contemplate with admiration the powers and resources of Mr. Burke's extraordinary mind, we have found ourselves more impressed than usual with the letters now before us; more than by any publication which has come from his pen since the celebrated book cf 1790, on the French revolution. We have scen even more regular and finished excellence in this than in that composition. The splendors of that tract were sudden and astonishing; they flashed like lightning upon the reader, and left him afterwards, for a time, in a state of comparative darkness; but here all is luminous, and the fire of the irradiating mind shines steadily from the beginning to the end. The energy and beauty of the language, the forco and liveliness of the images, the clearness and propriety of the historical allusions and illustrations, all combine to give an effect to these letters, not easily rivalled by the pen of any other writer. Age has certainly not impaired the genius of Mr. Burke; he asserts himself to be on the verge of the grave: "whatever I write," says he, "is in

its nature testamentary;" yet he writes with the vigour of a man who had just attained the maturity of his talents.'

The amount of his reasoning is this:The system of France is impious, enormously wicked, and destructive to all within its sphere: we must either conquer it, or be destroyed ourselves. Peace would enable it to operate rapidly to our ruin: let us, there fore, avoid peace. Although the idea of

eternal war with the Jacobins must, to us of common apprehension, appear extravagant, and ultimately ruinous, yet it must be admitted that the views and conduct of the French rulers are such as to shew that peace is at present impracticable, and to justify Burke's reasoning as applicable to present circumstances. Considering peace as the most pernicious policy, he exhorts his countrymen to vigour and perseverance in combating an irremediable evil. His exhortation is very eloquent, and, as far as respects present circumstances, replete with the soundest reasoning and most salutary lessons of conduct. To encourage the ex

ertion absolutely necessary for the salvation of the country, he shews that our resources are such as, if wisely directed to the great and main object, may save the country. His cloquence, founded in truth, addresses to his fellow subjects the most powerful motives to bring into action their physical and moral resources. A dreadful evil impends. By energetic.efforts we can be saved; by pusillanimity, relaxation, or indifference, we must be ruined."

I shall forbear selecting passages from this extraordinary work, because it has been so recently in the hands of all readers.

Several answers were attempted to Burke's Thoughts on a Regicide Peace; some of them very abusive. Burke, had, indeed, at almost every period of his life been the object of scurrility and invective: attacks which all eminent men must pay, who speak and act according to their own perceptions of truth and of rectitude. The part that he took on the French revolution, and on the

dissemination of Jacobinical doctrines in these realms, made him detested by all those who wished these doctrines to be reduced to practice. Catiline's Rights of Man conspirators reviled Cicero. Burke threw upon their designs light: they loved darkness better. The description of the English Jacobins in the Regicide Peace,' so just and so animated, inflamed that body with rage. One of their Apostles, in a rhapsody of abuse, comprising almost every scurrilous term the language could afford, has a conclusion, which the Monthly Review' notices as very laughable. John Thelwall calls Edmund Burke a scribbler!'

The

Thoughts' underwent in the Monthly Review' the ablest and most complete discussion that any work of the author had undergone since Mackintosh's answer to the • Reflexions.'

Mr. Burke about this time received a visit from a very eminent literary gentleman, who has been so kind as to communicate to me various particulars of the conversation which

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took place, and the deportment of his host. Part of the communications is interspersed in different parts of the volumes; the remainder I shall insert here.

The visitant went prepossessed with the very highest idea of merit which he could analyse, comprehend, and appreciate. The first address of the host was extremely striking, and suggested to the guest the idea of chivalrous hospitality. His powers of conversation were wonderful: in extent and minuteness of detail, as well as the most profound and expanded philosophy; in playfulness, in humour, wit, serious imagery, beautiful, grand, and diversified. An instance of his correctness in point of fact, he exhibited in a statement of the poor's rates of fifty parishes in Buckinghamshire, during the time he had been at Beaconsfield; he also gave the history and progress of the farming, the improvements, rents, and taxes. The conversation having turned upon literary subjects, the guest had an opportunity of hearing him talk of David Hume. The