Page images
PDF
EPUB

that man, at the time of his inflicting the death wound of that parliament, produced at once the shortest and the grandest funeral oration that ever was or could be made upon the departure of a great court of magistracy. Though he had himself smarted under its lash, as every one knows who knows his history (and he was elevated to dreadful notoriety in history), yet when he pronounced the death sentence upon that parliament, and inflicted the mortal wound, he declared that his motives for doing it were merely political, and that their hands were as pure as those of justice itself, which they administered-a great and glorious exit, my lords, of a great and glorious body! And never was a eulogy pronounced upon a body more deserved. They were persons in nobility of rank, in amplitude of fortune, in weight of authority, in depth of learning, inferior to few of those that hear me. My lords, it was but the other day that they submitted their necks to the axe; but their honour was unwounded. Their enemies, the persons who sentenced them to death, were lawyers, full of subtlety; they were enemies, full of malice; yet lawyers full of subtlety, and enemies full of malice, as they were, they did not dare to reproach them with having supported the wealthy, the great, and powerful, and of having oppressed the weak and feeble, in any of their judgments, or of having perverted justice in any one instance whatever, through favour, through interest, or cabal.

you

My lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! But if stand, and stand I trust you will, together with the fortune of this ancient monarchy-together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and illustrious kingdom, may you stand as unimpeached in honour as in power; may you stand not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of virtue, as a security for virtue; may you stand long, and long stand the terror of tyrants; may you stand the refuge of afflicted nations; may you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable justice.

44

LETTERS.

TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.

DEAR SIR,

March, 1763.

I am now on the point of acquiring, through your friendship, an establishment,' which I am sensible is as much above my merits as, in any other channel, it may be above my reasonable expectations. I should think myself inexcusable in receiving this pension, and loading your interest with so heavy a charge, without apprizing you of those conditions on which, alone, I am able to take it; because, when I have taken it, I ought no longer to consider myself as possessed of my former freedom and independence.

I have often wished to explain myself fully to you on this point. It is against my general notions to trust to writing, where it is in one's power to confer otherwise. But neither do you hear, nor do I speak, on this subject, with the same ease with which we converse on others. This is but natural; and I have therefore chosen this method, as less liable to misunderstanding and dispute; and hope you will be so indulgent, as to hear me with coolness and attention.

You may recollect, when you did me the honour to take me as a companion in your studies, you found me with the little work we spoke of last Tuesday, as a sort of rent-charge on my thoughts. I informed you of this, and you acquiesced in it. You are now so generous, (and it is but strict justice to allow that upon all occasions you have been so,) to offer to free me from this burthen. But, in fact, though I am

Alluding to a pension of £300 per annum, granted Lord Halifax, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, upon the his Excellency's secretary single speech" Hamilton. count of this affair in Prior's Life of Burke, p. 74, &c.

66

this year by application of See an ac

extremely desirous of deferring the accomplishment, I have no notion of entirely suppressing that work; and this upon two principles, not solely confined to that work, but which extend much further, and indeed to the plan of my whole life.

Whatever advantages I have acquired, and even that advantage which I must reckon as the greatest and most pleasing of them, have been owing to some small degree of literary reputation. It will be hard to persuade me that any further services which your kindness may propose for me, or any in which my friends may wish to cooperate with you, will not be greatly facilitated by doing something to cultivate and keep alive the same reputation. I am fully sensible, that this reputation may be at least as much hazarded, as forwarded, by new publications. But because a certain oblivion is the consequence, to writers of my inferior class, of an entire neglect of publication, I consider it such a risk as sometimes must be run. For this purpose, some short time, at convenient intervals, and especially at the dead time of the year, will be requisite to study and consult proper books. These times, as you very well know, cannot be easily defined; nor indeed is it necessary they should. The matter may be very easily settled by a good understanding between ourselves; and by a discreet liberty, which I think you would not wish to restrain, nor I to abuse. I am not so unreasonable, nor absurd enough, to think I have any title to so considerable a share in your interest as I have had, and hope still to have, without any or but an insignificant return on my side; especially as I am conscious that my best and most continued endeavours are of no very great value. I know that your business ought, on all occasions, to have the preference; to be the first and the last, and, indeed, in all respects, the main concern. All I contend for is, that I may not be considered as absolutely excluded from all other thoughts, in their proper time and due subordination; the fixing the times for them, to be left entirely to yourself.

I do not remember that, hitherto, any pursuit has been stopped, or any plan left defective, through my inattention, or through my attention to other matters; and I protest to God, I have applied to whatever you have thought proper to and alacrity, and even an eagerness, that

set me,

with a

vigour

I never felt in any affair of my own whatsoever. If you have not observed this, you have not, I think, observed with your usual sagacity. But if you have observed it, and attributed it to an interested design, which will cease when its end is in any degree answered, my mind bears me witness that you do not do me justice. I act almost always from my present impulse, and with little scheme or design; and perhaps, generally, with too little. If you think what I have proposed unreasonable, my request is that you will, which you may very easily do, get my Lord Halifax to postpone the pension, and afterwards to drop it. We shall go on as before, until some other more satisfactory matter occurs. For I should ill brook an accusation, either direct or implied, that I had through your friendship acquired a considerable establishment, and afterwards neglected to make any fair return in my power. The thought of this has given me great pain; and I would not be easy without coming to some explanation upon it. In the light I consider things, it can create no great difficulty; but it may possibly, to you, appear otherwise. Let this be how it will, I can never forget the obligations-the very many and great obligations-which I have already had to you; and which, in any situation, will always give you a right to call on me for anything within my compass. If I do not often acknowledge my sense of them, it is because I know you are not very fond of professions, nor am I very clever at making them. You will take in good part this liberty; which, sincerely, is not made for the purpose of exercising my pen impertinently. Two words from you would settle the point, one way or another.

I am, with the utmost truth, ever yours,

EDM. BURKE.

TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. DEAR SIR,

Your letter, which I received about four o'clock yesterday, seemed not to have been written with an intention of being answered. However, on considering the matter this morning, I thought it respectful to you, and, in a manner, necessary to myself, to say something to those heavy charges which you have made against me in our last con

versations; and which, with a polite acrimony in the expression, you have thought proper to repeat in your letter.

I should, indeed, be extremely unhappy, if I felt any consciousness at all of that unkindness, of which you have so lively a sense. In the six years during which I have had the honour of being connected with you, I do not know that I have given you one just occasion of complaint; and if all things have not succeeded every way to your wishes, I may appeal to your own equity and candour, whether the failure was owing to anything wrong in my advice, or inattention in my conduct; I can honestly affirm, and your heart will not contradict me, that in all cases I preferred your interest to my own. I made you, and not myself, the first object in every deliberation. I studied your advancement, your fortune, and your reputation in everything, with zeal and earnestness; and sometimes with an anxiety, which has made many of my hours miserable. Nobody could be more ready than I was to acknowledge the obligations I had to you; and if I thought, as in some instances I did, and do still think, I had cause of dissatisfaction, I never expressed it to others, or made yourself uneasy about them. I acted, in every respect, with a fidelity which, I trust, cannot be impeached. If there be any part of my conduct in life, upon which I can look with entire satisfaction, it is my behaviour with regard to you.

So far as to the past: with regard to the present, what is that unkindness and misbehaviour of which you complain? My heart is full of friendship to you; and is there a single point which the best and most intelligent men have fixed, as a proof of friendship and gratitude, in which I have been deficient, or in which I threaten a failure? What you blame is only this, that I will not consent to bind myself to you, for no less a term than my whole life, in a sort of domestic situation, for a consideration to be taken out of your private fortune; that is, to circumscribe my hopes, to give up even the possibility of liberty, and absolutely to annihilate myself for ever. I beseech you, is the demand, or the refusal, the act of unkindness? If ever such a test of friendship was proposed, in any instance, to any man living, I admit that my conduct has been unkind; and, if you please, ungrateful.

« PreviousContinue »