DR. CROLY'S MEMOIR OF BUREE's POLITICAL LIFE. `rtiERE is in

every thing, to speak the language of' ontology, an " essential property" common to each individual of the same kind, and forming the characteristic which distinguishes that faintly from all other existing things. In mathematical subjects this is readily perceived ; or rather, when it has once been dis- covered, it is, front its simple nature, rendered fixed and palpable for ever,—as the essential property of circles neither admits of question nor presents a difficulty, let them vary how they will in magnitude, situation, or so forth. In sciences whose subjects are of a more complex kind, there is an equal certainty in discovered results, though there may be greater difficulty in learning to ap- prehend them. But in living bodies, obeying laws Or whose nature we are ignorant, and still more in the combinations originating with living men—as passions, manners, politics, and practical morals--the task of selecting that property which dis- tinguishes them is rendered one of exceeding difficulty. This partly arises from the numerous "secondary properties," " rela- tions," and " accidents," with which the essence is conuningled ; partly because the ever-changing aspects which the subjects assume prevent laws from being deduced, by which the observer of one age can immediately profit by the labours of another. When Nature, however, has given the germ of this faculty, and learning, observation, and reflection, have developed it, the otvner possesses a key that will unlock the secret of any subject that may be presented to him, and of deducing from a particular instance, even the fitll of an apple or the convulsions of a frog, an universal truth. And this quality is, perhaps, the distinguishing characteristic of the philosopher ; for although the poet must also possess it, he requires, in addition, a vivifying and creative faculty. This power of universality we speak of must not be confounded with another and much commoner quality that appears to resemble it, though it merely consists in presenting the essential character- istic of some particular thing. A mimic, for example, will seize the distinguishing point of an individual's demeanour so as to place hint before us, though the imitator may differ from the per- son imitated in features, complexion, stature, and every thing. A good lawyer seizes the points of a cese ; the skilful and experienced physician hits upon a patient's disea.se at once; the Purliamentary debater of a high class pounces upon the arguments which seem to settle the question, and, regard being had to the state of' parties and other temporary circumstances, perhaps really do settle it for the time. The quality we now speak of produces in these and many other pursuits clever, or "talented," or able men, who perform their allotted tasks, and perform them well. But, limited to a particular case, their works pass or perish with the occasion that produced them ; while the man who can extract from a singular thing an universal truth, will endure as long as the truth he discovers, and with a reputation proportioned to the hold which his subject possesses upon the bulk of mankind.

Among the lbw who have displayed this rare power, Bemis stands preeminent ; and his preeminence will appear more conspicuously if we consider the nature of his topics. .Most philosophers have chosen their subjects, and made them as comprehending and general as possible ; but, except the treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, with perhaps time Reflections on the French Revolution, and the greater speeches on the linpeachment of Hs sr [sus, Be Eli lea subjects were of the most temporary or common kind. So usual an ocem•- rence as a scarcity, or a popular discontent, or an address to a constituency, or the continually-recurring subjects of party war- fare, furnished him with his principal means of potn•ing forth uni- versal lessons of' political or economical wisdom. Such, indeed, was the penetrating and comprehensive diameter of his mind, that even in his correspondence with particular individuals he displayed this broad and general character ; and his letters to BARRY may be selected as containing examples of the prothundest criticism on art, and of the soundest advice tin. the ten Met of life.

This power of drawing universal truths fruit t particular instances, Was not, however, the only tputlity ()I' IlttnxE) 1 le pesse):set a

richness of imagination which enablel him to illustrate or adorn, and sometimes to overlay his subject, with a gorgeous profusion of imagery ; whilst it sometimes tempted him into wild exaggeration. His learning was most extensive, furnishing his native genius with a boundless supply of nouri,lenent. Not hut that men, in this age of short-cut -i to knowledge, might surpass him in the number of' subjects they prof as to have learned awl undertake to talk about,

but there was nothing of the seiolist in BURKE. lie studied the principles of the sciences, or the branches of knowledge he at- tempted, and was not contented till he had mastered them and

made thern his own. In judging of his industry, too, we must remember, that in his age those who would acquire a knowledge

of many subject, now popularized or readily accessible, were com- pelled to seek it in original authorities, often of the driest and most diffiniive kind. Such were the materials for his speech on Economical Itellani, and his various orations upon Indian affitirs ; the last of which are not more remarkable for the lofty eloquence and the political wisdom they contain, than fbr their historical knowledge and their philosophical views of the Asiatic character. The qualities of BURKE, which have given him this lofty rank as a critic and political philosopher, militated against his prac- tical success in his own day, and even against his power over Par- Bement or the country, till the French Revolution inlisted him on the side of the majority. Admired and respected such a man must always be; but there were many who seemed better Party_ leaders and political guides. His imagery and his elaboration

wearied his auditors ; nay, the very profendity with which he treated a subject produced a similar effect upon men whose object was not the discovery of truth, but victory over an antagonist, and the possession of his place : and his scruples and hiliso:tlitiscee to personal dignity rendered him ill adapted to lead men tin ough the dirty ways that party travels. It must also be admitted,

his contemporaries, that the character of the orator's mind some- times made him run counter to the instinctive deductions of com- mon sense • thr, in fixing his attention on the universet truth eon. tallied in the subjects, he sometimes overlooked the specia/ truth which was to decide the specia/ rose before him. But a notion of BURKE cannot be conveyed by crilitniaslt

EerEcTs oerres uiaiN e.yrit this.

People not well grounded in the principles of public inoralitv find a set of

•

maxims in office ready made for them, which they assume as lititurally and in- evitalilv as any of the insignia or instruments or the situation. A certain tone of the 'solid and practical is immediately acquired. Evei.y former profession of public-spirit is to be considered as a debauch of youth, or at least as a vision. am scheme of unattainable perfection. The v'ery idea of consistency is ex- plinled. The convenience of the business of the day is to furnish the principle for &ling it. Then the whole Ministerial cant V-) quickly got hy licart. The prevalettee fietiou is to be lamented; all opp.ndtion is to he ili.,;artled as the etre..•t of envy raid disappointed ambition. * * * Flat ter ,ng I bennelves that their power is become necessary to the support Of all iv i and eevern- ment,,every thing which tends to the support of that power is taliethised, and becomes a part of the public interest. Crowing every day more thrmed to affairs, and Ind ter knit in their limbs, when the ,,ceasion (now their only rule) recuirr, it, they la ci.me capaide of sacrificitt„o those very persons to whom they ?tad s,:vriiieed their ori:rinal friends. -It is now only in the ordinary course it hosiaess to alter an-opi- nion or to betray a connexion. Frequently one it or men and adopting another, they grow into a total indiderei.c.., to llama feeling, as they had betore to moral obligation, until, at lentrili, no tine ori4inal impression re- mains on their minds; every principle is obliterated, every soak:lent effaced. In the tnean time, that power which all Iliese cliam;I: liiiined at courinco.i.liicei: nusins still as tottering and uncertain as eVCI% * * III a slate of' continual uneasiness and ferment, softened cud,: by the mi,,er, I de con sola t ion a giving now and then preternients to those for whom they no value, they are unhappy in their situation, yet Mid it impoEsible

to 11. ; until at length, soured tu temper, anti disvpointed by the very

attainniott of their ends, in some angry, in some 1,:tuOity, in sotac negligent moment, they it allr the displeasure (it II use upon is how they have rendered their very being dependent. Tito], rcri,r1,11t tellIpOlY1 I ri ; thCV are cast off With scorn, emptied of all natural character, of all intrinsic worib, of all echtial dignity, and derived of every consolation of friendship. Having rendered Id! retreat to old principles ridiculous, and to old regards impractica- ble ; not being able to counterfeit pleamre, or to dischar .ut ; it is more than a chance, that in It delirium of the last of thvir distempered power,. they make an insane political testament, by isTich thcy throw all their remainin, weight and consequence into the sate of tlo•ir declared enemies and avow:d authors of their destruction. Thus they tinidi their course. Ilad it been possible that the whole, or even a great part or ttio,,, ott their for- tunes 'amid have appeared to them in their Ii ml departure from the right, it is certain that they would have rejected every temptillion with horror.

A speech in the earlier period of the American War furnishes this

RATION.11.E 01"rflE LOVE OP rinuttiom IN :SI.AVI:.01V7i1:1:S.

In Virgittia, and the Carolinas they have a v,Ist multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom to them is not only an et, Jo.i uncut, but a kiml of rank anti privilege. Not seeing there that freedom, as in countries where it is a continon blessim:, awl it broad and general no the

air, may lie united with much abject toil, with misery, with all the ex-

terior or servitude, Liberty looks among them like something more noble and liberal. I (10 not mean to commend the superior morality or this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it ; lint I cannot slter the nature of man. The fact Is so ; and the people of the Southern l:olonie, are much more strongly and with a higher and wore stith1)01.11 spirit ate:the:I to liberty, than those to the Not ill ward. Such were :di the ;slit:wilt vomit tonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors ; such in our da:. Poll.,; and iiiteli will he Jill masters of slaves who are not shit tiu ii•elves, Iii such it rople the haughtiness of domination combines with the :Tait of freedom, fortifies it and renders it hit-11161de.

These remarks from the Letters on the ltegicide Peace have • also an immediate interest for a people plunging into a " war of calculnt ions," whose end, under existing circumstances, no one can very readily predict.

Tmmmc PItILOSOPlir %VAR.

Ile then turns with line rebuke upon immmlicidiuil tilt,, mail talked frivolously of " trying %roe for a year or two, and then voting lin. peace. * * AS if war were a matter of' experiment I As it' you coitll itiae it up or lay it down as an idle frolic I As if the dire goddess it la,• over it, with her mur- derous spear in her band and her gorgois at her Idea.", were a copiette to toe flirted wiih I Nt'e ought, with ITVel'ellek., In Priff.g.tril that tremendous Divi- nity, which loves courage, but connnauds counsel. Ira,. 'wry,. Icarus where it found a nation." Ile then loftily and wisely deprecates the attempts of the feebler adherents of the Ministry to make the war popular. In. Fri ire to emtunercial advan- tages. " Never can a vehement and sustaitied spirit of fortitude lie kindled in a pecIple by a fear of reticulation. It hums within, that can keep the mind erect uoder the gusts of adversity. Even where men are are, to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safely for time gratificatioa %%suing, as ,,omet tales they of their avarice ; the passion which animates them to that sort of conflict, like all the other short-sighted passions, must see its objects distinct and at hand. Speculative plunder; contingent spoil; future, long-adwurned, contingent booty; pillage, which must conch a late posterity, and which possibly may not reach posterity at all ; thos.e, for any length of tune, will not support a merce- uarv Iran The people ace .m the right. 'The calculation of prqfit all such t;:s false. On hal:int:mg the account of such wars, ten thousand hogs- heads of sugar [read opium now] are purchased at ten thousand times their price. Tbe blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of nom It is vell idled fbr our family, for our friends, for our God, for our coun- try, for our kind. The rest is vanity, the rest is crime." The impeachment of HasTmos, with the long train of debates which preceded it in the House of Commons, is commonly consi- dered a thilure ; nod a failure it was so fin' us regarded the con- viction of the accused. But intellectual exertions are not to be judged of by the stune standard as a military battle or a party brawl. The cli'erts of genius and of eloquence which were dis- played in Parliament, from Benoovsues attack upon CLIVE to the close of the trial of I I ASTINGs, prevented any recurrence of the crimes denounced, and have protected the natives of India from individual tvraney or peculation. And when we consider the inevitable tendency of remote government, where much must be trusted to authority, to degenerate into a means for swelling the fortunes of individuals, and find that all other countries similarly circum- stanccd—as Rome and Venice—have permitted these atrocities long after they were exposed to public odium, we ought not to esti- mate very lightly the services which were rendered to humanity by Dame and his coadjutor:3.

As a display' oi' oratorical genius, the speeches to Nvhich Indian abirs l'iSO is unexampled in modern times; and for profundity comprehension, permanence, and truth, Beal:1:S are preeminent over ail. Nl'e shall, however, take but one extract, and that to

combat a notion vyltieh many still seem to entertain in consequence of his opposition to the French Revolution, that Beak': was a friend to the principles of Toryism. The occasion for this decla- matory exposition of the rights of man, was an argument that Easgoses' government wns at the worst only the common mode of rule le hallo, where arbitrarv power was the custom.

RIGUTS OF MAN.

"LicitIve arli r,;cy power 31y Lords, the East India Company have not

arbilralv powcr to give him, the King has not athitriay power to give hint,

vour I.aNe Ool, nor the Commons, nor the whole Legislature. e Law 1.0 ;.,1 1.;;,,,r to give, because arbitrary power is a thing cvhich neither :;!Ty L 1,1 nor any man can give. 1So man Can lawfbfly govern

himself :,•.coidiu:r Ids own 0 ill. much less can one person be governed by the will tm. r. We are all l■orn in subjection, all born equally, high and low, govit ma- ;c govinied. in subjection to one great, immutable, pre-

existent pi i•,r ..■ all our d es, paramount to ull our ideas, antecedent 1U OUT Vt. eN, L'I.t•■•; 1.•■• 1%11161 ¶1 are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the ut■.•.:c. T..:s great law i:ecs arise from OfIr CORVCIAIMIS or COM. IlaCt$ ; on II,. eon ary, it oivcs to our conventious and contracts all the force

and saucthai t::ey C. F vvv good gift is of God. Alt power is of Uod. And EC. ho la „a the 1)00 .r, and from v.dioni alone it ori;inates, will

never scif, r of it to he pezletiz'ed 1111011 any less soli.; liquidation than tie. itc,l. If ali dominion of man ovcr maii. is the effect of the V, Lee it is bound by the eternal laws of Him who gave it. I l 1 a it 1\ ere mad enough to make an express compact ;hat should relecse the magistrate Ihroi his linty, and declare their lives, libel-lice. and pro- perties dela ndenr. not itpull rules or lac, s, lint upon his mere capricious will, the Curt': It would lie void. The acceptor of it has not his authority increased, but hi- eiThe dolibled.

it this arbitrary power is not to be had by conquest. Nor can

atly SLOIt i Live it by ; for no man can succeed to fraud, rapine,

and viii, tee, nib!. r covenant, or submissioa, for men cannot

covenam I hen.sei v, out of II:, r;,lits and their ditties. Those \du) ;.;ive and (lose who cehitrary are alike criminal. There is no man but is hound h. re.h.t it to the l t or 1;;, power, wherever it shall slum i:s face in the wiwhi. It ;s ;1iii ice to L ,•■• it, when it can be rationally shaken off. No- thing lea ch,,ohne impotence e...0 justify men in not resisting it to tile utmost of their ability. Ii iv and a: hit vary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a

magistrate. and 1 u ill to property. Name me rower, and 1 will name pro-

tection. It is 1,:,,,phcoly it rellgion. it is wickemiess in polities. to that Shy man have ;oh:at:try laui cr. In eiery patent of office the duty is in- cluded. We u.ay Lite ; iir chains if we will, hut We Shall. iv OM& in know ourselvv,. t:.ight that man is born to be governed by taw, and he who

suktitittos Will in place of it is an enemy to God :" * • " The moment a soverei,m v. moves the :ilia of security from his subjects, and declares that he h. •..ery am, they 101 Mug—when he declares that no oontract he

makes w:!:. I Cs .: II or olOit Iii bind 111111, he declares war upon them. Ile is 001 ;1,. they nee ao longer iabjeels. Nu man, then fore, has a rivid to ccb;11..ry r::•.Ner." This iv s..p:c, too, luny arford an instance of what we formerly noted tis pea:cited defect iu Beaten—that the special truth of the specie] ettse vats sometimes overlooked. A ruler, especially eir- cumstancc.! 1 f tgrises Wes, may be under the same ie reasitg 01

exoreisiegLI trary power as subjects of oh.'', ii it ; and the true time:nue Li C 1 eatuded hint was, whether this necessity existed, or whether he I t,,I emTe.ileil it, or abused it ffir private purposes.

The VOIUMVS Or Dr. Onus which have given occasion to this notice or his subject, were Originally published in Jibwkwocars

Ilk:of:ode Professine to give IligtaCe Political Memoirs they deal che ily, butt nut w Itolly, with his public career. Of this they

furnish It tolerahie, but not a very distinct. or complete aciount ; because they lit he his ditferent productions their text-book, and follow his leading speeches and publications, rather than his life. A "mice, with verY eopiiaN extractS of the more mama :lent and striking passages in Bt as ifs writings, done with sufficient skill and readableness to secure admission into /llue/oreed, cannot well be other than a work of inter(' t. especially when varied with sketches of his private litia end of Ilia contemporaries. This, however, is all that can be said in its praise. The book is very far below its theme. Dr. CsoLy throughout displays the (it tilts of the parson and the Partisan. Accustomed to submission from the pulpit, he exhibits a like dogmatism in print ; obliged to occupy the hour in his ser- mons, he has a diffuse and wordy habit of spreading ideas through many sentences, when one or two would suffice; writing in a Tory magazine, he rails at the French Revolution in the strain of' the Life-and-fortune men, who had the excuse of being terrified by its nearness; and the whole work being apparently planned to da- mage the "Reform Bill" and "Democracy," the most solemn warnings stand in ludicrous contrast with the sad reality of its failure. Writing too in detached parts, the Reverend Doctor has not always been sufficiently careful to avoid contradicting himself. However, he is always readable, somethnes pungent, and his book furnishes a short-cut to the party life and works of EDMUND BURKE.