that insolent impeachment. "I am not descended from members of Parliament," he said. "I am not descended from any distinguished character whatever. My father left me nothing in the world but good principles, good instruction, good example, which I have not departed from." Nor was it in the house alone, or simply upon public grounds, that such attacks were made.' A churchman, Dr. Mark 1 No man in public life was ever subjected to more unscrupulous attacks on his private character than Burke. In the very year to which I have brought my narrative, so foul was the bitterness of party strife that even the respectable Advertiser opened its columns to the most gross imputations on "the brothers and their cousin" (by which expression Edmund and Richard Burke, and their relative William, were well understood), as part of a "knot of knaves" engaged in disreputable schemes to raise the price of India bonds. Unfortunately a certain color had been given to such charges by the undoubted fact that William and Richard Burke, with their friend Dyer and others, had speculated in the new stock and lost considerably. It involved poor Dyer's utter bankruptcy; and Hawking alludes either to William or Edmund Burke, whom he always does his best to avoid naming directly, when he remarks that "the last office of human ity towards him was performed by one of those who had been accessory to this ruin."-Life of Johnson, 231. But Edmund afterwards most solemnly averred that he was not himself involved in these transactions, and I implicitly believe him. Even the statement which Mr. Nichols makes in his Recollections and Reflections (i. 54–55), and which I quote as the sum of what one of the bitterest of Burke's opponents could collect and retail on this head, he is obliged to confess, "I know only from the relation of others," though he adds, "I believe it to be true." Here it is: "Soon after Mr. Edmund Burke became a political character, he, and his cousin William Burke, embarked in a speculation in India stock. They prevailed on many of their friends to join them, among others, on Earl Verney" (Verney was an Irish peer who represented Buckinghamshire in several later Parliaments, but at this time sat for Carmarthen), "who fell a victim to this connection. They used much solicitation with Sir Joshua Reynolds to join them, but he was dissuaded from it by Anthony Chamier, for which Anthony Chamier, as he told me himself, was never forgiven by the Burkes." (How loose and little to be depended upon are assertions so worded, under which Edmund may or may not be included, needs not be pointed out.) "This speculation was at first extremely successful, but at last it failed. William Burke and Lord Verney were announced as the defaulters; and Edmund Burke's name was concealed." Yet the man who wrote this passage, on mere hearsay, took afterwards an active personal part against Burke in the House of Commons on the impeachment of Hastings, whom he was put forward to defend against two of the leading charges; and it is credible that with the desperate resentments which then sprang ham, who had been his own early associate and was godfather to his son, had lately received a mitre from Lord Mansfield, and abuse of his seventeen years' friend might seem to have been the condition of the gift. He called up against the originator of that impeachment, and which arrayed against him in unrelenting animosity the countless clients and satellites of the still powerful ex-Governor-General, Burke could have remained uncrushed by the proof of imputations of that kind, if any means of proof existed ?— Since this note was written I have regretted to observe these scandals against Burke revived by an able and well-informed writer in the Athenaum (17th December, 1853), who finds it difficult otherwise to account for his purchase of Gregories so soon after his entrance into political life, etc. As this writer, however, does not carry the matter beyond the sort of suspicion already remarked upon above, I will only add, as to the Beaconsfield purchase, and the sudden rise into political notoriety, what we receive on even the unfavorable testimony of the Recollections and Reflections above quoted. Nichols says that, on Lord Rockingham first coming into office, his inexperience in regard to public business was such as to render it absolutely necessary to have a person about him acquainted with political subjects and accustomed to laborious application, and that every one felt the selection of Burke to be a discreet and natural one at that time. "He was an author in the service of Mr. Dodsley, the bookseller; he had conducted for that gentleman the Annual Register," etc. . . . 'His political knowledge might be considered almost as an Encyclopædia.” "Every man who approached him received instruction from his stores; and his failings were not visible at that time," etc. . . . "When Mr. Burke entered into the service of the Marquis of Rockingham he was not rich, but the munificent generosity of that nobleman," etc. . . . "Mr. Burke purchased a beautiful villa at Beaconsfield, which was paid for by the Marquis of Rockingham," etc. .. "But his liberality was not confined to the person of Mr. Burke; he procured for Mr. William Burke, his cousin and most confidential connection, the employment of Under-Secretary of State to General Conway; and he gave to Mr. Edmund Burke's brother, Richard Burke, the place of Collector to the Customs at Grenada. I mention these circumstances to show," etc.-i. 20-21. Nichols had at least the means of knowing personally what he thus relates, for with Lord Rockingham he was in the habit of personal intercourse. He was the son of George the Second's physician, and sat in three parliaments in George the Third's reign. I may add that Richard Burke had already gone out to the West India islands before his brother's formal connection with Lord Rockingham-a fact which might, perhaps, be so construed as to explain some apparent inconsistencies in the date of his appointment. On the 17th July, 1764, Edmund announces to their friend Shackleton that " poor Dick was to set off the next week for the Grenadas; and he proceeds to write of the uncertainty of his prospects, and of the impending voyage as an attempt to improve |