trial by jury, to re-establish the French mode in its place, and to appoint a council dependent on the King's pleasure. This bill originated in the House of Lords. In opposing it in the House of Commons, Burke principally gave vent to his humour, in which, though he abounded, it seldom formed the leading characteristic of any of his speeches.

During the recess after this session, Burke received, at Beaconsfield, a visit from his friend Johnson. On viewing Burke's beautiful villa, he exclaimed, in the words of the exiled Mantuan to the restored Virgil,

Non equidem in video miror magis.

Although these two great men had frequently political disputes in town, here there was no altercation. The polite host refrained from - subjects of contention. The guest had so much breeding as to abstain from unprovoked attacks, in his own house, on a man of the most engaging hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Burke exerted themselves to please their illustrious visitor, whom Mr. Burke venerated for kindred genius, and his lady, because so prized by her husband; and so effectually studied his pleasure, that he declared he never passed his time with so much delight and instruction. Indeed, the sole con versation of each other must have been, to those eminent personages, a treat which they seldom experienced. In town they often met, but though generally in company respectable for

talents and knowledge, far inferior to themselves.

Burke's attention to the sage did not prevent him from bestowing every mark of polite attention on his other guests. He, as a landlord, exercised that hospitality which is the result of good sense and good dispositions, polished by an extensive intercourse with the politest society; dividing his attention to his different guests, and drawing every one of them to con. verse on the subjects with which he knew them best acquainted. Mrs. Thrale, who might very probably construe the politeness of Burke into an admiration of those talents and acquirements with which she herself and many others believed her to be endowed, declares it was a most delightful party. Burke made his guests pleased with themselves, with each other, and consequently with their entertainer. Although his fulness could not avoid venting itself, yet did he manage his conversation so as not to mortify others by a sense of their inferiority, or overbear them with his powers. They felt they were delighted, and knew they were instructed by the discourse, without being drawn to a humiliating comparison with the speaker. He never brought his strength to a comparative trial, unless provoked by an attack, nor indeed always then.

Mrs. Thrale, who has been more careful in marking the defects of her friend's manners

than the perfections of his understanding, the former being, probably, more within the reach of her observation than the latter, mentions a strange compliment paid by Johnson to Burke at parting. The general election called them all different ways. Mr. Burke being to set out for Bristol, to stand candidate, for which he had been invited by a great majority of the electors-Johnson, taking him by the hand, said, "Farewell, my dear Sir! and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you by an honest man ;" words containing an insinuation not very polite to his kind host. Burke took no notice of that mark of his friend's breeding. Though the high church bigotry of Johnson made him an enemy to the politics of a philosophical Whig, yet he continued uniformly a friend to Burke; and the praises of Edmund was one of his favourite themes. As he launched out one day at Streatham on his merits, an Irish trader present was so delighted to hear his countryman so praised by one whom he heard to be the wisest man in England, said to the Doctor," give me leave to tell you something of Mr. Burke." He began-" Mr. Burke went to see the collieries in a distant province; and he would go down, Sir, into the bowels of the earth (in a bag), and he would examine every thing he went in a bag, Sir, and ventured his life for knowledge; but he took care of his

clothes, that they should not be spoiled, for he went down in a bag.' Well, Sir, (said Johnson, good humoured) if our friend Mund. should die in any of these hazardous exploits, you and I would write his life and panegyric together; and your chapter of it should be entitled thus-" Burke in a bag."

This year Johnson and Burke lost their friend Goldsmith, whom they both loved and regarded; his meríts much overbalancing his foibles and defects. Dr. Johnson wrote the Latin epitaph, which is so well known.

The club had now considerably increased its numbers, and received several members destined to act a conspicuous part on the great political stage, whom I shall mention when I come to their performance on that theatre. A party of eleven gentlemen dined one day at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, all, except Sir William Forbes, acquainted with Goldsmith; all men of great respectability, some of them of literary eminence short only of Johnson's, and one equal to the sage. The conversation turned on Johnson's epitaph, and various altera.. tions and corrections were suggested. But the question was who should have the courage to propose them to the author. At last it was resolved that there could be no way so good as that of a Round Robin.

Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Limerick, drew up an address to Johnson on the occasion, which, it was feared by the rest, the Doctor might

think treated the subject with too much levity. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the Round Robin, and Sir William Forbes officiated as clerk. *

Round Robin addressed to Samuel Johnson, L.L.D. drawn up by Edmund Burke.

"We, the circumscribers, + having read with great pleasure, an intended Epitaph for the Monument of Dr. Goldsmith; which, considered abstractly, appears to be, for elegant composition and masterly style, in every respect worthy of the pen of its learned author; are yet of opinion, that the character of the deceased as a writer, particularly as a poet, is perhaps not delineated with all the exactness which Dr. Johnson is capable of giving it. We therefore, with deference to his superior judgment, humbly request that he would, at least, take the trouble of revising it; and of making such additions and alterations as he shall think proper, upon a farther perusal. But if we might venture to express our wishes, they would lead us to request that he would write the epitaph

*Boswell's Life of Johnson.

The Robin was written within a circle, formed by the names of Edmund Burke, Thomas Franklin, Anthony Chamier, G. Colman, Will. Vaskell, Joshua Reynolds, William Forbes, T. Barnard, R. B. Sheridan, P. Metcalfe, E. Gibbon, Joseph Warton,