Mr. Sheridan, in the mean time, had moved to postpone the re-commitment till after the holidays. In fupporting his motion, he declared that his objections were not to any particular regulations; they were fundamental, they went to the principle of the bill itself. He feems to have been understood by the minifter as announcing an oppofition founded on abftract principles of government; fomething in the tone already given by Mr. Fox, that the bill was not fufficiently accommodated to the new lights and modern philofophy of liberty. But this was afterwards denied by Mr. Sheridan, who trufted alfo that when the bill did come under confideration, every other difcuffion, but that arifing from the fubject of the bill itself, would be averted. Mr. Taylor caught up the intimation, and carried it a little further. He obferved, that the bufinefs had been improperly treated, as involving the confideration of general principles of government, and the conftitutions of other countries: on which ground infinuations had been thrown out againft fome members of the oppofition party. But he gave notice, that if the minifter, or any other right honourable gentleman, fhould wander from the proper difcuflion of the fubject, he should call him to order, and take the fenfe of the houfe upon the occafion.

Here was a palpable allufion to Mr. Burke. Yet he did not rife to answer.

During the recefs, fome common friends tried one or two mere unavailing experiments on Mr. Burke's affections: others, defpairing to thake his refolution, inveighed against him with very little referve. The daily prints, in the intereft of the oppofition-party, opened all their fluices upon him. The plot for the exclufion of Mr. Fox from power was bruited about, notwithstanding it had already been in effect denied and refuted by Mr. Burke; while, on the other hand, the papers favourable to the minifter re-echoed another and more criminal plot, in which they held up Mr. Burke, not mach

much more honourably, in the character of king's evidence, who had impeached his accomplices. The pencil too was called into the aid of the pen, and paragraphs were embodied in caricatures. In the mean time, however, Mr. Fox enjoyed one folid advantage from that which had paffed immediately before the holidays, as the explanation which he thought right to give of his former fpeeches, was left unaccompanied by a fingle adverfe remark of Mr. Burke or Mr. Pitt, to imprefs itself on the minds of all by its own weight. Accordingly his party represented him as having removed every imputation against him. Mr. Burke, therefore, muft have felt fo much the lefs delicacy in bringing the fubject forward, as it could no longer prove a perfonal injury to his friend.

Our limits are at variance with our inclinations; and we cannot follow thefe extraordinary men through those interefting difcuffions which the Quebec bill produced. Mr. Fox made no scruple of avowing his admiration of the French revolution; nor Mr. Burke of defending that attachment which he had felt from infancy for the forms and conftitution of his ancestors. In reply to the fpeeches of Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke did not take notice of being reprefented as a vain man, a troublesome member of the house, and a dreamer of vifionary dangers; but fimply remarked, that having paffed his youth without encountering any party difgrace, he had been fo unfortunate indeed as to incur it in his age; nevertheless he wished it to be understood, that he folicited not the friendship of any man, or of any party in that house. If he confented to accept the return of old friendship from thofe with whom he had acted till now, he would enjoy it from their esteem, not from their weakness; from their juftice, not from their humanity. It was propofed to him to repent, as the condition of being again refpected and loved; but he would never, with contrition and penitence, court a reconciliation to which, as a preliminary, he must make a facrifice of thofe prin

les of the conftitution in which he had been educaed, and which through life he had approved, admired, and defended.

During the recefs of 1794, Mr. Burke quitted the fenate in favour of his fon. If we estimate the merits of this young man by the terms in which his father has mentioned him, we fhall find no difficulty in the procefs: but we must abate fomething of parental partiality. Whatever were the talents of young Burke, he did not live to evince them according to the hopes of an indulgent father. Mr. Burke, in his letter to the duke of Bedford, has spoken of this bereavement in very affecting language. He certainly doated on his only child: he never could be prevailed upon to enter the church of Beaconsfield, after the remains of his fon had been interred in that place; and he has left in MS. a few memorials of that life which was by far dearer to him than his own.

But his mind was yet unimpaired. And he feemed, towards the clofe of his career, to act with all the promptitude of genius, and the energy of a decifive foul. His own forrows were great, but the forrows of Europe were greater. Nurtured as he was in the firft principles of independence, and ingrafted with his country, he could not liften to that humiliating fyftem; that fyftem of littleness and fpeculation, which, obtaining fast hold in the politics of modern courts, threatened an utter deftruction to all the regulating principles of Englifh profperity and glory. Under these important confiderations he published his Letters on a Regicide Peace. Thefe, with his Three Memorials, will convince this nation, if prejudice does not prove fatal to truth, that Mr. Burke was unbiaffed and independent: he was truly independent in his conduct, and unbiaffed by any confiderations, except the feelings of a generous humanity, the collected experience and the digefted wildom of ages.

The admiration which he had won in early life, as an interefting and amiable companion in private fociety, increased

increased with his years. Those who knew not Mr. Burke within the circle of friendship, knew him only by halves. He was always what he appeared-the fcholar and the gentleman; the entertaining and inftructive companion; at once polite-yet friendly, fo. cial-yet refpectful. In his friendships he was firm, trong, and unalterable. He had great benevolence, and enlarged ideas of philanthropy. The catholic and the proteftant were to him as the offspring of one beneficent head.

For fome period before his decease, he conftantly and daily vifited an inftitution at Penn, three miles from Beaconsfield, for the education and fupport of emigrantchildren, whofe fathers had fallen abroad. They were instructed in military tactics by a baron, who had served; and in the sciences, by three French abbées. Of this feminary, Mr. Burke and the Marquis of Buckingham were the founders: and he was particularly fond of a little boy who, at the age of twelve, found means to efcape, and join a part of the royalift army then under the command of his father. He ferved in it till discovered by his father; and was then remanded to Beaconffield. The uniform of this fchool confifted in the Wind.. for coat, with the buttons of the fleur de lys.

Conver

Mr. Burke was not unmindful of his end. fing with a young lady, fome weeks previous to his diffolution, fhe took occafion to remark on the beauty of the hedges which furrounded his garden, and in which he prided himself on a fingular neatness, having attended their progress to that day. "Ah! my dear madam!" faid Mr. Burke, "they will be very handfome : but not for me."

Yet he appeared neither to with nor to dread, but patiently and placidly to wait the hour appointed to all living. He had been liftening to fome effays of Addifon, in which he ever took delight; he had recommended himself in many affectionate meffages to the remembrance of thofe abfent friends whom he had never

ceafed

ceafed to love; he had converfed fome time with his accustomed force of thought and expreffion, on the awful fituation of his country, for the welfare of which his heart was interefted to the last beat; he had given with fteady compofure fome private directions, in contemplation of his approaching death; when, as his attendants were conveying him to his bed, he funk down, and after a fhort ftruggle, paffed quietly, and without a groan, to eternal rest, in that mercy which he had just declared he had long fought with unfeigned humiliation, and to which he looked with a trembling hope. Thus died the right honourable Edmund Burke, on Saturday, July the 8th, 1797, at his feat at Beaconffield, in the 68th year of his age, and after a long and painful illness which he bore with the fortitude of a chriftian. He was interred in the fame vault as his fon : the proceffion confifted of a hearfe and fix, two moureing coaches, the family coach, and a numerous train of the inhabitants of Beaconsfield. The following were pall-bearers-the duke of Portland, the duke of Devonshire, earl Fitzwilliam, the lord Chancellor, Speaker of the house of commons, and Mr. Wyndham.

It was our wish to have completed the Memoirs of Mr. Burke in this Number; but we found it impoffible to do juftice to his character within the compafs to which we had affigned ourselves. Our next Number will take a retrofpect of his writings and fpeeches; and, we believe, conclude the prefent biography.

THE