HIS ENTRY AT THE TEMPLE.

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posure of the absurdity of violent harangues about wild democratic innovations.

In Burke's correspondence, at and about this time, with his friend Shackleton and others, one cannot but be struck with his early acquisition of that deeply religious and moral style of thought and tone which characterised him through life. His letters to Shackleton, published among those edited by Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke, may be always read in their entirety with pleasure and advantage. Many of these were written while Burke was in, or little past his teens; and there frequently occur such expressions as the following:

"I assure you, my friend, that without the superior grace of God, I shall find it very difficult to be commonly virtuous."

"It is one of the subtlest stratagems the enemy of mankind uses to delude us, that by lulling us into a false security his conquest may be the easier. We should always be in no other than the state of a penitent, because the most righteous of us is no better than a sinner."

"Providence never intended to much the greater part an entire life of ease and quiet. A peaceable, honourable, and affluent decline of life must be purchased by a laborious or hazardous youth; and every day I think more and more that it is well worth the purchase. Poverty and age sort very ill together; and a course of struggling is miserable indeed when strength is decayed and hope gone. Turpe senex miles."

"Advice should proceed from a desire to improve; never from a desire to reproach."

Parting from a relative or friend, if I may make such a comparison, is like the sensation a good man is said to feel at the hour of death."

Edmund Burke was intended by his father for the bar; he was consequently entered at the Middle Temple on the 23d April, 1747. In 1750 he came to keep his terms in London.

BURKE'S STUDENT-LIFE.

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BURKE'S STUDENT-LIFE-ARTHUR MURPHY-BURKE'S ASSOCIATION WITH LITERATURE-HIS EARLY SUCCESS AS A WRITER-MISS WOFFINGTON— "THE VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY"-THE " ESSAY ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL" - SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, DR. JOHNSON, MACKLIN GLASGOW-AMERICA.

ACCORDING to the earnest desire of his father, and pursuant also to his own purpose at the time, Burke forthwith made preparations to become a barrister, and commenced the study of the law. But the narrow and tedious path which leads to legal display and forensic triumph soon became far too confined and lengthy for a mind already at the goal of so much knowledge, and conscious of powers that would brook no delay, and must be at once in action. The ripe fruit of the man's genius was ready to be plucked, and might possibly have withered under prolonged cultivation. Law he read, it is true, and as with all other information within his reach, he quickly grasped its theory and principles, mastering the science so as to effectively serve his purpose upon some important occasions in his subsequent career. Burke, in one of his letters, makes the following apt remark as to forensic study: "The law," he writes, causes no difficulty to those who readily understand it, and to those who never will understand it; and for all between these extremes, God knows, they have a hard task of it."

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exclusive drudgery customarily imposed on the law-student, Burke fled to the common and dangerous, but in his case very fortunate refuge, literature. Yet even here, though his talents speedily placed him high among authors, it would seem that he took to writing merely as the readiest means to the great end foreshadowed, though still scarcely distinct, to his aspiring vision.

Another motive for Burke's early truancy towards the law may be ascribed to his acquaintance with a fellow-student and fellow-countryman, some few years his senior, who, like himself, was paying court to the Muses within the atmosphere of the forum. This was Arthur Murphy, a name eminent in dramatic and other

branches of English literature. Arthur Murphy was the author of an able standard translation of Tacitus, which, by the way, he

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ARTHUR MURPHY, ESQ.

dedicated to Edmund Burke: he also wrote many charming dramas; some of them remain in vogue even to this day. His Way to keep Him is a chef-d'œuvre. Murphy's life was indeed varied. Educated for a merchant, he relinquished the toils of traffic for

BURKE AND ARTHUR MURPHY.

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literature; he not only wrote for the stage, but he acted upon it, and successfully too. He was popular at Covent Garden theatre in some tragic characters, such as that of Othello. He was afterwards called to the bar in 1762, and went the Norfolk circuit. He died at Knightsbridge in 1805, a retired commissioner of bankrupts, with a pension of 2007. a year.

Murphy was both a wit and a gentleman; he was the friend of Dr. Johnson, and was intimate with all the leading men of the day. He was, when Burke first met him, editing the well-known Gray's Inn Journal. The discovery of such an associate proved invaluable to Burke; it opened to him the very society and resources he sought. Murphy found no less pleasure in knowing Burke. The introduction thus took place: Mr. Thomas Kelly, a common friend of both, and Burke's bondsman at the Temple, said one day to Murphy, "You should, sir, know our countryman Burke; a strangely clever fellow, I assure you;" and he then launched out into much more praise about him. Bring us together," was Murphy's reply; and Kelly made a party soon after at his chambers, where the young gentlemen met each other. Mr. Murphy was filled with astonishment, not only at the brilliancy and force of his new acquaintance's genius, but at the extent and variety of the literary attainments of a man little more than twenty years of age. From that day he and Burke were friends through life.

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Of Mr. Burke's pecuniary means at this period conflicting accounts have been given. Some assert that he continually received large supplies from his family, and that he was extremely well off. Others say that it was not so, and that he was driven to his pen for a livelihood. The truth most probably lies between. Burke's father, a flourishing attorney in easy circumstances, made his son unquestionably a fair allowance, such as suited the wants and ways of a law-student; but Burke, be it observed, sought from the beginning a higher and more prominent position. To extravagance, in the sense of money thrown away upon debauchery and dissipation, Burke was ever a stranger; but he was neverthe