little impartiality and temper. I hope I have said nothing in our last interview which could urge you to the passion you speak of. If anything fell which was strong in the expression, I believe it was from you, and not from me, and it is right that I should hear more than I then heard. I said nothing, but what I took the liberty of mentioning to you a year ago, in Dublin: I gave you no reason to think I had made any change in my resolution. We, notwithstanding, have ever since, until within these few days proceeded as usual. Permit me to do so again. No man living can have a higher veneration than I have, for your abilities; or can set a higher value on your friendship, as a great private satisfaction, and a very honourable distinction. I am much obliged to you for the favour you intend me, in sending to me in three or four days (if you do not send sooner); when you have had time to consider this matter coolly. I will again call at your door, and hope to be admitted; I beg it, and entreat it. At the same time do justice to the single motive which I have for desiring this favour, and desiring it in this manner. I have not wrote all this tiresome matter, in hopes of bringing on an altercation in writing, which you are so good to me as to decline personally; and which, in either way, I am most solicitous to shun. What I say is, on reviewing it, little more than I have laid before you in another manner. It certainly requires no answer. I ask pardon for my prolixity, which my anxiety to stand well in your opinion has caused. I am, with great truth, Your most affectionate and most obliged humble servant EDM. BURKE. CLXXXIII. The following very interesting correspondence, typical alike of the manner of Sir Philip Francis and Edmund Burke, refers to the intended publication of the 'Reflections on the French Revolution.' The year 1790 produced nothing more startling; no less than 30,000 copies of the volume were sold before the first flash of public curiosity was satisfied. That the great Whig statesman should have expressed more than ordinary anxiety at so terrible a crisis as the French Revolution, and that he should have been the first among the political chieftains of his day to quail before its excesses is consistent with his impres sionable and impetuous nature; but no one anticipated he would Philip Francis to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke. February 19, 1790. My dear Mr. Burke,-I am sorry you should have had the trouble of sending for the printed paper you lent me yesterday, though I own I cannot much regret even a fault of my own that helps to delay the publication of that paper. I know with certainty that I am the only friend, and many there are, who ventures to contradict or oppose you face to face on subjects of this nature. They either care too little for you, or too much for themselves, to run the risk of giving you immediate offence, for the sake of any subsequent or remote advantage you might derive from it. But what they withhold from you, they communicate very liberally to me; because they think, or pretend, that I have some influence over you, which I have not, but, which on the present occasion, I most devoutly wish I had. I am not afraid of exasperating you against me, at any given moment; because I know will cool again, and place it all to the right account. you It is the proper province, and ought to be the privilege of an inferior to criticise and advise. The best possible critic of the Iliad would be, ipso facto, and by virtue of that very character, incapable of being the author of it. Standing, as I do, in this relation to you, you would renounce your superiority, if you refused to be advised by me. Waiving all discussion concerning the substance and general tendency of this printed letter, I must declare my opinion that what I have seen of it is very loosely put together. In point of writing, at least, the manuscript you showed me first, was much less exceptionable. Remember that this is one of the most singular, that it may be the most distinguished, and ought to be one of the most deliberate acts of your life. Your writings have hitherto been the delight and instruction of your own country. You now undertake to correct and instruct another nation, and your appeal, in effect, is to all Europe. Allowing you the liberty to do so in an extreme case, you cannot deny that it ought to be done with special deliberation in the choice of the topics, and with no less care and circumspection in the use you make of them. Have you thoroughly considered whether it be worthy of Mr. Burke,—of a privycounsellor,-of a man so high and considerable in the House of Commons as you are,-and holding the station you have obtained in the opinion of the world, to enter into a war of pamphlets with Dr. Price? If he answered you, as assuredly he will, (and so will many others,) can you refuse to reply to a person whom you have attacked? If you do, you are defeated in a battle of your own provoking, and driven to fly from ground of your own choosing. If you do not, where is such a contest to lead you, but into a vile and disgraceful, though it were ever so victorious, an altercation ? 'Dii meliora.' But if you will do it, away with all jest, and sneer, and sarcasm ; let everything you say be grave, direct, and serious. In a case so interesting as the errors of a great nation, and the calamities of great individuals, and feeling them so deeply as you profess to do, all manner of insinuation is improper, all gibe and nick-name prohibited. In my opinion, all that you say of the queen is pure foppery. If she be a perfect female character, you ought to take your ground upon her virtues. If she be the rcverse, it is ridiculous in any but a lover, to place her personal charms in opposition to her crimes. Either way, I know the argument must proceed upon a supposition; for neither have you said anything to establish her moral merits, nor have her accusers formally tried and convicted her of guilt. On this subject, however, you cannot but know that the opinion of the world is not lately, but has been many years, decided. But in effect, when you assert her claim to protection and respect, on no other topics than those of gallantry, and beauty, and personal accomplishments, you virtually abandon the proof and assertion of her innocence, which you know is the point substantially in question. Pray, sir, how long have you felt yourself so desperately disposed to admire the ladies of Germany? I despise and abhor, as much as you can do, all personal insult and outrage, even to guilt itself, if I see it, where it ought to be, dejected and helpless; but it is in vain to expect that I, or any reasonable man, shall regret the sufferings of a Messalina, as I should those of a Mrs. Greive or a Mrs. Burke; I mean all that is beautiful or virtuous amongst women. Is it nothing but outside? Have they no moral minds? Or are you such a determined champion of beauty as to draw your sword in defence of any jade upon earth, provided she be handsome? Look back, I beseech you, and deliberate a little, before you determine that this is an office that perfectly becomes you. If I stop here, it is not for want of a multitude of objections. The mischief you are going to do yourself, is to my apprehension, palpable. It is visible. It will be audible. I snuff it in the wind. I taste it already. I feel it in every sense; and so will you hereafter; when, I vow to God, (a most elegant phrase,) it will be no sort of consolation for me to reflect that I did every thing in my power to prevent it. I wish you were at the devil for giving me all this trouble: and so farewell. P. FRANCIS. CLXXXIV. The Right Hon. Edmund Burke to Philip Francis. Gerard Street: February 20, 1790. My dear Sir,—I sat up rather late at Carlton House, and on my return hither, I found your letter on my table. I have not slept since. You will, therefore, excuse me if you find anything confused, or otherwise expressed than I could wish, in speaking upon a matter which interests you from your regard to me. There are some things in your letter for which I must thank you; there are others which I must answer ;—some things bear the mark of friendly admonition; others bear some resemblance to the tone of accusation. You are the only friend I have who will dare to give me advice; I must, therefore, have something terrible in me, which intimidates all others who know me from giving me the only unequivocal mark of their regard. Whatever this rough and menacing manner may be, I must search myself upon it; and when I discover it, old as I am, I must endeavour to correct it. I flattered myself, however, that you at least would not have thought my other friends justified in withholding from me their services of this kind. You certainly do not always convey to me your opinions with the greatest tenderness and management; and yet I do not recollect, since I first had the pleasure of your acquaintance. that there has been a heat or a coolness of a single day's duration, on my side, during that whole time. I believe your memory cannot present to you an instance of it. I ill deserve friends, if I throw them away on account of the candour and simplicity of their good nature. In particular you know, that you have in some instances, favoured me with your instructions relative to things I was preparing for the public. If I did not in every instance agree with you, I think you had, on the whole sufficient proofs of my docility, to make you believe that I received your corrections, not only without offence, but with no small degree of gratitude. Your remarks upon the first two sheets of my Paris letter, relate to the composition and the matter. The composition, you say, is louse, and I am quite sure of it :-I never intended it should be otherwise. For, purporting to be, what in truth it originally was,—a letter to a friend, I had no idea of digesting it in a systematic order. The style is open to correction, and wants it. My natural style of writing is somewhat careless, and I should be happy in receiving your advice towards making it as little vicious as such a style is capable of being made. The general character and colour of a style, which grows out of the writer's peculiar turn of mind and habit of expressing his thoughts, must be attended to in all corrections. It is not the insertion of a piece of stuff, though of a better kind, which is at all times an improvement. Your main objections are, however, of a much deeper nature, and go to the political opinions and moral sentiments of the piece, in which I find, though with no sort of surprise, having often talked with you on the subject,-that we differ only in every thing. You say, 'the mischief you are going to do yourself, is to my apprehension palpable; I snuff it in the wind, and my taste sickens at it.' This anticipated stench, that turns your stomach at such a distance, must be nauseous indeed. You seem to think I shall incur great (and not wholly undeserved) infamy, by this publication. This makes it a matter of some delicacy to me, to suppress what I have written; for I must admit in my own feelings, and in that of those who have seen the piece, that my sentiments and opinions deserve the infamy with which they are threatened. If they do not, I know nothing more than that I oppose |