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Edmund Burke
by
The wide encompassing quality of Burke’s mind made him a man among men. Just how much he lent his power in those early days to assist those in high places who needed him, we do not know. Such services were sacred to him–done in friendship and in confidence, and held as steadfast as a good lawyer holds the secrets of his client.
No doubt, though, that the one speech which gave glory and a nickname to Single-Speech Hamilton was written by Burke. It was wise, witty and profound–and never again did Hamilton do a thing that rose above the dull and deadly mediocre.
It was a rival of Burke’s who said, “He is the only man since Cicero who is a great orator, and who can write as well as he can talk.”
That Burke wrote the lectures of Sir Joshua Reynolds is now pretty generally believed; in fact, that he received the goodly sum of four thousand pounds for writing these lectures has been proved to the satisfaction of a jury. Burke never said he wrote the Reynolds lectures, and Sir Joshua left it to his valet to deny it. But read the lectures now and you will see the stately step of Bolingbroke, and the insight, wit and gravity of the man who said: “Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. If it is the pleasure of the House that all the heaviest folios known to us should be here read aloud, I am in honor bound to graciously submit, but only this I ask, that proceedings shall be suspended long enough for me to send home for my nightcap.”
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Presently Burke graduated from doing hack-work for William Gerard Hamilton to the position of his private secretary–Hamilton had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and so highly did he prize Burke’s services that he had the Government vote him a pension of three hundred pounds a year. This was the first settled income Burke had ever received, and he was then well past thirty years of age. But though he was in sore straits financially, when he perceived that the intent of the income was to bind him into the exclusive service of his patron, he resigned his office and refused the pension.
Without knowing how wisely he was acting, Burke, by declining the pension and affronting Lord Hamilton, had done the very thing that it was most expedient to do.
When Hamilton could not buy his man, he foolishly sought to crush him, and this brought Burke for the first time into the white light of publicity.
I suppose it is fully understood that the nobility of England are not necessarily either cultured or well-read. Literature to most of the titled gentry is a blank, my lord–it is so now and always has been so. Burke’s brilliant books were not sufficient to make him famous except among the Elect Few; but the episode with Lord Hamilton set the gossips by the ears, and all who had never read Burke’s books now pretended they had.
Burke was a national character–such a man merely needs to be known to be wanted–strong men are always needed. The House of Commons opened its doors to him–several boroughs competing with each other for the favor of being represented by him.
A political break-up with opportunity came along, and we find the Marquis of Rockingham made Premier, and Edmund Burke his secretary. It was Fitzherbert who recommended Burke to Rockingham, and Fitzherbert is immortal for this and for the fact that Johnson used him to point a moral. Said Doctor Johnson: “A man is popular more through negative qualities than positive ones. Fitzherbert is the most acceptable man in London because he never overpowers any one by the superiority of his talents, makes no man think worse of himself by being his rival, seems always ready to listen, does not oblige you to hear much from him, and never opposes what you say.”