of impeachments, or of persons guilty of malfeasance in
office. This has long been a bone of contention between lawyers
and statesmen. The Peers in the course of the trial had taken the
opinion of the judges frequently, and had followed it in deciding on
the admissibility of evidence, a great deal of which was important to
the prosecution. The report maintained, and with apparently un-
answerable force, that when a legislature sits on offenses against the
State, it constitutes a grand inquest which makes its own rules of
evidence; and is not and ought not to be tied up by the rules
administered in the ordinary law courts, and formed for the most
part for the guidance of the unskilled and often uneducated men
who compose juries. As a manual for the instruction of legislative
committees of inquiry it is therefore still very valuable, if it be not
a final authority.
Burke, during and after the Warren Hastings trial, fell into con-
siderable neglect and unpopularity. His zeal in the prosecution had
grown as the public interest in it declined, until it approached the
point of fanaticism. He took office in the coalition which succeeded
the Fox Whigs, and when the French Revolution broke out it found
him somewhat broken in nerves, irritated by his failures, and in less
cordial relations with some of his old friends and colleagues. He at
once arrayed himself fiercely against the Revolution, and broke finally
with what might be called the Liberty of all parties and creeds, and
stood forth to the world as the foremost champion of authority, pre-
scription, and precedent. Probably none of his writings are so famil-
iar to the general public as those which this crisis produced, such as
the “Thoughts on the French Revolution) and the Letters on
Regicide Peace. They are and will always remain, apart from the
splendor of the rhetoric, extremely interesting as the last words
spoken by a really great man on behalf of the old order. Old
Europe made through him the best possible defense of itself. He
told, as no one else could have told it, the story of what customs,
precedent, prescription, and established usage had done for its civ-
ilization; and he told it nevertheless as who was the friend
of rational progress, and had taken no small part in promoting it.
Only one other writer who followed him came near equaling him as
a defender of the past, and that was Joseph de Maistre; but he
approached the subject mainly from the religious side. To him the
old régime was the order of Providence. To Burke it was the best
VII-175
a
one
## p. 2786 (#358) ###########################################
2786
EDMUND BURKE
scheme of things that humanity could devise for the advancement
and preservation of civilization. In the papers we have mentioned,
which were the great literary sensations of Burke's day, everything
that could be said for the system of political ethics under which
Europe had lived for a thousand years was said with a vigor, in-
cisiveness, and wealth of illustration which must make them for all
time and in all countries the arsenal of those who love the ancient
ways and dread innovation.
The failure of the proceedings against Warren Hastings, and the
strong sympathy with the French Revolution - at least in its begin-
ning – displayed by the Whigs and by most of those with whom
Burke had acted in politics, had an unfortunate effect on his temper.
He broke off his friendship with Fox and others of his oldest associ-
ates and greatest admirers. He became hopeless and out of conceit
with the world around him. One might have set down some of this
at least to the effect of advancing years and declining health, if such
onslaughts on revolutionary ideas as his Reflections on the French
Revolution and his Letters on a Regicide Peace) did not reveal
the continued possession of all the literary qualities which had made
the success of his earlier works. Their faults are literally the faults
of youth: the brilliancy of the rhetoric, the heat of the invective,
the violence of the partisanship, the reluctance to admit the exist-
ence of any grievances in France to justify the popular onslaught on
the monarchy, the noblesse, and the Church. His one explanation of
the crisis and its attendant horrors was the instigation of the spirit
of evil. The effect on contemporary opinion was very great, and
did much to stimulate the conservative reaction in England which
carried on the Napoleonic wars and lasted down to the passage of
the Reform Bill in 1832.
There were, however, other causes for the cloud which came
over Burke's later years. In spite of his great services to his party
and his towering eminence as an orator and writer, he never ob-
tained a seat in the Cabinet. The Paymastership of the Forces, at a
salary of $20,000 a year, was the highest reward, either in honor or
money, which his party ever bestowed on him. It is true that in
those days the Whigs were very particular in reserving high places
for men of rank and family. In fact, their government was, from
the Revolution of 1688 on, a thorough oligarchy, divided among a
few great houses. That they should not have broken through this
rule in Burke's case, and admitted to the Cabinet a man to whom
they owed so much as they did to him, excited wonder in his own
day, and has down to our own time been one of the historical
mysteries on which the students of that period love to expend
their ingenuity. It is difficult to reconcile this exclusion and neg-
lect of Burke with the unbounded admiration lavished on him by the
## p. 2787 (#359) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2787
aristocratic leaders of the party. It is difficult too to account for
Burke's quiet acquiescence in what seems to be their ingratitude.
There had before his time been no similar instance of party indif-
ference to such claims as he could well make, on such honors and
rewards as the party had to bestow.
The most probable explanation of the affair is the one offered by
his latest and ablest biographer, Mr. John Morley. Burke had entered
public life without property,– probably the most serious mistake, if
in his case it can be called a mistake, which an English politician
can commit. It is a wise and salutary rule of English public life
that a
man who seeks a political career shall qualify for it by
pecuniary independence. It would be hardly fair in Burke's case
to say that he had sought a political career. The greatness of his
talents literally forced it on him. He became a statesman and
great Parliamentary orator, so to speak, in spite of himself. But he
must have early discovered the great barrier to complete success
created by his poverty. He may be said to have passed his life in
pecuniary embarrassment. This alone might not have shut him out
from the Whig official Paradise, for the same thing might have been
said of Pitt and Fox: but they had connections; they belonged by
birth and association to the Whig class. Burke's relatives were no
help or credit to him. In fact, they excited distrust of him. They
offended the fastidious aristocrats with whom he associated, and com-
bined with his impecuniousness to make him seem unsuitable for a
great place.
Doubtless German literature owes less to Bürger than English
owes to Burns, but it owes much. Bürger revived the ballad form
in which so much of the finest German poetry has since been cast.
With his lyric gifts and his dramatic power, he infused a life into
these splendid poems that has made them a part of the folk-lore of
his native land. Lenardo und Blandine,' his own favorite, Des
Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain' (The Pastor's Daughter of Tau-
benhain), (Das Lied vom braven Mann' (The Song of the Brave
## p. 2769 (#337) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2769
Man), Die Weiber von Weinsberg' (The Women of Weinsberg), Der
Kaiser und der Abt' (The Emperor and the Abbot), (Der Wilde
Jäger' (The Wild Huntsman), all belong, like Lenore,' to the lit-
erary inheritance of the German people. Bürger attempted a trans-
lation of the Iliad in iambic blank verse, and a prose translation of
Macbeth. ' To him belongs also the credit of having restored to
German literature the long-disused sonnet. His sonnets are among
the best in the language, and elicited warm praise from Schiller as
« models of their kind. ” Schiller had written a severe criticism of
Bürger's poems, which had inflamed party strife and embittered the
last years of Bürger himself; but even Schiller admits that Bürger
is as much superior to all his rivals as he is inferior to the ideal he
should have striven to attain.
The debt which Bürger owed to English letters was amply repaid.
In Lenore' he showed Percy's Reliques) the compliment of quoting
from the ballad of Sweet William,' which had supplied him with
his theme, the lines:-Is there any room at your head, Willie, or
any room at your feet ? » The first literary work of Walter Scott
was the translation which he made in 1775 of Lenore, under the
title of William and Helen'; this was quickly followed by a trans-
lation of The Wild Huntsman. ' Scott's romantic mind received in
Bürger's ballads and in Goethe's (Götz,' which he translated four
years later, just the nourishment it craved. It is a curious coinci-
dence that another great romantic writer, Alexandre Dumas, should
also have begun his literary career with a translation of Lenore. '
Bürger was not, however, a man of one poem. He filled two goodly
volumes, but the oft-quoted words of his friend Schlegel contain
the essential truth: « Lenore) will always be Bürger's jewel, the
precious ring with which, like the Doge of Venice espousing the sea,
he married himself to the folk-song forever. ”
WILLIAM AND HELEN
WALTER SCOTT'S TRANSLATION OF LENORE)
F
ROM heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:-
Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead? »
With gallant Frederick's princely power
He sought the bold crusade;
But not a word from Judah's wars
Told Helen how he sped.
V-174
## p. 2770 (#338) ###########################################
2770
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
With Paynim and with Saracen
At length a truce was made,
And every knight returned to dry
The tears his love had shed.
Our gallant host was homeward bound
With many a song of joy;
Green waved the laurel in each plume,
The badge of victory.
And old and young, and sire and son,
To meet them crowd the way.
With shouts, and mirth, and melody,
The debt of love to pay.
Full many a maid her true-love met,
And sobbed in his embrace,
And fluttering joy in tears and smiles
Arrayed full. many a face.
Nor joy nor smile for Helen sad;
She sought the host in vain;
For none could tell her William's fate,
If faithless or if slain.
The martial band is past and gone;
She rends her raven hair,
And in distraction's bitter mood
She weeps with wild despair.
rise, my child,” her mother said,
"Nor sorrow thus in vain :
A perjured lover's fleeting heart
No tears recall again. ”
«O mother, what is gone, is gone,
What's lost forever lorn;
Death, death alone can comfort me;
( had I ne'er been born!
“O break, my heart, O break at once!
Drink my life-blood, Despair!
No joy remains on earth for me,
For me in heaven no share. »
«O enter not in judgment, Lord! ”
The pious mother prays;
## p. 2771 (#339) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2771
Impute not guilt to thy frail child!
She knows not what she says.
“O say thy paternoster, child !
O turn to God and grace!
His will, that turned thy bliss to bale,
Can change thy bale to bliss. ”
«O mother, mother, what is bliss ?
O mother, what is bale ?
My William's love was heaven on earth;
Without it earth is hell.
«Why should I pray to ruthless Heaven,
Since my loved William's slain ?
I only prayed for William's sake,
And all my prayers were vain. ”
“O take the sacrament, my child,
And check these tears that flow;
By resignation's humble prayer,
O hallowed be thy woe! )
“No sacrament can quench this fire,
Or slake this scorching pain ;
No sacrament can bid the dead
Arise and live again.
“O break, my heart, O break at once!
Be thou my god, Despair!
Heaven's heaviest blow has fallen on me,
And vain each fruitless prayer. ”
“O enter not in judgment, Lord,
With thy frail child of clay!
She knows not what her tongue has spoke;
Impute it not, I pray!
«Forbear, my child, this desperate woe,
And turn to God and grace;
Well can devotion's heavenly glow
Convert thy bale to bliss. ”
«O mother, mother, what is bliss ?
() mother, what is bale ?
Without my William what were heaven,
Or with him what were hell ? »
## p. 2772 (#340) ###########################################
2772
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
Wild she arraigns the eternal doom,
l'pbraids each sacred Power,
Till, spent, she sought her silent room,
All in the lonely tower.
She beat her breast, she wrung her hands
Till sun and day were o'er,
And through the glimmering lattice shone
The twinkling of the star.
Then, crash! the heavy drawbridge fell
That o'er the moat was hung;
And, clatter, clatter, on its boards
The hoof of courser rung.
The clank of echoing steel was heard
As off the rider bounded;
And slowly on the winding stair
A heavy footstep sounded.
And hark! and hark! a knock Tap! tap
A rustling stifled noise;
Door-latch and tinkling staples ring;
At length a whispering voice:
“Awake, awake, arise, my love!
How, Helen, dost thou fare?
Wak'st thou, or sleep'st ? laugh'st thou, or weep'st ?
Hast thought on me, my fair ?
“My love! my love! so late at night!
I waked, I wept for thee.
Much have I borne since dawn of morn;
Where, William, couldst thou be ? »
« We saddle late — from Hungary
I rode since darkness fell;
And to its bourne we both return
Before the matin bell. ”
1
«() rest this night within my arms,
And warm thee in their fold!
Chill howls through hawthorn bush the wind; —
My love is deadly cold. ”
“Let the wind howl through hawthorn bush!
This night we must away;
## p. 2773 (#341) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2773
The steed is wight, the spur is bright;
I cannot stay till day.
“Busk, busk, and boune! Thou mount'st behind
Upon my black barb steed:
O'er stock and stile, a hundred mile,
We haste to bridal bed. ”
«To-night — to-night a hundred miles!
O dearest William, stay!
The bell strikes twelve - dark, dismal hour!
O wait, my love, till day! ”
“Look here, look here -- the moon shines clear -
Full fast I ween we ride;
Mount and away! for ere the day
We reach our bridal bed.
« The black barb snorts, the bridle rings,
Haste, busk, and boune, and seat thee!
The feast is made, the chamber spread,
The bridal guests await thee. ”
Strong love prevailed: she busks, she bounes,
She mounts the barb behind,
And round her darling William's waist
Her lily arms she twined.
And, hurry! hurry! off they rode,
And fast as fast might be;
Spurned from the courser's thundering heels
The flashing pebbles flee.
And on the right, and on the left,
Ere they could snatch a view,
Fast, fast each mountain, mead, and plain,
And cot and castle flew.
« Sit fast- dost fear ? — The moon shines clear! -
Fleet goes my barb — keep hold!
Fear'st thou ? ” – “O no! " she faintly said:
“But why so stern and cold ?
«What yonder rings, what yonder sings ?
Why shrieks the owlet gray ? ” –
« 'Tis death-bells' clang, 'tis funeral song,
The body to the clay.
## p. 2774 (#342) ###########################################
2774
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
“With song and clang, at morrow's dawn,
Ye may inter the dead;
To-night I ride, with my young bride,
To deck our bridal bed.
“Come with thy choir, thou coffined guest,
To swell our nuptial song!
Come, priest, to bless our marriage feast!
Come all, come all along! ”
Ceased clang and song; down sunk the bier;
The shrouded corpse arose :
And hurry! hurry! all the train
The thundering steed pursues.
And forward, forward, on they go;
High snorts the straining steed;
Thick pants the rider's laboring breath
As headlong on they speed.
“O William, why this savage haste ?
And where thy bridal bed ? ”
« 'Tis distant far, - low, damp, and chill,
And narrow,- trustless maid! »
“No room for me? » — "Enough for both;
Speed, speed, my barb, thy course! »
O'er thundering bridge, through boiling surge,
He drove the furious horse.
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is wight, the spur is bright,
The flashing pebbles flee.
Fled past on right and left how fast
Each forest, grove, and bower!
On right and left fled past how fast
Each city, town, and tower!
“Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear,
Dost fear to ride with me?
Hurrah! hurrah! the dead can ride! »
( William, let them be! -
« See there, see there! What yonder swings
And creaks 'mid whistling rain? ”
1
## p. 2775 (#343) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2775
«Gibbet and steel, th' accursed wheel,
A murderer in his chain.
« Hollo! thou felon, follow here:
To bridal bed we ride;
And thou shalt prance a fetter dance
Before me and my bride. ”
And hurry! hurry! clash, clash, clash!
The wasted form descends;
And feet as wind through hazel bush
The wild career attends.
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.
How fled what moonshine faintly showed!
How fled what darkness hid!
How fled the earth beneath their feet,
The heaven above their head!
«Dost fear ? dost fear ? the moon shines clear
And well the dead can ride;
Dost, faithful Helen, fear for them ? ” —
“O leave in peace the dead! )
«Barb! barb! methinks I hear the cock;
The sand will soon be run;
Barb! barb! I smell the morning air;
The race is well-nigh done. ”
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.
« Hurrah! hurrah! well ride the dead;
The bride, the bride is come;
And soon we reach the bridal bed,
For, Helen, here's my home. ”
Reluctant on its rusty hinge
Revolved an iron door,
And by the pale moon's setting beam
Were seen a church and tower.
## p. 2776 (#344) ###########################################
2776
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
With many a shriek and cry whiz round
The birds of midnight, scared;
And rustling like autumnal leaves
Unhallowed ghosts were heard.
O'er many a tomb and tombstone pale
He spurred the fiery horse,
Till sudden at an open grave
He checked the wondrous course.
The falling gauntlet quits the rein,
Down drops the casque of steel,
The cuirass leaves his shrinking side,
The spur his gory heel.
The eyes desert the naked skull,
The mold'ring flesh the bone,
Till Helen's lily arms entwine
A ghastly skeleton.
The furious barb snorts fire and foam,
And with a fearful bound,
Dissolves at once in empty air,
And leaves her on the ground.
Half seen by fits, by fits half heard,
Pale spectres flit along,
Wheel round the maid in dismal dance,
And howl the funeral song:-
«E'en when the heart's with anguish cleft,
Revere the doom of heaven.
Her soul is from her body reft;
Her spirit be forgiven! ”
THE WIVES OF WEINSBERG
W""
HICH way to Weinsberg ? neighbor, say!
'Tis sure a famous city:
It must have cradled, in its day,
Full many a maid of noble clay,
And matrons wise and witty;
And if ever marriage should happen to me,
A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be.
King Conrad once, historians say,
Fell out with this good city;
## p. 2777 (#345) ###########################################
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
2777
So down he came, one luckless day,
Horse, foot, dragoons, - in stern array,-
And cannon, — more's the pity!
Around the walls the artillery roared,
And bursting bombs their fury poured.
But naught the little town could scare;
Then, red with indignation,
He bade the herald straight repair
Up to the gates, and thunder there
The following proclamation :---
“Rascals! when I your town do take,
No living thing shall save its neck! »
Now, when the herald's trumpet sent
These tidings through the city,
To every house a death knell went;
Such murder-cries the hot air rent
Might move the stones to pity.
Then bread grew dear, but good advice
Could not be had for any price.
Then, “Woe is me! ” “O misery! )
What shrieks of lamentation !
And “Kyrie Eleison! ” cried
The pastors, and the flock replied,
“Lord! save us from starvation!
«Oh, woe is me, poor Corydon -
My neck, – my neck! I'm gone, - I'm gone!
Yet oft, when counsel, deed, and prayer
Had all proved unavailing,
When hope hung trembling on a hair,
How oft has woman's wit been there! -
A refuge never failing;
For woman's wit and Papal fraud,
Of olden time, were famed abroad.
A youthful dame, praised be her name! -
Last night had seen her plighted,
Whether in waking hour or dream,
Conceived a rare and novel scheme,
Which all the town delighted;
Which you, if you think otherwise,
Have leave to laugh at and despise.
At midnight hour, when culverin
And gun and bomb were sleeping,
## p. 2778 (#346) ###########################################
2778
GOTTFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER
Before the camp with mournful mien,
The loveliest embassy were seen,
All kneeling low and weeping.
So sweetly, plaintively they prayed,
But no reply save this was made :-
« The women have free leave to go,
Each with her choicest treasure;
But let the knaves their husbands know
That unto them the King will show
The weight of his displeasure. ”
With these sad terms the lovely train
Stole weeping from the camp again.
But when the morning gilt the sky.
What happened? Give attention:
The city gates wide open fly,
And all the wives come trudging by,
Each bearing — need I mention ?
Her own dear husband on her back,
All snugly seated in a sack!
Full many a sprig of court, the joke
Not relishing, protested,
And urged the King; but Conrad spoke:-
"A monarch's word must not be broke!
And here the matter rested.
“Bravo! ” he cried, “Ha, ha! Bravo!
Our lady guessed it would be so. ”
He pardoned all, and gave a ball
That night at royal quarters.
The fiddles squeaked, the trumpets blew,
And up and down the dancers flew,
Court sprigs with city daughters.
The mayor's wife — () rarest sight!
Danced with the shoemaker that night!
Ah, where is Weinsberg, sir, I pray?
'Tis sure a famous city:
It must have cradled in its day
Full many a maid of noble clay,
And matrons wise and witty;
And if ever marriage should happen to me,
A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be.
Translated by C. T. Brooks: Reprinted from (Representative German Poems)
by the courtesy of Mrs. Charles T. Brooks.
## p. 2778 (#347) ###########################################
## p. 2778 (#348) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE,
## p. 2778 (#349) ###########################################
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## p. 2779 (#351) ###########################################
2779
EDMUND BURKE
(1729-1797)
BY E. L. GODKIN
ES
DMUND BURKE, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1729, was the son
of a successful attorney, who gave him as good an educa-
tion as the times and the country afforded. He went to
school to an excellent Quaker, and graduated at Trinity College in
1748. He appears to have then gone to London in 1750 to keep
terms,” as it was called, at the Middle Temple, with the view of
being admitted to the bar, in obedience to his father's desire and
ambition. But the desultory habit of mind, the preference for lit-
erature and philosophical speculation to connected study, which had
marked his career in college, followed him and prevented any seri-
ous application to the law. His father's patience was after a while
exhausted, and he withdrew Burke's allowance and left him to his
own resources.
This was in 1755, but in 1756 he married, and made his first
appearance in the literary world by the publication of a book.
About these years from 1750 to 1759 little is known. He published
two works, one a treatise on the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful, and the other a Vindication of Natural Society,' a
satire on Bolingbroke. Stray allusions and anecdotes about other
men in the diaries and correspondence of the time show that he
frequented the literary coffee-houses, and was gradually making an
impression on the authors and wits whom he met there. Besides the
two books we have mentioned, he produced some smaller things,
such as an Essay on the Drama,' and part of an Abridgment of
the History of England. But although these helped to secure him
admission to the literary set, they did not raise him out of the rank
of obscure literary adventurers, who from the Revolution of 1688,
and especially after the union with Scotland, began to swarm to
London from all parts of the three kingdoms. The first recognition
of him as a serious writer was his employment by Dodsley the book-
seller, at a salary of $100 a year, to edit the Annual Register, which
Dodsley founded in 1769. Considered as a biographical episode, this
may fairly be treated as a business man's certificate that Burke was
industrious and accurate. As his income from his father was with-
drawn or reduced in 1755, there remain four years during which his
way of supporting himself is unknown. His published works were
## p. 2780 (#352) ###########################################
2780
EDMUND BURKE
reasons.
certainly not “pot-boilers. ” He was probably to some extent de-
pendent on his wife's father, Dr. Nugent, an Irish physician who
when Burke made his acquaintance lived in Bath, but after his
daughter's marriage settled in London, and seems to have frequented
and have been acceptable in the same coffee-houses as Burke, and
for the same
But Burke was not a man to remain long
dependent on any one. These nine years were evidently not spent
fruitlessly. They had made him known and brought him to the
threshold of public life.
In 1759, political discussion as we understand it—that is, those
explorations of the foundations of political society and analyses of
social relations which now form our daily intellectual food — was
hardly known. The interest in religion as the chief human concern
was rapidly declining. The interest in human society as an organism
to be studied, and if need be, taken to pieces and put together again,
was only just beginning. Montesquieu's great work, The Spirit of
the Laws,' which demanded for expediency and convenience in legis-
lation the place which modern Europe had long assigned to authority,
had only appeared in 1748. Swift's satires had made serious breaches
in the wall of convention by which the State, in spite of the convul-
sions of the seventeenth century, was still surrounded. But the
writer whose speculations excited most attention in England was
Bolingbroke. The charm of his style and the variety of his interests
made him the chief intellectual topic of the London world in Burke's
early youth. To write like Bolingbroke was a legitimate ambition for
a young man. It is not surprising that Burke felt it, and that his
earliest political effort was a satire on Boling broke. It attracted the
attention of a politician, Gerard Hamilton, and he quickly picked up
Burke as his secretary, treated him badly, and was abandoned by
him in disgust at the end of six years.
The peculiar condition of the English governmental machine made
possible for men of Burke's kind at this period what would not be
possible now. The population had vanished from a good many old
boroughs, although their representation in Parliament remained, and
the selection of the members fell to the lords of the soil.
About one
hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons were in this
way chosen by great landed proprietors, and it is to be said to their
credit that they used their power freely to introduce unknown young
men of talent into public life. Moreover in many cases, if not in
most, small boroughs, however well peopled, were expected to elect
the proprietor's nominee. Burke after leaving Hamilton's service
was for a short time private secretary to Lord Rockingham, when
the latter succeeded Grenville in the Ministry in 1766; but when he
went out, Burke obtained a seat in Parliament in 1765 in the manner
## p. 2781 (#353) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2781
we have described, for the borough of Wendover, from Lord Verney,
who owned it. He made his first successful speech the same year,
and was complimented by Pitt. He was already recognized as a man
of enormous information, as any one who edited the Annual Register
had to be.
A man of such powers and tastes in that day naturally became a
pamphleteer. Outside of Parliament there was no other mode of dis-
cussing public affairs. The periodical press for purposes of discussion
did not exist. During and after the Great Rebellion, the pamphlet
had made its appearance as the chief instrument of controversy.
Defoe used it freely after the Restoration. Swift made a great hit
with it, and probably achieved the first sensational sale with his
pamphlet on The Conduct of the Allies. Bolingbroke's Patriot
King' was a work of the same class. As a rule the pamphlet ex-
posed or refuted somebody, even if it also freely expounded. It was
inevitable that Burke should early begin to wield this most powerful
of existing weapons. His antagonist was ready for him in the per-
son of George Grenville, the minister who had made way for Burke's
friend and patron Lord Rockingham. Grenville showed, as easily
as any party newspaper in our own day, that Rockingham and his
friends had ruined the country by mismanagement of the war and of
the finances. Burke refuted him with a mastery of facts and figures,
and a familiarity with the operations of trade and commerce, and a
power of exposition and illustration, and a comprehension of the
fundamental conditions of national economy, which at once made him
famous and a necessary man for the Whigs in the great struggle
with the Crown on which they were entering.
The nature of this struggle cannot be better described in brief
space than by saying that the King, from his accession to the throne
down to the close of the American War, was engaged in a persistent
effort to govern through ministers chosen and dismissed, as the Ger-
man ministers are now, by himself; while the subservience of Parlia-
ment was secured by the profuse use of pensions and places. To
this attempt, and all the abuses which inevitably grew out of it, the
- Whigs with Burke as their intellectual head offered a determined
resistance, and the conflict was one extraordinarily well calculated to
bring his peculiar powers into play.
The leading events in this long struggle were the attempt of the
House of Commons to disqualify Wilkes for a seat in the House, to
punish reporting their debates as a breach of privilege, and the
prosecution of the war against the American colonies. It may be
said to have begun at the accession of the King, and to have lasted
until the resignation of Lord North after the surrender of Cornwallis,
or from 1770 to 1783.
## p. 2782 (#354) ###########################################
2782
EDMUND BURKE
Burke's contributions to it were his pamphlet, (Thoughts on the
Cause of the Present Discontents,' and several speeches in Parlia-
ment: the first, like the pamphlet, on the general situation, and
others on minor incidents in the struggle. This pamphlet has not
only survived the controversy, but has become one of the most
famous papers in the political literature of the Anglo-Saxon race. It
is a century since every conspicuous figure in the drama passed
away; it is seventy years since every trace of the controversy dis-
appeared from English political life; most if not all of the principles
for which Burke contended have become commonplaces of English
constitutional practice; the discontents of that day have vanished as
completely as those of 1630: but Burke's pamphlet still holds a high
place in every course of English literature, and is still read and
pondered by every student of constitutional history and by every
speculator on government and political morals.
In 1774 Parliament was dissolved for the second time since Burke
entered it; and there a misfortune overtook him which illustrated in
a striking way the practical working of the British Constitution at
that period. Lord Verney, to whom he had owed his seat for the
borough of Wendover at two elections, had fallen into pecuniary
embarrassment and could no longer return him, because compelled
to sell his four boroughs. This left Burke high and dry, and he was
beginning to tremble for his political future, when he was returned
for the great commercial city of Bristol by a popular constituency.
The six years during which he sat for Bristol were the most splen-
did portion of his career. Other portions perhaps contributed as
much if not more to his literary or oratorical reputation; but this
brought out in very bold relief the great traits of character which
will always endear his memory to the lovers of national liberty, and
place him high among the framers of great political ideals. In the
first place, he propounded boldly to the Bristol electors the theory
that he was to be their representative but not their delegate; that
his parliamentary action must be governed by his own reason and
not by their wishes. In the next, he resolutely sacrificed his seat by
opposing his constituents in supporting the removal of the restric-
tions on Irish trade, of which English merchants reaped the benefit.
He would not be a party to what he considered the oppression of
his native country, no matter what might be the effect on his politi-
cal prospects; and in 1780 he was not re-elected.
But the greatest achievement of this period of his history was his
share in the controversy over the American War, which was really
not more a conflict with the colonies over taxation, than a resolute
and obstinate carrying out of the King's principles of government.
The colonies were, for the time being, simply resisting pretensions
## p. 2783 (#355) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2783
a
to which the kingdom at home submitted. Burke's speeches on
(American Taxation (1774), on Conciliation with America (1775),
and his "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777) on the same sub-
ject, taken as a sequel to the Thoughts on the Present Discontents,'
form a body of literature which it is not too much to pronounce not
only a history of the dispute with the colcnies, but a veritable politi-
cal manual. He does not confine himself to a minute description of
the arguments used in supporting the attempt to coerce America; he
furnishes as he goes along principles of legislation applicable almost
to any condition of society; illustrations which light up as by a sin-
gle flash problems of apparently inscrutable darkness; explanations
of great political failures; and receipts innumerable for political hap-
piness and success. A single sentence often disposes of half a dozen
fallacies firmly imbedded in governmental tradition. His own de-
scription of the rhetorical art of Charles Townshend was eminently
applicable to himself:— "He knew, better by far than any man I
ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time
all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that
side of the question which he supported. ”
This observation suggests the great advantage he derives as
political instructor from the facts that all his political speeches and
writings are polemical. The difficulty of keeping exposition from
being dry is familiar to everybody who has ever sought to commu-
nicate knowledge on any subject. But Burke in every one of his
political theses had an antagonist, who was literally as he says him-
self, a helper: who did the work of an opposing counsel at the bar,
in bringing out into prominence all the weak points of Burke's case
and all the strong ones of his own; who set in array all the fallacies
to be exposed, all the idols to be overthrown, all the doubts to be
cleared up. Moreover he was not, like the man who usually figures
in controversial dialogues, a sham opponent, but a creature of flesh
and blood like Grenville, or the Sheriffs of Bristol, or the King's
friends, or the Irish Protestant party, who met Burke with an ardor
not inferior to his own. We consequently have, in all his papers
and speeches, the very best of which he was capable in thought and
expression, for he had not only to watch the city but to meet the
enemy in the gate.
After the close of the American War, the remainder of Burke's
career was filled with two great subjects, to which he devoted him-
self with an ardor which occasionally degenerated into fanaticism.
One was the government of India by the East India Company, and
the other was the French Revolution. Although the East India
Company had been long in existence, and had towards the middle
of the eighteenth century been rapidly extending its power and
## p. 2784 (#356) ###########################################
2784
EDMUND BURKE
influence, comparatively little had been known by the English public
of the nature of its operations. Attention had been drawn away
from it by the events in America and the long contest with the
King in England. By the close of the American War, however, the
“Nabobs, as they were called, -or returned English adventurers, —
began to make a deep impression on English society by the appar-
ent size of their fortunes and the lavishness of their expenditure.
Burke calculated that in his time they had brought home about
$200,000,000, with which they bought estates and seats in Parliament
and became a very conspicuous element in English public and pri-
vate life. At the same time, information as to the mode in which
their money was made and their government carried on was scanty
and hard to acquire. The press had no foreign correspondence;
India was six months away, and all the Europeans in it were either
servants of the Company, or remained in it on the Company's suf-
ferance. The Whigs finally determined to attempt a grand inquisi-
tion into its affairs, and a bill was brought in by Fox, withdrawing
the government of India from the Company and vesting it in a com-
mission named in the bill. This was preceded by eleven reports
from a Committee of Inquiry. But the bill failed utterly, and
brought down the Whig ministry, which did not get into office again
in Burke's time. This was followed in 1985, on Burke's instigation,
by the impeachment of the most conspicuous of the Company's offi-
cers, Warren Hastings. Burke was appointed one of the managers
on behalf of the Commons.
No episode in his career is so familiar to the public as his con-
duct of this trial, owing to Warren Hastings having been the subject
of one of the most popular of Macaulay's Essays. None brought out
more clearly Burke's great dialectical powers, or so well displayed
his mastery of details and his power of orderly exposition. The
trial lasted eight years, and was adjourned over from one Parlia-
mentary session to another. These delays were fatal to its success.
The public interest in it died out long before the close, as usual ir.
protracted legal prosecutions; the feeling spread that the defendant
could not be very guilty when it took so long to prove his crime.
Although Burke toiled over the case with extraordinary industry and
persistence, and an enthusiasm which never flagged, Hastings was
finally acquitted.
But the labors of the prosecution were not wholly vain. It awoke
in England an attention to the government of India which never
died out, and led to a considerable curtailing of the power of the
East India Company, and necessarily of its severity, in dealing with
Indian States. The impeachment was preceded by eleven reports
on the affairs of India by the Committee of the House of Commons,
## p. 2785 (#357) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2785
and the articles of impeachment were nearly as voluminous. Prob-
ably no question which has ever come before Parliament has received
so thorough an examination. Hardly less important was the report
of the Committee of the Commons (which consisted of the managers
of the impeachment) on the Lords' journals. This was an elaborate
examination of the rules of evidence which govern proceedings in
the trial of impeachments, or of persons guilty of malfeasance in
office. This has long been a bone of contention between lawyers
and statesmen. The Peers in the course of the trial had taken the
opinion of the judges frequently, and had followed it in deciding on
the admissibility of evidence, a great deal of which was important to
the prosecution. The report maintained, and with apparently un-
answerable force, that when a legislature sits on offenses against the
State, it constitutes a grand inquest which makes its own rules of
evidence; and is not and ought not to be tied up by the rules
administered in the ordinary law courts, and formed for the most
part for the guidance of the unskilled and often uneducated men
who compose juries. As a manual for the instruction of legislative
committees of inquiry it is therefore still very valuable, if it be not
a final authority.
Burke, during and after the Warren Hastings trial, fell into con-
siderable neglect and unpopularity. His zeal in the prosecution had
grown as the public interest in it declined, until it approached the
point of fanaticism. He took office in the coalition which succeeded
the Fox Whigs, and when the French Revolution broke out it found
him somewhat broken in nerves, irritated by his failures, and in less
cordial relations with some of his old friends and colleagues. He at
once arrayed himself fiercely against the Revolution, and broke finally
with what might be called the Liberty of all parties and creeds, and
stood forth to the world as the foremost champion of authority, pre-
scription, and precedent. Probably none of his writings are so famil-
iar to the general public as those which this crisis produced, such as
the “Thoughts on the French Revolution) and the Letters on
Regicide Peace. They are and will always remain, apart from the
splendor of the rhetoric, extremely interesting as the last words
spoken by a really great man on behalf of the old order. Old
Europe made through him the best possible defense of itself. He
told, as no one else could have told it, the story of what customs,
precedent, prescription, and established usage had done for its civ-
ilization; and he told it nevertheless as who was the friend
of rational progress, and had taken no small part in promoting it.
Only one other writer who followed him came near equaling him as
a defender of the past, and that was Joseph de Maistre; but he
approached the subject mainly from the religious side. To him the
old régime was the order of Providence. To Burke it was the best
VII-175
a
one
## p. 2786 (#358) ###########################################
2786
EDMUND BURKE
scheme of things that humanity could devise for the advancement
and preservation of civilization. In the papers we have mentioned,
which were the great literary sensations of Burke's day, everything
that could be said for the system of political ethics under which
Europe had lived for a thousand years was said with a vigor, in-
cisiveness, and wealth of illustration which must make them for all
time and in all countries the arsenal of those who love the ancient
ways and dread innovation.
The failure of the proceedings against Warren Hastings, and the
strong sympathy with the French Revolution - at least in its begin-
ning – displayed by the Whigs and by most of those with whom
Burke had acted in politics, had an unfortunate effect on his temper.
He broke off his friendship with Fox and others of his oldest associ-
ates and greatest admirers. He became hopeless and out of conceit
with the world around him. One might have set down some of this
at least to the effect of advancing years and declining health, if such
onslaughts on revolutionary ideas as his Reflections on the French
Revolution and his Letters on a Regicide Peace) did not reveal
the continued possession of all the literary qualities which had made
the success of his earlier works. Their faults are literally the faults
of youth: the brilliancy of the rhetoric, the heat of the invective,
the violence of the partisanship, the reluctance to admit the exist-
ence of any grievances in France to justify the popular onslaught on
the monarchy, the noblesse, and the Church. His one explanation of
the crisis and its attendant horrors was the instigation of the spirit
of evil. The effect on contemporary opinion was very great, and
did much to stimulate the conservative reaction in England which
carried on the Napoleonic wars and lasted down to the passage of
the Reform Bill in 1832.
There were, however, other causes for the cloud which came
over Burke's later years. In spite of his great services to his party
and his towering eminence as an orator and writer, he never ob-
tained a seat in the Cabinet. The Paymastership of the Forces, at a
salary of $20,000 a year, was the highest reward, either in honor or
money, which his party ever bestowed on him. It is true that in
those days the Whigs were very particular in reserving high places
for men of rank and family. In fact, their government was, from
the Revolution of 1688 on, a thorough oligarchy, divided among a
few great houses. That they should not have broken through this
rule in Burke's case, and admitted to the Cabinet a man to whom
they owed so much as they did to him, excited wonder in his own
day, and has down to our own time been one of the historical
mysteries on which the students of that period love to expend
their ingenuity. It is difficult to reconcile this exclusion and neg-
lect of Burke with the unbounded admiration lavished on him by the
## p. 2787 (#359) ###########################################
EDMUND BURKE
2787
aristocratic leaders of the party. It is difficult too to account for
Burke's quiet acquiescence in what seems to be their ingratitude.
There had before his time been no similar instance of party indif-
ference to such claims as he could well make, on such honors and
rewards as the party had to bestow.
The most probable explanation of the affair is the one offered by
his latest and ablest biographer, Mr. John Morley. Burke had entered
public life without property,– probably the most serious mistake, if
in his case it can be called a mistake, which an English politician
can commit. It is a wise and salutary rule of English public life
that a
man who seeks a political career shall qualify for it by
pecuniary independence. It would be hardly fair in Burke's case
to say that he had sought a political career. The greatness of his
talents literally forced it on him. He became a statesman and
great Parliamentary orator, so to speak, in spite of himself. But he
must have early discovered the great barrier to complete success
created by his poverty. He may be said to have passed his life in
pecuniary embarrassment. This alone might not have shut him out
from the Whig official Paradise, for the same thing might have been
said of Pitt and Fox: but they had connections; they belonged by
birth and association to the Whig class. Burke's relatives were no
help or credit to him. In fact, they excited distrust of him. They
offended the fastidious aristocrats with whom he associated, and com-
bined with his impecuniousness to make him seem unsuitable for a
great place.
