well-known pamphlet, entitled, 'A Vindication of Natural Society,' for some time supposed to be a posthumous work of Henry Lord Bolingbroke. To assume the style and character of such a writer, who had passed through all the high gradations of official knowledge for near half-a-century,—a fine scholar,—a most ready and eloquent speaker, and the most nervous writer of his time,—was perhaps one of the boldest attempts ever undertaken, particularly when it is considered by whom. By a young man, a stranger to the manners, habits, and college connexions of the literati of this country; who could have no near view of the great character he imitated, and whose time of life would not permit of those long and gradual experiments by which excellence of any kind is to be obtained; but great and extraordinary minds have a consciousness of their own strength, which is their best and truest adviser; and Burke felt himself equal to the task. When this publication first appeared, almost every body received it as a posthumous work of Lord Bolingbroke; and so far from being looked upon as one of those hasty sketches of his youth, or the gleanings of old age, it was praised up to the standard of his best writing. The critics knew the turn of his periods, his style, his phrases, and above all, the matchless dexterity of his metaphysical pen. Charles Macklin, with the pamphlet in his hand, used frequently to exclaim at the Grecian Coffee-house, (where he gave a kind of literary law to the young templars at that time,)"Sir, this must be Harry Bolingbroke; I know him by his cloven foot!" Even the earl of Chesterfield, who so intimately knew the noble lord, and has drawn such a masterly portrait of him in his letters, confessed that he was for some time deceived on this point; and a still better judge, Bishop Warburton, was at first so much deceived as to exclaim to a friend, "You see, Sir, the fellow's principles; they now come out in a full blaze." His Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful' attracted much notice, and acquired him considerable celebrity as a man of letters. It excited a desire in Sir Joshua Reynolds-already at the head of his profession-to become acquainted with the author, and a friendship ensued which continued uninterrupted during the life of the great painter, and was unequivocally testified by a handsome bequest in his will. Dr Johnson also sought and obtained acquaintance with him, and he now became the constant frequenter of two clubs composed of some of the most celebrated men of that day. He must at this early period have managed to acquire a prodigious amount of multifarious knowledge, for Johnson himself used to say: "Take up whatever topic you will, Burke is ready to meet you. If he were to go into a stable, and talk to the ostlers for a short time, they would venerate him as the wisest of human beings. No person of sense ever met him under a gateway to avoid a shower, who did not go away convinced that he was the first man in England."

A literary work on a new plan, first suggested in 1750, and by some attributed to the Dodsleys, and by others to Mr Burke, was for some time a considerable source of emolument to him. This was the Annual Register,' a publication which soon obtained considerable celebrity, and of which Burke had the superintendence for several years. He was at length called off from his literary labours by avocations of a far different kind. In 1761 a gentleman-afterwards well-known by the cognomen of Single-speech Hamilton'-having been appointed se

cretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, invited his friend Burke to accompany him thither. This offer he readily complied with, and although he appeared in no public station, yet he was rewarded with a pension of £300 per annum, which he soon after threw up on quarrelling with Hamilton. On his return to England he again betook himself to literary composition. A series of Essays written by him in a newspaper, which at one time obtained great celebrity, attracted the notice of the marquess of Rockingham, who, on coming into office, appointed Burke his private secretary. As it was now necessary he should have a seat in parliament, Lord Verney got him returned for Wendover in 1765. He was already provided with all the necessary talents for a speaker in the house, and was only deficient in the forms of business. He had acquired celebrity as a debater at The Robinhood' before he attempted to speak in the British senate; and vanquished an eloquent baker ere he began to cope with the great orators of the nation.

Holding a confidential place under the Rockingham administration, he of course supported all its measures. A former ministry, anxious to increase its influence by means of increased imposts, had conceived the idea of taxing America through the medium of a parliament in which she was not represented. Having attempted to carry this into effect by means of the famous Stamp act,' the Americans, alarmed at what they conceived to be a flagrant violation of every principle of the English constitution, made such a spirited resistance to the measure that it was abandoned, and the Rockingham party readily consented to the repeal. After a remarkably brief existence, the Rockingham party retired from office: on which occasion Burke drew up a sort of manifesto, entitled, A Short Account of a late Short Administration.' About this time he purchased a villa near Beaconsfield, for which he gave a sum exceeding, it is supposed, £20,000. How he acquired so large a sum does not appear. While one set of his biographers assert that the money in question was nominally a loan, but in reality a gift, from his munificent friend, Lord Rockingham, it is contended by others that a part only of the amount was advanced by his patron, a considerable portion of it having been received under the wills of his father and elder brother. His old friend Johnson frequently visited him at Beaconsfield; and one day, after wandering over the grounds for some time, exclaimed in an animated manner, "Non equidem invideo, miror magis!" Burke was hostile to the expulsion of Wilkes,-an act which the house of commons afterwards rescinded from its records. On the application of the Dissenters for relief, he took up their cause, and expressed his resentment in very animated terms against that misguided policy which permits all those not within the pale of the establishment to enjoy liberty less by right than by connivance. But perhaps the noblest part of his political conduct consisted in his steady and uniform advocacy of the rights of the colonists, and opposition to the American war, and his marked and declared hostility to the abettors of it. His speech against the Boston Port-bill was one of the noblest specimens of eloquence ever listened to in the British senate; and on the 19th of April, 1774, on a motion for the repeal of the tea duty, he discovered

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